Poooper of the Month is Back!

Some of our long time clients may remember in the early days of Poooh Busters we used to do a fun little thing called “Poooper of the Month” (POM). Back then I asked our current clients to submit a picture and a little bio about their dog or dogs. I would then feature their dog(s) on our website and in our printed, monthly newsletter that we hand delivered to our weekly clients each month. It was a fun way of sharing our love for dogs and for our clients who supported us.

Well we sat down and talked about it as a team and decided we wanted to bring back this tradition, but we're going to change it up just a little. Now that we have a Facebook page we have a much better way of communicating and sharing with not only our clients but everyone who is a member of our page.

We want to once again take the time to acknowledge our awesome fan base and their dogs by highlighting them for all to see! Poooh Busters is proud to bring back an old and long-time tradition of featuring a dog or family of dogs each and every month.

Here’s all you need to do to enter your dog(s):

1. You do not need to be an existing client of Poooh Busters, only a fan of our page. Go here, “Like” our page and you’re eligible.
2. Pick your dog! One you would like featured. It can be your current dog, a beloved dog from your past, a dog you know that is special to you and you'd like them to be acknowledged.
3. Send a picture and a bio to POM@pooohbusters.com . Tell us why they are so special, why you love them, what crazy habits or quirks they have and how they came to be in your family. It doesn't have to include all this info, just something fun and whatever you’d like everyone to know about this special dog in your life.

Once we have gone over all the entries for the current month we’ll feature the winner on our Facebook page and I will post a new story on the Poooh Busters Blog highlighting the winner. In addition to featuring the winning dog, Poooh Busters will give a $25 cash donation to the pet charity of the winner's choice. Just our own way of giving back.

At the end of 2013, we will have a year-end contest where all our fans, their families and friends will vote for their most favourite POM for 2013. The one with the highest votes will get a really great grand prize! We're still deciding what this will be but we'll keep you posted.

We are extremely excited to begin again this old tradition we started some six years ago. Join in the fun help us to feature some really great dogs for everyone to see!

One Christmas Wish For Your Pet.

As the administrator for the Poooh Busters Facebook page and general online presence for PooohBusters I get to interact with so many different people from many different backgrounds. The one thing we all have in common is our love for animals.

On December 10^th, I posted a question to our Facebook fans asking, “If you could give your pet anything in the world for Christmas, what would you give them?”

The responses received were overwhelming and touching to say the very least. It really put some perspective on how much we take for granted when it comes to the health and well being of our beloved pets.

I've captured a screen shot of the conversation so you can see exactly what I mean.

Generally I post a question or a topic for conversation, I then comment on my own post in order to get the replies started. I always do this immediately upon creating the post. In this case you can see two of our fans posted a response even before I had a chance to submit my own. The first response almost brought tears to my eyes. Especially after my own superficial response about giving my pets a nice home in the Caribbean; a tongue-in-cheek wish that was really for my own benefit and not for the benefit of my pets.

After reading all the responses, I truly felt fortunate that I currently have happy, healthy, well adjusted pets with no pending critical illness or extreme behaviour issues.

We always know in the back of our minds that there are so many people in the world who are less fortunate than we are. People with no families, no food, shelter or even any hope for their future.

Now I know that I am also very fortunate to have the lovely pets that I do. But most of all in a world full of animal cruelty, neglect and abuse, I’m thankful and so very lucky to have such great people following the Poooh Busters page.

Knowing that there are so many folks out there who truly love and care for their pets. People whose only wish is to have their pets by there side for much longer than the short time we are given.

ARF's 2012 Walk n' Wag

Several times each year Poooh Busters participates or donates to a few of the many worthwhile causes in Calgary. Next Sunday, September 23rd we'll be doing it again and this one is one of my favourites.

The Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF) will be holding its Third Annual Walk n' Wag. We are proud to say that we have been there each and every year helping out at this fun event. This is one of the few fund raisers where we have been there from the start and thoroughly enjoy every second of it.

ARF started the Annual Walk n' Wag to help them reach there goal of raising $1,000,000 by 2014, enough money to open there own facility. It's their Pad for Paws campaign. To date they have raised an incredible $400,000!

We hope this year's Walk n Wag gets them even closer. You can help too! Just go to there Walk n' Wag website and register to become a participant. Not only will you be helping ARF reach their goal, you'll have a ton of fun doing it. Everyone brings their dogs and walks the short route. Every year it just get better and more fun!

Poooh Busters will be there handing out poooh bags at the beginning and we'll be there at the end of the walk to pick up the used ones.

So come on out, have fun and enjoy spending time with your dog and some cool friends. What a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

ARF's 2012 Walk n' Wag

Sunday, September 23, 2012

River Park, Calgary - 14 A Street and 50 Avenue SW

Registration opens at 10:30 am and the walk will be followed by an awesome BBQFor further info and or to answer any questions you may have contact ARF directly at:(403)-243-1910 or padforpaws@arf.ab.ca

Lest Ye Judge

Well it's been about a year since my last blog. I took a break from being Big Nate and attended to some things that were long since calling for my attention.

Now I'm back in full swing working with the Poooh Busters crew again to promote responsible pet guardianship, pet care and the general well being of our most beloved creatures.

My first blog upon returning is being sparked by a couple of pictures I posted on our Facebook page. I wanted to show the world what a great thing we were doing cleaning up a new client's winter long poop build up. We get many, many calls from folks who don't get a chance to make it out to the yard or the dog run to scoop the poop throughout our crazy, Calgary winters. In the spring, the snow melts and reveals a rather overwhelming mess.

Most folks realize they let it get out of hand and call us to come help. We are always glad to do so. After all, without these situations we certainly wouldn't have the client base we do!

After posting the before and after pics of a an initial cleaning we did for a dog run, many of our fans expressed a passionate response to what they saw. The original intent of the posting was to show any potential clients who come to visit our page what we can do! We can take a poooh-filled dog run and make it look beautiful again. We just wanted to show a transformation and certainly did not want to put our client's situation on display for public chastisation (is that even a word?).

Now our team sees this kind of thing all the time and to us this was not even close to the worst of what we have seen. Trust me, this particular job took next to no time to do and generated 5 or 6 bags of waste. We go to some places where the massive amounts of poooh has been stepped in because there simply is not any visible ground to walk on! We walk out of some yards 2 or 3 hours later with 20 bags of waste.

To us, this job and all the others we do every Spring was just business as usual (no pun intended). We posted pictures of this particular job because it had a dramatic before and after effect.

So all I ask is please do not judge, we certainly don't. We know that scooping the poop is not something we think about on a regular basis. It's out of sight and out of mind. Simply put, people have so much going on in their lives that it is easy to let it go. Then one day you go out and BAM! The sheer amount of the poop build-up catches you off guard. Hey even the Poooh Busters team can be guilty of not staying on top of their own dog run that is shared by four very large pooches.

Mrs. Big Nate and I rely heavily on the team to come clean our yard every Monday too. If it weren't for them, our yard would have tons of little bombs everywhere from a winter of neglect.

Let he who has never sinned cast the first stone!