I trust that everyone has settled into 2014, we're in full swing here at the Beagle BnB. (if you feel you're receiving this e-mail in error it may be because you're friends or family that have asked to be on the mailing list (and forgotten), or friends or family I thought may be interested, or someone I thought may like to have the information to someone you know who owns a Beagle, you may have been referred by a fellow Beagle owner.......or quite possibly it is an error, you slipped onto the list by accident. Either way - Please let me know if you would like to be removed from the mailing list)
Firstly - welcome to all those new to our mailing list. Some of the news I'll be sharing in this e-mail will be old news to a number of you as I've shared it with you on facebook. However many of you aren't aware of the exciting things planned for 2014. If you're not part of our facebook group you are more than welcome to join by clicking here.
Firstly I'll mention the rates - we have a new rate structure that now includes on and off season rates as well as a sliding scale according to the number of dogs you check in.
Please find that list here.
We have also made our forms, agreements and disclaimers all available online on our website. Please do read through this as the accommodation agreement has been amended.
You can have a look at these here.
For those interested these are our day care options and rates.
Then the next bit of good (or bad - depending how you view it) news is that we are filling up fast for school holiday periods and long week ends. I would like to give Beagle BnB customers the opportunity to book dates first. So - if you already have dates (even if not yet confirmed) please do let us know as long as possible in advance. We will pencil the dates in. No need to confirm just yet - if we have other enquiries come in for the same as yours we will give you first option to confirm within a week of notification.
House sitting bookings need to be confirmed as soon as your holiday dates are confirmed and preferably needs to be confirmed a minimum of 9 months in advance. Please send deposit confirmations via e-mail and not sms.
On the topic of dates: We are fully booked & confirmed - no wiggle room - from Friday 27 July to Wednesday 10 September. We are awaiting confirmation but we are most likely also fully booked from 20 September - 6 October. Again - I would like to give Beagle BnB customers first option so if I am able to pencil your dates in I can contact you for confirmation when other bookings come in.
The favour that I would like to ask any of you that are willing is to give a review, short/long/however you want to do it. I am just busy updating the site and would love to put some feedback from you guys on there. I would really appreciate it. English/Afrikaans, whatever is easiest for you.
Other news:
- Allergy free treats - we have developed a lovely range of allergy free treats for your hounds. They do not contain any wheat or gluten, no dairy and full of ingredients that are good for your hound. To find out more about these treats please click here.
- We ripped up the Play Zone and have redone it. The bark has been replaced with synthetic lawn and the dogs are absolutely loving it. Turns out they are not to fond of walking on bark. I blogged about it here if anyone is interested or wants to find out more about synthetic lawn.
- After researching and blogging about the dangers of so many of the toys, treats and chews we buy for our beloved Beagles as promised we found a range of eco friendly toys. We are very happy with most of them (please click on the picture of the toy to get more information including our opinion). We are also trying to encourage owners to have more play time with their pets and these toys are ideal. They're great for tugging, playing fetch and so forth. Due to the natural fibres they LOVE chewing them so these toys will turn into chews if you don't keep an eye. This is the link to our new (very basic) online shop. For those that did not see our blogpost "To treat or not to treat" - you can read here.
- Our "Owners Welcome" drive... We have decided to open our doors (not that you weren't welcome before!) to owners to come and experience a snippet of your hounds' home away from home when you go away. From March we will be offering to Beagle BnB owners the first and last Wednesday of each month the option of inviting up to 6 friends (and any hounds that have stayed here before) to come and have dinner in a casual Beagle friendly environment. Meals are cooked by a fully qualified chef with 13 years experience in the industry. The menus will be available on the site before the end of the month which is when we will start taking bookings also. I will send out an e-mail to notify you of this too.
- The other part of our "Owners Welcome" drive is to open our doors to Beagle owners (of friendly and well socialised Beagles) across South Africa that would like to visit Cape Town and have Beagle friendly accommodation where their pets are not only welcome but free day care is included in the price should they want to get out and about to places where they are not able to take their hounds.Bookings can be done through this link so if you know of anyone that may be interested feel free to pass on the information.
- We have many more exciting things planned for the year to come such as: We are busy with a trial of water confidence classes as well as a pup here for in house training in recall, sit/stay commands, crate training, leash training (and possibly some tricks if the training goes well and allows time). We are working on a different format of puppy training which will hopefully launch during the second quarter of the year.
- The Beagle Breakaway plans for the week end of 23 -25 May are coming together nicely and all fingers crossed we should be launching that idea within the next week or two.
- We also have some great Beagle BnB products being designed and planned (by us) and we can't make time scale promises but we are hoping that you will sooner rather than later have the option of taking some of your hounds' "home away from home" back home with you. Lastly - I am working on 100% allergy free and hound healthy birthday cakes - I'll keep you informed :-)
A lot of reading but hopefully you are as excited as we are about everything. We are absolutely overwhelmed with the positive response from everyone and appreciate your feedback so much. Your hounds become part of the family and we love seeing them happy to come back.
Chat soon