Tuesday 14 July 2009

Pets At Home, Vango and the Guardian

Roman has seemed much better again today and the limp is pretty much gone, apart from the first half mile of a walk anyway! I am going to keep him on short walks for a few more days and see how things go. I was speaking with Sam from the Storrar Practice on Facebook earlier and she has spoken to her contact at Royal Canin and passed my phone number on so I will hopefully receive a call some time soon to discuss Roman’s food for when we are travelling.

I need to call the vets in the morning to check that they got my poster and, while I am at it, Sam recommended that I ask about a dog physiotherapist and she also mentioned hydrotherapy for him. I will make sure I ask about both when I call. I think the hydrotherapy would be good for him, not only for his muscles but also to get him used to being in water and learning how to swim!

I rang the head office at Pets At Home earlier today and was pleased to get a positive response. I spoke with someone on reception there and she seemed to think that they would be prepared to help with both publicity and sponsorship. I was given an email address of someone there who deals specifically with it but, for some reason, their firewall banned my email address and deemed it as spam!

I think it may have been due to there being a few links within the email so I emailed the support department for the company that provides the technology that has banned me – I am yet to hear back off them though. I said I would call back in the morning and they will put me through to Amy to discuss it. It would be great if they would help me – there are over 200 stores across the UK so if each store were to put a poster up for me then I would potentially be getting a lot of publicity out of it.

I was also pleased to hear that there is a possibility that I may be able to get some sponsorship from them too. The majority of companies I have been ringing have flatly refused and stated that they have already picked their charities for the year. It’s unfortunate that companies act in this way; it would make more sense to me if they sectioned their budget so that they had designated charities for the year but there was also a pot for fundraising activities connected to their industry.

I also spoke to someone at Vango – for those who do not know they are a leading manufacturer of camping gear. I spoke with someone on reception there about the possibility of receiving some form of sponsorship – ideally I would like them to pledge equipment for the journey, such as a tent, sleeping bag, etc. I was given an email address as the person I would need to speak to was about to leave for Germany for a convention but I felt that the response was more positive than with other companies. The lady who answered the phone had obviously tried to speak to the relevant people who must have then advised for me to send an email to them.

I received an email back from the editor at the Guardian. Unfortunately, he advised that they would not be interested in running a feature on me. It’s a shame really as it would have been great to have gotten publicity in such a reputable newspaper. I will start again with more nationals tomorrow! Hopefully, there will be at least one that is prepared to cover what I am doing.

I also need to speak with Jennie from the Rottweiler Welfare Association to find out what is going on with Just Giving. I have heard nothing for at least a couple of weeks now. I have been regularly checking on Just Giving but there is no sign of them yet so it is probably best for me to call them and find out where they are up to. I am keen to get this sorted as soon as possible though as I am starting to get a pretty good following in the dog community.

Tomorrow will be all about exercise away from all that. I will be up nice and early in the morning and will be taking Roman out for about 4 miles. Nathan finishes work early so we are going to go for a jog around lunchtime – we did about 3 and a half miles tonight. The Sunday league side I played for last season has a friendly tomorrow night and I have been asked to go down so I will playing in that. Depending on how Roman is afterwards I may take him out again but I am going to see how things go before making a decision on that.

1 comment:

  1. Hi matt i may be able to help you get in the nationals i work with them regulalrly and used to work in them myself. Drop me a text on 07811 787305 with your no in the morning and we can have a chat. si

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