R and R Pet Services
  • Home
  • About
  • Shop
  • Pet Hotel
  • Events
  • Contact
  • Blog - News and reviews
  • Kids Club
  • Adoption Pets
  • Bunny Blue's Blog

News, reviews, help and advice

Product Review - Beaphar calming collar

6/13/2018

1 Comment

 
This is the first part of a 6 week review on the Beaphar calming collar for dogs. I have been wanting to try out some calming products for dogs for a while now as my dog Ella is an excessive barker and gets very stressed about any change in the house. As you can imagine our pet hotel has a lot of coming and going.
I decided to start with the calming collar for a few reasons:
  1. It's a great price point - The collars recommended retail price is just £7.99, so it's not going to brake the bank even if you don't get the results your looking for.
  2. It's a completely natural product - a natural product is generally more gentle
  3. Long coverage - This collar is effective for up to 6 weeks, the active ingredients being released over 4-5 weeks.
Below is a video on starting with the collar but you can read the product information, so here it all is directly from the packet:
Beaphar calming collar for dogs effectively reduces problem behaviour arising from stressful situations in dogs of all breeds, sizes and ages.
Using safe and natural ingredients that are slowly realsed over a period of 4-5 weeks it leaves the dog feeling calm, settled and relaxed, reducing potentially destructive problem behaviour. When dogs are more secure in their environment they are more relaxed thus making them better house companions. keeping dogs stress free will help to prevent excessive barking, chewing, inappropriate urination and can be essential in dogs that suffer separation anxiety.
Contains Valerian and lavender which are often used in human healthcare to manage stress and anxiety and have been proven to help reduce excessive barking, chewing, scent marking and other undesirable behaviours. This collar is long acting so is perfect for reducing anxiety during the introduction of new additions to the household, frequent travel or the vet/kennel stays and for use during the party season when there may be fireworks or lots of guests in the home.Once fitted, Valerian will be realsed immediately and the dog will begin to relax within approximately one hour.

Directions for use, as it appears on the box:
Do not open the sachet until you are ready to use the collar.
Fasten the collar ensuring a comfortable fit so that two fingers can be inserted between the collar and neck. If fitted to a growing dog remember to loosen the collar regularly. Cut off any excess collar and dispose of with the household rubbish.
For the collar to stay effective it is important it remains next to the skin and does not get covered by any other collar the dog may be wearing.
If the collar gets wet, it will continue to be effective once it has dried.
If you want to wash your your dog with shampoo, it is best to remove the collar and replace when the dog is dry.
Do not use on damaged or broken skin.

Week 2 update

So we've been using the calming collar for 2 weeks now. Two or three nights a week my mum takes the dogs with her to stay at my nans house. During the first week she noted a noticeable improvement in her behaviour regarding her barking.
Now don't get me wrong she does still bark but now it's for an identifiable reason.
This product has been really tested as we have had a lot of changes at home at the moment, with my brothers dog who also has two pups staying with us. Ella really doesn't like change and seems terrified of the puppies.
She also received a bite to the nose over a ball which left her feeling very sorry for herself!
We pushed it even further when we entered a community dog show for the first time.
We took all 3 dogs and entered Ella into best veteran and best trick. No luck in the veteran class she spent the whole time making her stress wine noise and a fair bit of barking. There were also 24 of us in the group! But later on in the best trick class there was only 4 of us and I was pretty sure we weren't going to get anything the other dogs were all really great, one was 14 and the other 2 were 7 and 8 so there were no young dogs. Ella did a great job balancing on her back feet holding a treat on her nose! It took a really long time for the judge to choose and we even had to do a second trick, luckily Ella can jump on command!

Week 6 and beyond

So over all I did see some improvements to her overall behavior but i didn't get as strong results as I know other people have had. Now it may be that its down to the individual dogs or the particular behavior that you're trying to manage. For us with Ella it has always been the barking and wining. After we stopped using the collar we did see an increase in her undesirable behavior so we we decide to use the collar again. Moving forward, we will continue to try out other products and see what works best for us and Ella. I'm very glad we used the collar and even though I didn't get exactly the results I wanted, we must remember that these are aids and not cures. For such a reasonable price it was well worth it!
Picture

To my utter amazement she got FIRST! I was so surprised I nearly cried, like I'd just got best in show at Crufts! Goodness me, it wasn't too hot but me and mum did catch the sun as we were out from 11am-3pm.
My Yorkie Mim got second in prettiest bitch and a second in best hair cut. She was very well behaved and even kept her bow in all the time she was in the ring!
All in all we have been really pushing this product and whilst Ella wasn't perfectly behaved, she definitely barked a lot, she did much better then I could have hoped for.
Once we got back all us, myself and mum included fell asleep on the sofa!



1 Comment

Drusillas Park Visit

6/11/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
So I was looking for some where not too far away to take my nephew for his birthday. He is only just a year old and my first 2 choices of Bocketts farm and the sealife center were already picked by other family members. Having not had any little ones in family for a while I puzzled to find something that we might all enjoy for the day.
Drusillas park in East Sussex seemed to be a good choice and was only £35 for two adults when you booked online (children under 2 go for free).
Drusillas has several animal exhibits and walk through attractions as well as kids rides and play areas. I was also pleased to see open picnic areas with plenty of seating and lots of bins, including recycling bins!
I know that recycling bins might not seem important on a day out but anyone who has ever spoken to me will know that I do get my knickers in twist if I can put something in the correct bin and I have been know to carry empty packets and cans in bag until I get home.
There was plenty of parking and no que to get in but as soon as your through the gate your straight in the exhibit and as we went on a Saturday it was very busy with lots and lots of children and almost as many pushchairs. Now having just got through the gate we wanted to get our barrings and decide where to go but that wasn't really possible as everyone else seemed to think the same thing but no one was really going any where. I wasn't even able to look at any of the exhibits on the way in as I was busy trying to make sure I didn't run over the children who were standing in the way with the push chair.
It's important to remember that this is not a big park and it was easily manageable to get around, even if you have little legs. I do think it was good value for money and it was great to be able to buy online before hand, however there were some points I need to raise:
  • Less is more? Due to the size of the park and how much was in it the day felt very cluttered and the space between the exhibits and rides didn't really allow for viewing if there was more than yourselves.
  • Navigation Disorientation! The park was not easy to follow and we often found ourselves at the exit of exhibits without knowing how to get to the begining.
  • Push Off Pushchairs- As I said there were lots of pushchairs which of course have occupants. However if you wanted to go through the walk through exhibits, such as the rainbow lorikeets or lemur land, you were not allowed to bring your push chair. Whilst an area to leave your pushchair was available the only way you could enjoy the walk through was carry your child through. This is a real shame as it limited the time we could spend before my nephew wanted to get down (he can't walk yet) and to be honest I struggled to hold him and stand there in the heat. Now maybe I'm just particularly weak but I didn't see any viable reason not to allow pushchairs.
  • Teletubbie land?! Now we come to my single biggest disappointment of the day. Before we went, I had of course looked at the list of exhibits on the parks website so when we walked into a small open exhibit designed to mimic the teletubbies I was supprised to see 2 little rabbits sitting on one side and several guinea pigs all in together! this might not seem like a big deal, but rabbit and guinea pigs should not be housed together and the fact that an animal collection that has been around since the 1920's is displaying this was ridiculous. Further more the pen did not seem to provide enough areas for the animals to hide away from the people or take adequate shelter. This was all made worse by the fact that on a front the exhibit was a sign saying that new guinea pigs had been born that year. With so many rabbits and guinea pigs needing new homes why on earth is this park, which has won awards for being a great day out for the family displaying and breeding pets? This is a picture of the exhibit but you can not find it on their website, or any mention of them having rabbits and guinea pigs, why not? Perhaps people aren't interested in going to a zoo to see pets? Then why are they there?

Picture
I don't like to end on a negative so I would like to say that with the exception of the above the animal exhibits were not only interesting to look at but seemed to well thought out in terms of their residents welfare and behavioral needs as well as providing a good viewing experience. I would perhaps say that the park is better suited to children over 5 who can really enjoy all the play facilities and if you do visit and see the teletubbie land ask a member staff  "why?"
0 Comments

    Author

    Rebecca, owner and founder of R and R Pet services.

    Archives

    May 2022
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    June 2018
    January 2018
    August 2017
    July 2017

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Thank you for visiting!

Copyright © 2016
  • Home
  • About
  • Shop
  • Pet Hotel
  • Events
  • Contact
  • Blog - News and reviews
  • Kids Club
  • Adoption Pets
  • Bunny Blue's Blog