Just back from my meeting with P@H and feeling very pleased. I met the Chief Executive, the Chief Livestock Manager and the Chief Store Manager and talked about the various concerns I’d been emailed about.
I have to say that all three managers were wonderful. They obviously do care about pets, (they all own pets) and more importantly, they’re very committed to improving the way that P@H treat their animals. They’re eager to work directly with rescues and welcome constructive criticism as they believe they need to constantly improve. We talked about so much that it’s all buzzing about in my head and I’ll probably forget a couple of points but the main details are as follows.
They’ve agreed to contact a specific animal welfare organisation to build a relationship with them. (Haven’t told the animal welfare organisation in question yet because I couldn’t reach them on the phone, so I can’t name names but I’ll get them to post in the forum when things are underway)
They’re going to seriously look at separating guinea’s and rabbits (and I’m confident that they’ll do it, the chief exec in particular seemed very keen to do it)
They’re refitting various stores at the moment so separation of animal by sex and species is at the top of the agenda.
They’re going to ask all the store managers to develop good relationships with local rescues and offer help and support (i.e. send food etc – apparently they already do this with cats and dogs but they’ve never got around to rabbits)
They’ll look into having a couple of ‘store events’ each year where local rescues will be invited into the store to publicise themselves and do a bit of fundraising.
They’re currently running a pilot scheme where people can ‘adopt’ an animal from a rescue rather than buy one from P@H. People will be asked for a donation which is put into a foundation trust (run independently) which will help to fund local rescues. This is happening in 12 stores at the moment but they’re hoping to make it nationwide.
They’re dealing with the ‘staff turnover’ problem and the problem of bad advice being handed out at the point of sale. They’re confident that it will be less of a problem as training increases etc. (They’re also paying the staff more money in an attempt to get them to stay – so far its working)
There is some thing that we can all do. If you’re in a store and you see something that shouldn’t be happening, don’t just report it to a member of staff. Ask to speak directly to the manager. The managers have to report it to Head Office where a log of all complaints is kept and it’s looked at by the senior managers. If you can, send a follow up letter to the Head Office itself. The chief executive tells me that no one should be getting ‘form letters’ in reply. There aren’t supposed to be any ‘form letters’. You can get the address of the Head Office from the Pets At Home website
All in all I’m very confident that a lot of good is going to come out of this meeting. I have no doubt as to the sincerity of the three senior managers I met and I’m sure they’ll do all they can to address the problems I’ve put to them.
If anyone has any further issues, I’m happy for them to contact me. Work pressures mean that I might not be able to deal with it myself, but I’ll pass it on to someone who can.
Let’s hope that this is the start of something really good and we can all say we did our bit to improve animal welfare!
I have to say that all three managers were wonderful. They obviously do care about pets, (they all own pets) and more importantly, they’re very committed to improving the way that P@H treat their animals. They’re eager to work directly with rescues and welcome constructive criticism as they believe they need to constantly improve. We talked about so much that it’s all buzzing about in my head and I’ll probably forget a couple of points but the main details are as follows.
They’ve agreed to contact a specific animal welfare organisation to build a relationship with them. (Haven’t told the animal welfare organisation in question yet because I couldn’t reach them on the phone, so I can’t name names but I’ll get them to post in the forum when things are underway)
They’re going to seriously look at separating guinea’s and rabbits (and I’m confident that they’ll do it, the chief exec in particular seemed very keen to do it)
They’re refitting various stores at the moment so separation of animal by sex and species is at the top of the agenda.
They’re going to ask all the store managers to develop good relationships with local rescues and offer help and support (i.e. send food etc – apparently they already do this with cats and dogs but they’ve never got around to rabbits)
They’ll look into having a couple of ‘store events’ each year where local rescues will be invited into the store to publicise themselves and do a bit of fundraising.
They’re currently running a pilot scheme where people can ‘adopt’ an animal from a rescue rather than buy one from P@H. People will be asked for a donation which is put into a foundation trust (run independently) which will help to fund local rescues. This is happening in 12 stores at the moment but they’re hoping to make it nationwide.
They’re dealing with the ‘staff turnover’ problem and the problem of bad advice being handed out at the point of sale. They’re confident that it will be less of a problem as training increases etc. (They’re also paying the staff more money in an attempt to get them to stay – so far its working)
There is some thing that we can all do. If you’re in a store and you see something that shouldn’t be happening, don’t just report it to a member of staff. Ask to speak directly to the manager. The managers have to report it to Head Office where a log of all complaints is kept and it’s looked at by the senior managers. If you can, send a follow up letter to the Head Office itself. The chief executive tells me that no one should be getting ‘form letters’ in reply. There aren’t supposed to be any ‘form letters’. You can get the address of the Head Office from the Pets At Home website
All in all I’m very confident that a lot of good is going to come out of this meeting. I have no doubt as to the sincerity of the three senior managers I met and I’m sure they’ll do all they can to address the problems I’ve put to them.
If anyone has any further issues, I’m happy for them to contact me. Work pressures mean that I might not be able to deal with it myself, but I’ll pass it on to someone who can.
Let’s hope that this is the start of something really good and we can all say we did our bit to improve animal welfare!