Thank
you!
We
appreciate your business.
Customers
like you make doing business a real pleasure. Soon we will
be starting our 14th year of helping families and pets in
the St. Louis area with their vacation, work and medical
needs. After a tough year personally and professionally
I find myself approaching this Christmas holiday season
differently. Perhaps you have had your own struggles.
I want this December to be different...to have a focus outside
myself and trying to check off my kid's wish lists. I am
calling this the Petfully Yours
December
of Giving
It will have a three-part approach: 1) Giving to you 2)
Giving to your sitters and 3) Giving to the rescue community.
1)
Giving to you: Any reservations during the month of December
will be at a 5% discount to you and your family. This will
be for the entire reservation as long as it starts between
December 1st and December 31st. Many of you have already
received confirmed invoices for you trip but I will revise
them and send out the discounted updates. Use it for something
special!
2)
Giving to your sitters: I do have such wonderful pet sitters...they
are out there every day taking care of your pets whether
it is nasty sweaty hot or so cold and windy your eyelashes
freeze up.
I remember my first full Christmas of pet sitting in 1997.
I was 22 years old then, a new business owner and facing
my first Christmas without going to Gramma's house to be
with family. I was driving up Timberlake Manor at 6am to
walk a Chocolate lab when I saw a picture window in front
of a house with a beautiful lit-up Christmas tree. I could
barely make out the faces but I was most struck by the child
picking up gifts and bouncing up and down. I cried for the
next three hours! Working the holidays can be tough and
a schedule challenge with our own families to say the least.
Many
of you are wonderful at showing your appreciation for your
pet sitters with "something extra" which, as a pet sitter
myself, it deeply appreciated. We have for years charged
holiday fees of 50% of the days' total to make sure your
sitter is rewarded for working the holidays. I am going
to do away with those this holiday season. As pet sitting
is a personal service tipping is standard but I want you
to give from your appreciation directly to your sitter.
Please leave it separately for your sitter for tax purposes.
You will also see the adjustment of holiday charges on your
updated invoice.
3) Giving to the rescue community: Most of you know rescue
is my passion. All of my 4-legged critters are rescued in
one way or another: one owner surrender, two adopted from
Open Door
Animal Sanctuary and one fell out of a wheel well on
Hwy 100 at 6 weeks old. They each have their story but now
have their forever home. All of the rescue pets in the St.
Louis area also have their own story and are still looking.
We want to honor the work that the Open
Door Animal Sanctuary does and the big hearts that help
out there by matching the discount we give to you and donating
it on behalf of the clients and pets of Petfully Yours.
Their mission statement:
"Open
Door Animal Sanctuary is a no-kill shelter dedicated to
preserving the life and health of homeless cats and dogs,
providing shelter, food & veterinary care while fostering
their social skills and encouraging their adoption into
loving homes."
I
also want to make a great effort to help them on their "Wish
List". Please click the link to be directed to their
list. If you are able to donate anything on the list (and
I hope you can!) please contact me at 314-368-3690 or by
email at jane@4leggedkids.com
with when the items would be available for pick up and what
items you have. Monetary donations would of course be appreciated.
I can deliver a check for you or you can use PayPal through
their web site. Please let me know if you prefer to do that.
I would like to have any donations to them the weekend
of December 12th because I will be having surgery on December
14th that will have me out for 6-8 weeks (you try having
an 11 pound baby! haha)
Again,
your trust and patronage keeps us going. Please pass our
name on to friends, neighbors and family!
Jane
Budnick
4-Legged Kids, Inc
