I'm Moving.....

I've moved my blog to www.PetCareBev.com.

The People Behind the Paw: Terri, Legal

Terri is one of my best buddies! She makes sure I don't put my foot in my mouth, and she has a dry humor that always makes me laugh. One of the best parts about our move south to Mason will be that I'll be able to have lunch with Terri more often. I'm looking forward to that.

1. What pets share your life?
Scout the Wonder Dog is a wonderful American Mixed Breed we rescued from a shelter.

2. What is your pet’s most unusual habit?
Every day is an adventure! Scout has a thing for socks...she puts them in her mouth and lines her 'spaces' with them. She doesn't eat them, she just carries them around. I have determined that it's not my dryer....

3. What’s your favorite story about pets in the office?
When I first came to Pet Care, I was unaware that Euka patrolled the floors. I signed in at the front desk and was greeted by the most beautiful brown eyes and wettest nose I had ever expected to see! From that moment I was hooked.

4. What is your favorite part of working at Pet Care?
My favorite part of working at Pet Care is the people....hands down. The ownership, accountability and passion for why we do what we do is inspiring.

Net Reco For This Week

Reco = Recommendation

Someone forwarded this site to me. It's a very slick site--a cooporative effort between Lance Armstrong's Livestrong Foundation and Nike, that tells the stories (through video) of people who have survived cancer: It's About You. Fabulous site!

What captured my interest is a video of Lance Mackey (a cancer survivor) who has won the Iditarod three years in a row--most recently on March 18, 2009. His dogs appear in the video with him, and it's very obvious that he loves them, A LOT. This is worth the 4 minutes it takes to watch.

Take Your Dog To Work Day, Iams/Eukanuba-Style!

For as long as I’ve worked for Iams/Eukanuba, we’ve been able to bring our dogs into the office with us when we feel like it. Bailey and I are very lucky because we are usually able to work from home—but this past Friday was TAKE YOUR DOG TO WORK DAY, so we just had to spend the day at Iams/Eukanuba headquarters to enjoy the celebration!

I took so many photos on Friday! It took me all weekend to sift through and narrow them down to a few representational shots. Also over the weekend I happened to read a post from Jaime, over at Thoughts Fur Paws that gave me some inspiration. I hope you like this photo essay of Take Your Dog to Work Day, Iams/Eukanuba-style!

This was the premier of Bailey’s new stroller! OK, go ahead and laugh at me for buying my dog a stroller. In my defense, my old girl has arthritis which causes her discomfort if she has to walk too far; her cataracts are interfering with her ability to see; her hearing is starting to fail; and she’s just not getting out of the way of people’s feet fast enough anymore. So I felt a new stroller was a good investment if I want to continue to share this kind of event with my pooch. And I think she likes it better this way too.

The first thing we did on Friday was to take a tour of the building to check out the four-footed fur buddies celebrating the day! (Normally we practice a little common sense—we don’t all bring our dogs at the same time—but on Friday, there were more dogs than usual!).

Allison and Lil’ Roo (Shih-tzu, “a bouncing 3-year-old baby boy!” Allison’s words, not mine!)

Roo says, “Hello Bailey!”

Annie and Champ (Yellow Labrador Retriever, 2-years old).

“Uh, no, I’m not doing any work today unless there’s a biscuit involved.”

Bunker, a 6.5 year old Golden Retriever.

Chelsea (Miniature Schnauzer, 5 years old) takes a meeting with mom, Chris (facing camera), Connie (left) and Valerie (right).

Meanwhile, back on Chris’ desk, Gladys the floor cat (she lives on the 4th floor of the building) is tremendously annoyed that today is about dogs. She refuses to participate and plans on spending the day in her box lid.

Tony (a Rat Terrier, who was 5 years old this month), is totally psyched that this is TAKE YOUR DOG TO WORK DAY, and cannot be persuaded to take a nap before the pawty (that’s his office bed, underneath the desk).

“That’s OK Tony,” mom Deanna says. “You can nap this afternoon.”

Atlas (2 years old, Doberman), who is a regular at the office, waits patiently for mom Christine to return from the copy machine.

In the next cube over Flash (Goldendoodle, 6.5 years old) is wishing mom would let him out so he could play with Atlas (more about that later).

Flash and Alison

Julie is babysitting little Diva while Jason (Diva’s dad) attends a meeting.

Jason and Diva (10 weeks old, Afghan puppy). Jason breeds Afghans.

What a cute future champion (and I don’t mean Jason!).

Diva has her own special space in Jason’s office.

(Humans, left to right) Kim, Mario, Malisa and Pam talk about the Hope, the Poodle mix that Kim just adopted from Luv4k9s, and the shelter cats that live with Mario.

This is Jack (Affenpinscher, 9-years old), who shares his life with Malisa.

Bailey and Cricket (also an oldster, she’s a 14.5-years old Yorkiepoo adopted from SICSA) say hello.

Cricket and mom Pam (check out Pam’s interview).

Mere and Beaglegeuse (pronounced Beagle-juice), an 11-year old Beagle.

Mitch and Kuddles (10-year old Maltese)

That’s Carmella peeking round the post!

Carmella (7 month old puppy Mixed Breed) lives with Rebecca.

Bailey and I looked in on one meeting that seemed to be going to the dogs! (Flash, Atlas, and Champ figured since it was TAKE YOUR DOG TO WORK DAY, why not have a ruff-and-tumble meeting?)




Finally, cooler heads had to intervene or no work would have gotten done. Its rest time for playful pooches!





Scott and Bailey (11-year old Chocolate Labrador with a great name!) on their way to the pawty in the courtyard!

Teddi and Rachel from the Humane Society of Greater Dayton brought puppies (!) that were looking for forever homes.

Adoption discussion?

Our friends from SICSA (Travis, Sea, and Michael) had Kroger gift cards available. This is a great program—you get the Kroger gift card from SICSA, load it with money at Kroger, and then each time you use it Kroger gives 4% of your purchase back to SICSA.

Mick, Minnie, and Elizabeth were on hand from the Montgomery County Animal Resource Center--there's a wonderful video of Mick on YouTube (see below).

Richard, Melody, and Deborah from the Miami Valley Pet Therapy Association also joined our celebration. They do incredible work in our local hospitals, libraries, schools and medical centers, with children, seniors, veterans, and others who need a furry shoulder to lean on.

We also were visited by Jessalyn and Jennifer who represented 4 Paws for Ability . This group is devoted to raising and training service dogs for children and adults who have developmental disabilities. This includes autism-assistance dogs, seizure response dogs, mobility-assistance dogs, hearing-ear dogs, in-home companions, and street companion dogs.




Bailey was having a great time at the pawty!!

At the end of our celebration, we took a group photo.

Bailey was exhausted! Good thing she could snooze the rest of the day away in her new stroller!

What a fabulous TAKE YOUR DOG TO WORK DAY!!

The People Behind the Paw: Deb, Iams Dog Brand Manager

Happy Take Your Dog to Work Day! We celebrated at the home office of Iams/Eukanuba, and I am working through the hundreds of photos I took to put together a photo essay for Monday.

For today, I would like to introduce you to Deb, who has worked in Iams Marketing for 5 years.

1. What pets share your life?
Topaz (AKA Topie-dope, AKA Topie Stank) is a 6 year old Neapolitan Mastiff.

2. What is your pet’s most endearing habit?
Topaz thinks she is a human! She will walk up to the couch, scoot backwards and sitdown. She also loves all of her toys and treats them like her babies - she never wants to leave them.

3. What’s your favorite story about pets in the office?
The dogs on my floor know that I have treats in my office and often wander in to say hello and get a tasty reward!

4. How does your job at Pet Care make a difference?
I truly believe that I am making a difference by educating consumers on the benefits of Iams premium nutrition. We are a brand that dedicates ourselves to the enhancing the lives of pets all around the world.

Net Recos for this Week

Recos = Recommendations

One site to recommend this week.

Some of you may know about the Iditarod, a sled-dog race that happens in February and March, and which can be a very polarizing and controversial subject among people who care about animals. That's NOT what were talking about here.

There is a Boy Scout troop in Nome, Alaska--Troop 298. Each year, they sponsor something called the Idita-Walk. This is a physical fitness event that encourages people to walk for 30 minutes a day for 35 days between February 1 and March 31. There is an entry fee of $10, which goes to help Boy Scout programs. Once you register on the site, you can log your walking time and at the end of the event you get a neat lapel pin.

How cool is that?

In answer to an email I sent to them, the troop tells me that registrations for the 2010 event will begin in December-January, with the walk commencing around February 1, 2010.

I think I may have to participate!

Eukanuba Off Leash on my iPhone!

I’m not sure I’ve mentioned this here: I LOVE MY iPHONE!!!!!

My cell phone died when I was in NYC back in early May, and I let the sales guy talk me into an iPhone. Within an hour of getting that sweet piece of Apple ingenuity into my hands, I was totally addicted.

If you’ve seen the ads and commercials, you’ll know that the iPhone has “apps” which are actually applications created by Apple and other companies that allow you to do neat things on your iPhone. I’ve downloaded some apps that are “pet-oriented.” One of them is called “Off Leash” and is an app that uses GPS to tell you where the nearest dog park is. Bailey and I don’t go to dog parks so much anymore, but I liked the idea of being able to find the nearest dog park.

I also downloaded it because I knew that the app had been up for sale, and that Eukanuba had just purchased it.



Monday, the new “Eukanuba-ized” version of “Off Leash” because available for download. (Download it here)

IMPROVEMENTS:

• I can now search by zip code, in addition to GPS. So when I’m talking to my buddy up in Madison, Wisconsin I can use my “Off Leash” app to help him find his closest dog park.
• When I search by zip code, it remembers my previous searches.
• I now have the option of emailing the dog park location to a friend.
• I can now add the dog park’s address to my list of contacts with one click.
• In addition to being able to look at a Google map for the route (“Show Route”) I would need to take to get to the dog park (this existed in the old version), I can now also click to see the dog park pin-pointed on a Google Map (“Show On Map”).
• This remains a free app—Eukanuba will be spending the money to make sure it gets updated so you won’t have to.
• I don’t know what it was like with the old version, but we (Eukanuba) plan on refreshing the list of dog parks every 2 to 3 weeks.
• Eukanuba TV: OK, some folks are gonna be turned off by Eukanuba overdose, but the puppy training series is really good (and useful!), and I never get tired of watching the beautiful dogs on the “Champions & Heroes” or “Eukanuba Legacy” (especially the commercial by Margery Good and Ch. Charmin) videos.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT:

• There are some folks out there who probably won’t like the Eukanuba “skin” that the app now has. OK, so “Off Leash” has been branded—chances are that if we had not purchased the app some other company would have (and branded it) or the app would have simply died never to have been updated again (remember, it was for sale).
• When you click “Show Route” or “Show on Map” it takes you out of the app and into Google Maps. You have to re-open the “Off Leash” app, and re-load your dog park search if you need further details about the park or you want to look at another park. This is a bug I’ve noticed on other iPhone apps, and I heard is something that Apple (or their app suppliers) is working to correct.
• The old, out-dated version of “Off Leash” is still on my iPhone—sitting along side of the new version. Seems to me, the new version should have totally replaced the old version. I guess I can manually delete the old version.......
• I wish I could move through the app the same way I move through other stuff on my iPhone—with a sweep of my finger. Instead, I have to hit the paw print at the bottom which returns me to the starting point, not the page I was looking at previously.

All things considered, I think I’m gonna like this new app.

More News on the Tornado that hit our Plant

I just got this email:

"We are pleased to report that our Aurora employees have made remarkable progress in a very short amount of time in getting the entire site back in business. Power was restored yesterday late morning and Aurora resumed shipments in the afternoon and re-started production yesterday evening – an incredible effort less than 24 hours after the tornado impact."

WOO HOO! WAY TO GO AURORA!!!

The People Behind the Paw: Pam, Professional Relations, Academic Programs

A little housekeeping first: In the past couple of months I've been posting "4 Questions" on Fridays. Part of that has included interviews with people that I work with at P&G Pet Care. Moving forward, I'm going to title those interviews "The People Behind the Paw," because that's what they're about. I've gone back and tweaked the blog post titles on the three previous interview posts.

1. What pets share your life?
Cricket is my "little girl in a fur coat." She was adopted from SICSA 14 years ago and is a beautiful Yorkie-Poo (body of Poo, mouth of Yorkie). She was estimated to be approximately 16 weeks old when we adopted her. Actually, Cricket (then known as Julie) was not our first choice. SICSA had some Chihuahua's waiting to be adopted and we were going to take of them. The director called me and asked that I "just come down and look at Julie." I said and I, but still wanted to wait. When Julie tried to jump on my lap (she was only about 6 pounds), that was all it took! We went and picked Julie up the next day. Julie very quickly became Cricket and has been the love of my life ever since then.

2. What is your pet’s most unusual habit?
Cricket has learned to crawl, so she is now going through her second childhood and crawls everywhere around the house. We believe that she does it to scratch her belly! We have to be very careful because she will rub her belly raw right after she is groomed. We keep a t-shirt on her for a week or so after her grooming just so she doesn't rub her belly raw.

3. What’s your favorite story about pets in the office?
One of the funniest stories was when Cricket was a puppy and I would bring her in the office with me. For some reason, she did not take to real tall men and every time she would see my boss, she would start barking. I felt like it was a reflection on me, but I really had a wonderful boss!

4. What is your favorite Pet Care story of all time?
Oh my gosh. There would be so many pet stories I could not cover them all on this site. Everyone would get tired of reading. I do know that having a pet has made a difference in how I relate to my job. I love seeing the beautiful coat and knowing that the nutrition inside is wonderful. The nice part as well is cleaning up the yard after her. I do know that I enjoy every minute of having Cricket around. One lasting story in my mind was the last time she went to NC with us when my Dad was suffering with cancer -- Cricket would get right up beside him as if she was taking care of Dad. She knew that "Grandpa" was not feeling good and she wanted to comfort him. How could you not love a dog for being so sensitive!

A Tornado Hit our Plant in Nebraska!

OMIGOSH! I was buried in a meeting all day yesterday and totally missed this!

At around 9:00 p.m. Central Time, on Wednesday evening, our plant in Aurora, Nebraska sustained minor damage when a tornado touched down. The damage was to the outside of the warehouse. From the photos I've looked at, I think it was mostly parts of the roof and one wall.

All of our employees and their families are safe and accounted for--no damage to their homes. But some folks there lost everything! I HATE tornadoes! I can remember times when I was a kid and we had to "seek shelter" in the basement. In fact (I'm gonna get gross here), I can remember one time I was so scared I threw up in the laundry sink!

The house we live in now doesn't have a basement. Somehow the big closet in the center of the house (which is supposed to be our safest place during a tornado) does not seem quite adequate. I wonder how much it would cost to build a bomb shelter in my backyard.....

It will take them a couple of days to get power restored and the plant up and running. Of course, we have other plants in other parts of the U.S., so I doubt there will be any problems meeting demand for our food.

My heart goes out to the people who lost their homes!

If you want to read more about it, I found these news sources on the Internet:

KHAS-TV Channel 5 News (video of our plant)

KETV Channel 7 News (video of the tornado) The video on this site makes me feel sick--the "storm chaser" actually gets waaaaaaaaaay too close to that tornado.

I HATE TORNADOES!!!!