“We celebrated being one year old with an open day event on June 20th and what a great time we had. We had a BBQ, a free bouncy castle for the kids and dog activities with 3 local trainers coming in to assist. Amanda (Fenland Dog Training) did an agility demo, Sally (Happy Hounds) did a scent work demonstration, and the last one was Mel (Rewarding Paws) who taught dogs to do a fun trick. We had a few hundred people attend throughout the day which turned out to be far more successful than we could have imagined,” Jarl Ford from Jurassic Bark told Littleport Life.
“We turned our store room into a photographic studio courtesy of Graham Fisher of Graham Fisher Photography who took pictures for free throughout the day, and the photos were absolutely stunning. Graham gave all his time for free. He sent out a link to all those who attended and had their pets photographed, where the first photo was £5.00 and the second photo was then £2.50 thereafter which was really good value. We raised £322.00 which we split with £161.00 going to Chris Kent from the K9 Project whose book we have on sale in our shop, and the other £161.00 went to the Doodle Trust because it is the charity Graham the photographer wanted the money to go to.”
Another innovative idea that one of Jurassic Bark’s customers came up with was a ‘food bank for pets’. “Our customer reckoned that those people who are struggling to feed themselves, wouldn’t be able to afford to pay for food for their animals either. It is because of that that we have had an amazing response from other customers, and I can give you two wonderful examples of generosity.
“Someone bought a £1.50 bag of doggie treats plus £4.00 worth of dog food and they then put the £4.00 dog food in the food bank and took the £1.50 treats home.
And the other example is that we also have a regular customer who comes in every Saturday morning who won a prize worth £20 in-store at the ‘Aquafest’ through our programme with Isle of Ely Vets who had a stall where we gave out leaflets, free poo bags and offered this prize. Instead of keeping it, he generously decided to use it to purchase dog food to put in the food bank.
Every time someone buys an item from us and puts it into the food bank, we are discounting it as well, which means we are knocking 10% off the price of any merchandise which people buy for that purpose.”
Jurassic Bark’s schedule in the coming months could see them host educational talks such as Sian Ryan from Developing Dogs again who last November did a talk on firework preparation regarding anxiety issues, loud noises with your dogs etc. And a year on, Jarl is very happy with how the business has progressed thanks to loyal customers and an excellent shop/customer relationship.
The store has now shifted all products into item sections, instead of putting them under the makers’ names, which makes it easier to find what you are looking for.
Knowledgeable assistant Siobhan , who is the proud owner of Reg the Springer Lab, is always ready to help with friendly advice too.