Enhanced Our Ride!

Well well.. We've finally found time to do up a new post. Hoped everyone had a great time during Chinese New Year!

As announced last month, PawMart's pet taxi is now enhanced with pet safety harnesses! The new Pet Vehicle Safety Harness comes with a fully padded vest, breathable mesh liner inside for comfort and heavy duty steel components (tested to 1300kg). The best of all is that it fits all vehicles! Simply clip it on the seat belts and you are all set to go~

Why are Vehicle Harnesses important?

I'm sure some pet owners who drives would have experienced this. Imagine ...

Scenario 1 

You are driving along the highway with your dog at the back seat. An inconsiderate driver in front of you brakes suddenly, causing you to jam your brakes too. At this moment, you might have forgotten that your pet is seated at the back seat. The sudden braking sends him/her flying off the back seat, landing in an awkward position. To make things worse now, you can't stop at a highway to adjust your pet back to a safe position. What comes after is that you would be so distracted by your pet's whining that it hinders your good judgement. A simple trip out with your pet has now become more dangerous than ever.

Scenario 2

You are driving with your pet at the front passenger seat. I know that some of us like to let them sit at the feet compartment area, hoping that they will stay still throughout the ride. Most often then not, they would try their best to climb up to your lap and cuddle with you, if they are small enough. Now you have a dog on your lap, trying to give you kisses every now and then. The driver gets distracted again, endangering himself and other motorists.

With the pet vehicle harness, your pets will no longer be wandering around in the vehicle while you are driving. The steel clips integrates with the seat belt tension device to provide a range of motion when traveling but locks during sudden stops.  At least now, you have less worries about them when there is a need for sudden brakes.

Milo the Westie was our first customer to try out the new harness! Milo loves watching cars and likes to look out the windows while traveling on our pet taxi trips. This time round, he was snuggled nicely into the harness and sat still throughout the trip. He still gets to move around the back seat, but this time round, we know he is much more safer.

At PawMart, your pet's safety is our utmost concern. If you own a vehicle and likes this product, you can buy it from our web store at www.pawmart.com.sg  Comes in four different sizes. Get it now for a safe journey on the road with your pets!

Till next time.

The Team @ PawMart

2013, The Year In Review...

As we embark into 2014, let us review our year, in numbers..........

170 Days of Pet Sitting/ Boarding

Pet Sitting / Boarding would be our most popular services among all others. With a total record of 170 incident free days, you can be rest assured that your pets are in our good hands. By filling a simple form, we would have all critical information recorded for emergency contacts, preferred vet clinics and food allergies that your pet have. Any further instructions that you might have for us would be given at the face to face meet up prior to the pet sitting period. You certainly can enjoy your holidays without worries when you leave your pets to us!

100 Pet Taxi Trips

A simple pet taxi trip may turn disastrous with a careless driver. At PawMart, we don't take safety for granted. Each trip is driven with care when transporting your pets. We provide carriers for the protection of your pets, just in case they get restless and starts jumping around in the backseat. We also have a water proof canvas in place to prevent them from falling below the seats. 

Why should you use our pet taxi service instead of a normal cab? 

1. Unlike most cabs, we do not require your pets to be in a carrier during the car ride. This reduces stress from travelling for your pets.
2. You no longer need to wait for cabs by the road with your pets, which at most times, unsuccessful when there are few cabbies who are willing to transport animals.
3. You don't need to listen to the driver grumble about your pet's fur drifting in the cab.
4. We understand that pets tend to salivate, thus we have a water proof canvas ready to catch all that drool!
5. Most importantly, we are animal lovers ourselves!

In 2014, we will be upgrading our seat belts to pet friendly harnesses. This will surely enhance your pet's safety while travelling in our vehicle. Stay tuned for more updates on our blog!

42  Food Donation Trips to Shelters

We had a fulfilling year, doing our part to support donation drives for both Madam Wong Animal Shelter and Oasis 2nd Chance Animal Shelter. All food donations are transported down to the shelters free of charge. With a good process system in place, rest assured that your donations will reach the shelters. For more information, do read our blog post on the donation process at http://pawmart.blogspot.sg/2013/08/the-donation-process.html










Food supplies for the animal shelters largely depends on kind donations from the public. So do start the year with a donation to a good cause! If you do not have a vehicle and have difficulties to bring the donations down yourselves, please do not let that feeling stop you from donating. PawMart is always here to assist with the shipping! Simply order them from our website under the Donations tab, and we will process your order and shipping from there. Hassle free!

36 Blog Posts

Since moving our events page to this blog spot in May 2013, we have written 36 posts in total. Thank you for taking time off to read about us, and forgive us for any bad grammar that you may have spotted in our posts. Some may say blogging is no longer relevant or trendy for businesses, but we still believe that we can convey our messages to our customers through our writings. Do read our blog when you are feeling bored on a train ride, waiting for a next appointment, or even before going to bed!

5  Outdoor Events

Even though we are an online business, we believe that we should step out of the Internet and reach out to pet owners in person. To achieve this intent, we participate and sponsor outdoor events every year. This year, we were involved in a total of 5 outdoor events:

1. Movie Mob Pet Fiesta by Honda/ APE
2. SPCA World Animal Day
3. Causes For Animals Howl-o-ween Dog Contest
4. Cat-In-A-Box Flea Market @ Lock+Store
5. Christmas Market by Animal Lovers League and Cat Welfare Society 

Even though the world is much digitalized now, we must never lose the human touch! That is why we still do deliveries ourselves as much as possible, so that we can meet up with customers and their pets in person. A small chit chat goes a long way to building a great friendship!

1 New Addition to the Household

As all of you would have guessed it, it's Madam Bear! She's been staying with us coming to more than three months now. I think she had earned her place as a PR . Our two dogs are also very respectful towards her, always respecting her boundaries and never once did they try to snatch her food away.

Although she's still being boarded at our place, we already treat her like one of our own. Our everyday lives now revolves around her. Waking up an hour earlier everyday to prepare her food in the morning, changing the diapers, cleaning and bandaging her skin sores and to exercise her limbs. After a day's work, we come home for another round of the same activities we did in the morning. She's receiving acupuncture treatments for her front legs currently. Taking care of her made us understand the meaning of resilience and perseverance. We would like to thank all the donors and sponsors who came forward to help her, and she wouldn't have made it this far without all of you. Cheers! Visit her Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mdm-Bear/371578456293499




That roughly sums up 2013 for us. May all of us have a prosperous 2014 ahead!

A Million Thanks for all your support,
The Team @ PawMart

A Magical Christmas

On December 3rd, we received a strange e-mail of plea from a lady at Allegan County, Wish Bone Pet Rescue. This was what she wrote.

After reading it, we were rather intrigued by this strange request from half a globe away, and we clicked on the blog link given in the mail. Our hearts melted the moment we saw Sandy.

We went on to read her blog and came to know that this cutie had lost her favorite pink squeaky yarn ball! It was always on her mouth on every picture we saw. A volunteer threw it away accidentally it seemed. She also went on a hunger strike due to the sad incident. Michele, the lady who contacted us, was quite worried about Sandy's depressed state. A lot of her enquiries to local pet stores on the yarn balls went unanswered. Somehow by fate or some mysterious works of God, Michele managed to find the exact same ball on our web store and contacted us. 

This was the first time we received such orders. We were all ready to get the yarn balls packed and sent over, but there was just a small problem. The shipping cost, to our horror, was a whooping $50. It just doesn't make sense that shipping costs were more expensive than the shipped items. That got us pondering on how to get these precious balls over, as we did not want a customer to pay for such absurd shipping costs.

Time was precious as we did not want Sandy's hunger strike to go on for too long. Just as we made the decision to bear all the costs ourselves, some sort of divine intervention happened again. One of Kelly's friends was going to the United States for a holiday! After explaining the whole story to her, she offered to bring them over and then ship them to Michigan from New York. She was a real life saver!

All the time while the yarn balls were en route to the States, we were praying that they will not be lost during the shipping. Finally, on December 18th, we received a reply from Michele that it has reached her! Mission Accomplished! There was still one last step to go, for the balls to arrive at Wishbone Pet Rescue.

23rd December

Sandy finally received her early Christmas gifts on December 23rd. She was so excited that she couldn't even wait for the packaging to be removed. The best part was, instead of just one replacement ball, we had sent over five yarn balls to her! Five times the happiness for her~

None of this would have been possible if not for a prompt response to a plea for help, a trusting heart and a helpful friend. Thank you!

Just what came over us to do this (sending gifts to a shelter dog halfway around the globe), we will never know. Nevertheless, it was a great way to end the year!

This year's Christmas was truly a magical one. 

Wishing all a Merry Christmas,

From The Team @ PawMart

Read more about Sandy at www.sandyfromallegancounty.blogspot.com

R.I.P Wugui (2003 - 2013)

Today's the first time I've experienced the loss of a pet.

Our turtle, Wugui (turtle in chinese)  just passed away this morning.

Wugui was a rescued turtle from my previous workplace. She was living in a pond enclosure that we built from scratch. During an inspection by the authorities, we were ordered to tear the enclosure down and to get rid of the pool before we post out to a new place.

Fishes were adopted by some of my colleagues, but nobody wanted Wugui. The reason? She was a blind turtle. Never had eyes since the day we got her. She was still able to look for her pellet food just by her sense of smell, but was always at the mercy of the fishes that were fighting for food with her. As she may have quite a long life span, many of my colleagues did not want to commit to taking care of her. All of them were deciding whether to abandon her at the nearest freshwater reserve, or just turn a blind eye to what's happening and act blur, leaving her to her own fate.

This wasn't right, I thought. How was she going to survive in the water reserve in her condition? Gazing at her face, as if under some sort of spell, I volunteered to take her home. Water tanks and pumps were gathered hurriedly, and a simple home for her was set up, with much rejection from my Mum.

I had a revelation that day, that people of the older generation, especially those from the Baby Boomers era, had little or no interest in other life forms other than humans. Guessed they toiled their days to make sure their children could have comfortable lives. Their human babies were all they ever cared about. Under fire from the intense scrutiny by my Mum, Wugui's tank was moved from the living room to the kitchen. Finally after one last fight with Mum, I moved her into my own room. I never knew why I was so persistent on keeping her. Mum was always start by saying," Let her go free, let her be in her correct environment, its cruel to keep her in a tank." and stuff. When the fight gets worse, comments would escalate into,"Its dirty! Its smelly! Get rid of it before I kick you out of the house!"

As a young adult then, I was fearless and was unfazed by her threats. Of course, no Mothers would do that to their kid over a pet turtle. It did leave a dent in our relationship though. Quarrels often revolved around Wugui. This went on for years and when I got married and moved to a new home, I brought Wugui along with me.

She would always surprise my friends and relatives when they visit. They would start asking about her story on how she got blind, how she ended up at my place and why do I chose to keep a handicapped reptile pet like her. A few of my relatives had the same reaction like my Mum, which pisses me off much. They had everything to comment, from the water color, to some sort of imaginary smell (which didn't have any), to even electrical bills that they weren't even paying for me.

Anyway, Wugui lived well for the next 6 years without much illness, until she passed away today. She wasn't eating much since last week. A strange growth over her nose area has caused her sense of smell to deteriorate. She couldn't find her food I guessed. One week prior to today, she was just laying at the bottom of the tank and hibernating. I even tried hand feeding her, but there was no reaction. This morning, she was floating at the top, which was unusual. I still heard splashes before leaving home for work today. That might had been her struggling for some precious last breaths, before departing this Earth.

My only regret was that I did not have a bigger pond for her to live in. She might have been happier, grew even bigger and healthier, and stayed with us longer. She was about 10 years old, maybe even older, when she left us today.

To Wugui:

With all things imperfect about you, you were still the most exquisite pet to me. I would miss your water splashes much. Rest well now, and thank you for your time on Earth with us.

Travis

Our New Rewards System

From 2014, PawMart will be adopting a new rewards system.

Introduction

For the past 5 years, we have been giving out cash rebates to our loyal customers. Buying of pet supplies has since become a mundane task to pet owners, and just having cash rebates ain't exciting anymore. 

With that in mind, we have decided to revamp our Rewards System, to give you and your pets what money can't buy.

We present to you now.......

What's PawCubes?

PawCubes is a new initiative by PawMart, an exciting new feature which is added into our rewards system.

Whats the Difference?

Let us do a comparison on the two cards. 

The Old Rewards System

Total value of completed card is only $15. 

For every $40 you spend, you would be entitled one reward stamp. 

Card expires in 6 months.

The old card was focused on giving cash rebates on top of our discounted prices, making pet supplies and accessories affordable for you.

The New Rewards System

Total value of a completed card would be $30 worth of gifts.

For every $50 spent, you will be entitled to one reward stamp.

Card expires in 1 year.

Hamster PawCube - $10 worth of merchandises
Kitten PawCube - $15 worth of merchandises
Doggie PawCube - $30 worth of merchandises

*The rewards system is not applicable with any other ongoing promotions


Our new Rewards System will now focus on giving you more merchandises to pamper your pets, on top of our discounted prices. By doing this, we create value for you as your expenditure stays the same, but you would be getting more out of it. Prices of pet products have been going up every year, but we would continue to do our best to keep prices as affordable as possible for pet owners, in anyway we can think of.

No doubt that it makes a difference to your monthly expenditure with cash rebates, but deep down inside, we all know what our pets really wants. It would be to have more toys, more food, and more love from you! With PawCubes, it will most often come with items you or your pets may need, and hopefully we can surprise you with every redemption!

We sincerely hope that you will enjoy this exciting new feature with us. Cheers!


The Team 
PawMart

SPCA World Animal Day 2013

We had a blast at SPCA World Animal Day today. It was Day 2 of the three day event and the crowd there was huge~! Just going to be sharing some photos of the event.

Almost all corners of the event area was filled with activities. There were adoption drives, animal welfare awareness campaigns and fund raisings by the animal shelters and welfare groups. Lots of nice T-shirts with interesting prints to buy from the booths. I have got to get myself one tomorrow! Its just one of the ways of giving support to them.

Goodie bags are the main highlights of any events, so we took a picture of the contents for our readers. All laid out on a table, we see picture books, folders, stickers, pens and sample foods from FirstMate! How generous!

 

Crowds, crowds and more crowds. Everyone were busy taking photos but the best thing was that all of them had a smile on their faces. There's also a artist drawing live portraits for people. Talk about capturing the moment with your pencils.

Aah Hah! Even Garfield was there performing a live dance on stage. He really hyped up the crowd with his moves!

Winner of "One Minute of Fame" Talent Show

There are also lots of other mascots around for photo taking, free of charge. So do bring your kids and friends there for some fun and games tomorrow, Sunday 15/9/13. It would be the last day of the event.

Let us celebrate World Animal day, and most importantly, the message of responsible pet ownership that the event wishes to bring across to its visitors.

Visit SPCA World Animal Day at United Square, Novena.

Upcoming Pet Event: SPCA World Animal Day

Does anyone feel that Singapore is really lacking much in pets' events? Sulk no more! The next one that's coming up would be SPCA World Animal Day! 

To celebrate World Animal Day, SPCA will be organizing pet talent competitions, pet care talks and plenty of activities for everyone! The best of all? Its going to be 3 days long! It starts on Friday 13th September to Sunday 15th September. It starts from 11 am to 7.30 pm daily.

This indoor event is organised in partnership with AVA and will be held at United Square at Novena. The event will also feature nine other local animal welfare groups - ACRES, Cat Welfare Society, House Rabbit Society of Singapore, Action for Singapore Dogs, Animal Lovers League, Save Our Street Dogs, Humane Society (Singapore), Causes for Animals Singapore and Noah's Ark CARES. 

Phew, that's a long list of welfare groups. Do visit the event to support your favorite groups! If you have heard of them and wish to meet them in person, this will be the perfect chance. I believe a simple, "Thank You for your work" will certainly be much of a morale booster for these welfare groups. Adoption Drives will also be held, so if you are ready to welcome a new family member, do consider adopting. One adopted means one free space at the shelters for the next abandoned or stray. Save 2 lives! 

There will also be pet grooming and obedience demonstrations, so don't miss the chance to get some tips and tricks.

PawMart has also invited FirstMate Pet Foods to be the sponsors for the 1 Minute of Fame Dog Talent Show on Saturday 14th September and Sunday 15th September. Lots of prizes to be won! Do register your pet if he/she has a special talent to show! Just a sneak peek at the prizes...

That's just a small portion of it. Participate to win it! There will also be goodie bags with FirstMate Pet Food samples. Of course, the PawMart Team will be there. Do come by and say hello if you bump into us! 

See you there!

The Team

http://pawmart.com.sg

For more information on the event, please go to :http://www.spca.org.sg/news_details.asp?id=700

The Donation Process

Ever wondered where and how your donations are processed and eventually arrive at the shelter? Let us do a short run through on it. We just did another delivery to the shelters today and we took some photos. Lets take a look.....

Step 1

Donating through the PawMart website

If its your first time donating, do go to our website at http://pawmart.com.sg. Go to Donations tab and you will see the different shelters that we are serving. All items for Donations are already greatly discounted for the shelters if you compare to the original retail prices. Choose one shelter of your liking and you will see their preferred items for donations. Simply check out and choose the correct delivery option to your preferred shelter. Provide us with the necessary fields that needs to be filled up. If you wished to remain anonymous, please indicate on the "Message to Retailer" to let us know.

Step 2

Transfer payment via Internet Banking or ATM transfer

We seek your understanding that the payment has to be done first before we proceed, so as not to have bogus donors trying to disrupt the donation operations. After we receive payment, we will keep the donor updated on the status of the donations. 

Donations will only be delivered by PawMart. We most often try not to send to the donor's home and let the donor deliver down to the shelters themselves. This saves everyone time, and we can ensure that the donations reaches the right shelter.

Step 3

Loading of Donations

With the payments, we will procure the donated merchandises. Donations are sent down on a weekly basis. Normally we will consolidate till there's enough to fill up our little 小白 (our little white KIA), or as and when the shelter requires. Please pardon us that we do not have a van. We had a hell of an experience with our last Opel Combo, but that's another story for another time.
And yes, that's Travis doing the hard work, with his weekday "Uncle" look outfit. Black framed spectacles, uncombed hair, polo tee and berms. *Yikes*

Step 4

Delivery Commences

So onwards we move, driving down this road countless times with the 3 x pooh bears staring at us and nodding their heads. For those who've never visited them before, Madam Wong Shelter and Oasis 2nd Chance Animal Shelter are located along Pasir Ris Farmway 2, inside Ericsson Pet Farm.

Step 5

Arrival of Donations

Upon reaching there, we will unload and hand over the donated items to the shelter care- taker over there. For Oasis 2nd Chance Animal Shelter, we would always pass to Romi (right). For Madam Wong Shelter, it would be Madam Wong herself receiving.

Romi will then move them to a kitchen where all donations are placed at. 

Step 6

Proper Hand/ Take Over of Donations

Invoices are then shown and signed by Romi, indicating a handover of donations. Each donor will have their own invoice. If any donors wished to see the signed invoices, we can always scan a copy or mail it to you. Donations are counted again to ensure nothing is left out. Photographs of the donated items will also be taken. 

From here, we will then let the Shelter in-charge know of the handing over via SMS or phone call. The shelter in-charge would then thank the donor on the shelter's behalf, either by posting it on their Facebook Page or via SMS. Most times it will be on a nice photo with a thank you note, like the one above.

This was what we delivered just four days ago. It was a total of 60 lbs of dry food and a carton of canned food. There was some left over packs and it piled up quite high with the resupply.

When we arrived today, we were surprised to see that the supplies were already dwindling. This was really no joking matter. The shelter dogs really need more.

With the donations that arrived today, about 195 lbs of dry food and 2 cartons of canned food, we hope that it could last them just a bit longer this time. I would estimate that it would take a week before it runs out again.











We hope that by doing up this post, the public would be less skeptical when donating to animal shelters or welfare groups. PawMart has a proper procedure as illustrated where we ensure the donations reaches the right people. So do not feel insecure if you wish to donate through us. We are just normal people running a pet business, at the same time trying to provide a portal for donors to donate conveniently.

Our friends always asked us why we would spend our time and efforts helping strays and abandoned pets at shelters. We often can't answer them in words. Its really a mix of everything that stirs our hearts.

It is when we hear the stories of the founders who sacrificed much to start the shelters.
It is the admiration for people who volunteers and donates consistently.
It is when we see young volunteers spending their weekends walking the shelter dogs in the evening sun.
It is the regrets we had that we spent our youth not doing something as meaningful.

So we would always tell our friends, " Do it, and you will know why" .

Do it today.


Signing off,
The Team
http://pawmart.com.sg

Peanut's 5th Birthday!

Congratulations to Peanut, our huge little Chihuahua! It has been a good five years on Earth for him~

To celebrate this occasion, we ordered a nice little cake for him from The Barkery Singapore. Packaging was lovely and it also came with a candle stick.

This is the second time our dogs had cakes from The Barkery. Santi brought hers along the last time she came to stay and all of them loved it. We had bought pet pastries from other shops before but our two doggies were just too picky.



To our delight, the wordings we requested were done beautifully. Peanut stared at the cake intently while we were preparing to cut it. Can't wait! He kept licking his lips while waiting.

The cake we ordered was a standard round birthday cake, 5 inches and 450 grams. Serves up to 4 dogs. Total damage, $18. Seeing him overjoyed - Priceless. ( Though he normally shows a poker face)


Don't be fooled by the cream or fancy food coloring. The birthday cake is actually made of delicious meat loaves with all natural ingredients. It contains human grade beef, carrots, celery and pumpkin, topped with mashed potatoes.

All three of them were ready to feast on the tasty looking cake. It actually looked so good that I was tempted to just take a bite too~

Clenching my teeth and with a strong determination, I left the cakes to the dogs and they had a good time munching away. Must have been heavenly tasting for them when everything was finished in a matter of seconds. I WANT SOME....... wondering if The Barkery made human cakes?








"Thank you, The Barkery, for making such delectable cakes for dogs. Next time buy me a BIGGER one!"

So says Peanut, the birthday boy!

Good stuff, so must intro to you guys.
You can find The Barkery Singapore at http://sgbarkery.com

Hungry for Cakes @ 0230hrs
Travis
www.pawmart.com.sg