Our
Purpose and Values
What’s important to you is important to us
Our purpose – “To provide safe, consistent and high-quality experiences for our four-legged friends and their owners.”
Whether during a daily walk session or throughout our pre, during and post wedding service provision, everything involving your dog is taken care of with the greatest care and attention. What’s important to you is important to us. We aim to deliver above and beyond for our customers both the two- and four-legged kind, whilst being constantly mindful and focussed on reducing our impact on our wonderful environment.
Charter
As a long-term member of the Pet Industry Federation (PIF) and a PIF Award Winning service provider, we practice and are fully committed to the PIF 10 Point Charter, encouraging, and supporting best practice in the pet industry. The 10 points being:
- Strive to improve industry standards.
- Promote responsible pet ownership.
- Strive to always ensure customer satisfaction.
- Always provide customers with clear and current information about products and services in a polite and professional manner.
- Ensure all staff are appropriately trained to carry out their job role and that they have a comprehensive understanding of company products, services, and procedures.
- Minimise the environmental impact of the business wherever possible. You can read more about our Giving Back campaign and what we currently do to reduce environmental impact here
- Promote best practice in animal welfare by observing the Five Welfare Needs: Diet; Accommodation; Wellness; Sociability; Behaviour.
- Maintain the working environment to ensure it is fit for purpose.
- Abide by PIF’s dispute resolution process and all current legislation relative to the business.
- Not bring the pet industry or PIF into disrepute.
The Five Freedoms – The Animal Welfare Act 2006
Keeping our animals fit, happy and healthy should be a priority for all responsible pet owners and the people they use to take care of them. As standard practice we use the Five Freedoms as our benchmark to ensure we meet the mental and physical needs of all the animals in our care.
Used as the basis in writing animal care protocols and expectations for many professional groups, including veterinarians as noted on the British Veterinary Association and the American Veterinary Medical Association website. The Five Freedoms have been adopted by representative groups internationally including the World Organisation for Animal Health and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
- Freedom from hunger and thirst– by ready access to fresh water and diet to maintain health and vigour. This must be specific to each individual animal. For example, puppies need different types of food at different times of the day to adult dogs.
- Freedom from discomfort – by providing an appropriate environment including shelter and a comfortable resting area. By providing soft bedding and an area with appropriate temperature, noise levels, and access to natural light. If an animal is outside, it must have shelter from the elements as well as appropriate ‘all weather’ food and water bowls.
- Freedom from pain, injury, or disease – by prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment. This includes vaccinating animals, monitoring animals, physical health, treating any injuries and providing appropriate medications.
- Freedom to express normal behaviour – by providing sufficient space, proper facilities, and company of the animal’s own kind. Animals need to be able to interact with — or avoid — others of their own kind as desired. They must be able to stretch every part of their body (from nose to tail), and run, jump, and play.
- Freedom from fear and distress –by ensuring conditions and treatment which avoid mental suffering. The mental health of an animal is just as important as its physical health — as psychological stress can quickly transition into physical illness. These conditions can be achieved by preventing overcrowding and providing sufficient enrichment and safe hiding spaces.
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Animal Health and Welfare
The safety, health, and well-being of all animals in our care is our number one priority. Being long term, responsible dog owners ourselves, we understand how precious our 4-legged family members are and strive to ensure we take great care of your pet as we would our own boys.
Security
We take security very seriously to ensure the safest care and attention throughout our time with your beloved pet therefore, we have taken additional precautions to help reassure all our customers, such as:
- All our vehicles used for the transportation of pets are completely unbranded, as is our clothing
- We regularly use a bodycam, carry a personal alarm, police standard deterrent spray for additional security
- We do not walk more than 3-4 dogs in our group sessions, as we feel this enables us to give each dog the care and attention they need. Over 4 dogs are accommodated within a complete secure environment ie: secure freedom field
- We will focus completely on dogs in our care throughout our walking/supervised sessions. The only time we aim to use a mobile device may be to take a few photos or a short video to report back to you. This allows us to stay alert to any potential challenging situations when out walking
- You will never see us wearing headphones or any listening devices! Our ears are used to listen to your pet and everything that surrounds us!
- Only persons employed by That’s Pawfect, who have been fully vetted, CRB checked and included on our company insurance, will enter your home, care for, or transport your pets
Please note that this is not a complete list, it provides you with a brief overview of some of the practices and procedures we have in place. We are always evolving our services to ensure the best possible care and attention is provided. If there is something you would like included, we are here to listen and where relevant, we will accommodate.
Community Matters
We are very fortunate to live in a beautiful, semi-rural area with a great community around us. Not only do we live on the Trent and Mersey Canal, but we are also extremely lucky have fantastic open spaces such as Barlaston Downs and Hem Heath Woods Nature Reserve; coupled with a caring community that we like to support.
Our community is important to us. Whether we are shopping local, supporting at local events, providing regular, essential services such as pet care and dog walking, stepping up our environmental and sustainability work, or collecting donations to share with the dog homes across the area. It all matters to us and during 2023 we will be increasing our community activities.
Di Symes - That’s Pawfect Wedding Chaperone®
Di Symes is the founder and owner of That’s Pawfect Wedding Chaperone® and That’s Pawfect
Di is responsible for introducing the first bespoke Wedding Chaperone/Pet Care business of it’s kind in the UK. Providing high-quality pet care, experiences and ethically sourced products, with a key focus on the health and welfare of every animal in her care.
Di strives to ensure all couples achieve their wedding day dreams with their beloved four-legged family members, helping to capture those all important memories forever.
With a strong drive to improve ongoing business practices and delivery in an ever changing world, Di is passionate about environmental issues. In 2021, hers was the first Wedding Chaperone/Pet Care business to pledge and sign up to the Race to Net Zero campaign.
**Image – Heaton House Wedding Venue with the lovely Jasper, wedding day dog, courtesy of Scott Sharman Photography**
Sustainability Commitment
Whatever stage your business is in, whether a start-up, a young company still in growth or a well-established brand; we believe that now, more than ever, we all have a clear responsibility to look at how our business practices impact on the short, medium, and long-term environment around us and across the planet!
Our dedication to becoming a greener business was a clear focus from the outset. Now along with 1,000’s of other businesses, we continue to make the additional changes we feel are necessary as a small, responsible business to help make a difference, not just in our own community but further afield.
Our Commitment:
In June 2021
– We launched our Giving Back campaign in June 2021and you can keep up to date here
– Became a completely paperless company
– Were interviewed by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) Policy division on our sustainability focus – we were quoted in the FSB Policy report for the UK Government
– We were the first Wedding Chaperone/Pet Care business to sign up to the UK Governments Race to Net Zero campaign. Businesses of all sizes around the UK are committing to do their bit to cut carbon emissions and protect the planet. The UK government has partnered with business owners and respected climate groups to help
During October and November 2022, we were one of 1300 small businesses that completed the Small Business Sustainability Basics Course
In November 2022 we attended an afternoon tea and networking event at the House of Lords. This was organised by Small Business Britain as a follow on from the Small Business Sustainability Basics Course; and enabled us to link with like-minded business entrepreneurs that we are aiming to work more closely with on sustainability
In Dec 2022
– We completed an impact assessment to identify what has been achieved to date and highlight the short, medium, and long-term priorities
– Participated in an FSB Policy and Gvt round table to review sustainable activity and help identify the key challenges and next steps for the UK Gvt to assist small businesses in reducing carbon footprints. The full review was published on the 13th Jan 2023 and you can read more on the Government website here
During Jan 2023 we will be participating in FSB policy/Gvt workshops to assist policy development
We continue to incorporate environmental considerations in our business decision process
We donate 3% of all wedding contracts to environmental and social projects
We look to stock products that are designed and sourced within the UK, made from natural, renewable, and recycled materials by companies with strong ethical and environmental policies eg: BECO Pets . Providing products that are better for your pets and better for the environment
We continue to monitor and improve on our environmental impact eg: reduced mileage, powering down, water saving, less data usage