Winners Winners and More Winners!  

Everyone is a winner when it comes to Health Fitness & Professional Petcare! This month we are very excited to announce the winners of our Comfortis Competition, our e-newsletter February Funnies - Your Pet Stories and our AquaDog Summer Swim with a Friend and March Madness Competitions.     

AND THE WINNERS ARE....
Lou Lou Fitzroy - Congratulations to Lou Lou's family who are winners of tickets to the Australian Outback Spectacular. Lou Lou, an 18mth old miniature daschund that recently had quite an itchy experience is the big winner. She is now itch free with the help of her family purchasing Comfortis as her monthly flea treatment. Jacqueline, Lou Lou's owner, said she was glad the girls at The Vets suggested she enter the competition although she is even happier that she bought Comfortis for Lou Lou. She has told everyone about how well it has worked for Lou Lou and even has her mum using it now for her dog.

'Wicket the Ewok' Spurr - Congratulations to Kathy and Wicket as winners of our e-newsletter February Funnies competition. Kathy sent in some amazing DVD footage of Wicket performing his regular health and fitness workout. Wicket shows us how his idea of family fun can also make a great cat exercise program. (Click here to watch Wicket)

Kathy has trained two of her feline pets like this now and shared the following training tips: Not all cats enjoy this sort of family fun. Mostly males, those felines with dog-like personalities that really enjoy pats and stroking respond well to this training.  For playing fetch, Kathy looks for signs that the cat likes to use their mouth to explore things. Thanks Kathy and Wicket for sharing some of your family fun with us. As winners of our competition Kathy is now looking forward to enjoying the movies with a friend and Wicket it seems, just continues to lap up all the attention that such a talented cat deserves with walks to the park and games of fetch.

When it comes to family fun, heath and fitness for our pets we can all be winners as Sue Kafoa, our Aquadog manager and 'Animallogics' Behaviour Consultant discusses in the next article. As for fun and fitness in the pool - see our Aquadog article for whats on this month and announcing more of our swimmer winners. They're also grinners with all the exciting new aquatic fun happening at the fitness centre! 

by Sue Kafoa: 'Animallogics' Behaviour Consultant

The thoroughly modern moggie is increasingly becoming a wee bit soggy in the fitness area and is often then the self designated couch potato of the family.

Animals that are confined need to be provided with a stimulating environment, allowing them some activity comparable to that which they would receive in the wild since, in the wild, they would certainly be provided with many and often complex choices. One piece of advice we give to every guardian of a domesticated species is never feed them from a bowl...why??? It's too easy and requires absolutely no physical input other than the chewing and swallowing of the food. Get your cat to hunt for its food by hiding small containers around the house. Stimulate extra exercise with climbing posts, toys (changed regularly) indoor gardens, cat dancers and training, YES, OBEDIENCE TRAINING!!

Cats can be trained to sit, stay, come, high five, and do a myriad of wonderful exercises and the great thing is you are keeping their mind and body active. Our February Funnies winners Kathy and Wicket the Ewok can testify to that. You just need to take a moment to watch the video link to see the proof. As Kathy and Wicket have experienced, training your cat for fitness is a fantastic tool to retaining their youthful figure, a great bonding tool and also extends the life of your pet by assisting in preventing obesity related health and behavioural problems...not to mention providing guests with some brilliant party tricks!! (or winning movie passes in our competitions).

Simply using a portion of your cat's daily ration of food, ensuring you train at a time when that food is desirable or providing loving pats can produce feline feats of phenomenal proportions...ok well at least a finer feline form!!

Remember, cats learn fastest when we use rewards such as praise, food or a game and that reward must be:

• Immediate
• Desirable
• Given every time during the learning phase and then intermittently once learned

The most important part is to remember practice makes purrrfect so BE PATIENT!

Animallogics -  A new FREE Animal Behaviour Helpline - Consultations with Sue Kafoa, CVN Animal Behaviour Consultant (Fee incurred POA). Available now at AquaDog.   

Does your pet need help to lose a few kilos? Ask us NOW about our special Chubby Checkers program and PetFit offer. Your chance to WIN great prizes, including $1,000 travel vouchers by entering Hill's Pet Slimmer of the Year competition. For more information please click here

There are hundreds of thousands of unowned cats in Australia but feeding the stray, hungry feline that arrives at your back door is not the answer to this heart breaking problem.

A survey by Monash University found that 22% of people feed a cat that doesn't belong to them because they feel sorry for them. However people don't realise that feeding but not identifying and desexing an unowned cat leads to a bigger problem.

Feeding these cats helps keep them alive and strong enough to reproduce. More and more kittens are bred into a life of disease and neglect. This contributes to the tragic cat overpopulation problem in Australia.

Of the 50,000 cats that are impounded each year in Victoria alone, 35,000 of these have to be euthanased due to poor health or because there are simply not enough people to adopt them.

Feeding unowned cats isn't the answer. If you want to help you must either take ownership of a cat or call your local council and ask for guidance.

Visit www.whosforcats.com.au to read more and find out what to do if you think there is an unowned cat in your neighborhood.

Fun and Fitness - Aquadog Swimmers are winners and grinners...

Congratulations to Tugboat and his canine friend, winners of our Paws and Claws Summer Swim with a Friend Competition. Tugboat, as our swimming champion is aptly named, will now be towing his friend around the  Aquadog pool enjoying a FREE 10 swim pass valued at $109. 'Last one in's a Lazy Dog'

Congratulations to our March Madness Competition winners Carina and Lucy King. They have won a FREE Pet Day Spa Pamper Package valued at $79.95. When it comes to health and fitness Lucy, the 2 year old Labrador Retriever is a real WINNER, enjoying a full day of pampering at Aquadog Health and Fitness Centre, including supervised swim and enrichment session, Tellington touch massage therapy, hydrobath with blow dry, pedicure and facial including ears, health check, morning and afternoon tea, cuddles, walks and loads of attention.

Revolutionary New Service NOW available. Aquadog Health and Fitness Therapies for Pets has broken new ground in the field of animal behaviour by introducing the FREE Animal Behaviour Helpline. Answers to all your frequently asked questions are now available by contacting Animallogics via email or telephone. For more complex behaviour issues, consultations are available with our qualified animal behaviouralist, Sue Kafoa at Aquadog (Fee incurred POA). 

With our great NEW boutique range of collars and leads (not yet released in Australia) from Island Dog everyone can be a grinner and looking their best when they visit Aquadog. And for the best in tasty treats, we now have available the winner of Paws and Claws Award 2009 'Finest Feast' Pet Treats. They're all natural, all Australian, the best in health and fitness for your pet and now available at Aquadog.

Be a WINNER...Lose it by joining our Chubby Checkers weight loss swim programme at Aquadog Including a lifetime membership, your pet's very own FREE personal trainer and nutritionalist for life, a FREE introductory swim and a discounted '6 pack' personalised swimming program you can't lose.

Click here for more details or Call our Aquadog team on 5502 2444.

Puppy preschool is a fun way for puppies and families to learn all the skills required for a rewarding life together. Under the expert guidance of our qualified nurses, parents can enjoy being involved in developing their new puppy's social skills to ensure they become polite and well behaved canine citizens. 

Classes are held once a week for 4 weeks from 6.30 to 7.30pm. To join our next class, please call the location that suits your family and ask our friendly staff for more details or click here

Ready, setty, go! Join our puppy water safety swim classes.

Enrich your puppy's life and build their confidence, water safety and swimming skills.

Our puppy preschool program includes a water safety swim class at Aquadog Health and Fitness Centre and a half price 2nd Swim for puppy preschoolers only $7.50. Private puppy water safety swim classes only $15.

We're so proud of our recent puppy preschool graduates...

At Nerang: Class commenced 3 March 2010
Jasper Baseweight, Eboney Campbell, Bella Hawkins, Holly Hollick, Roxy Middleton, Ruby Osbourne, Ralph Poole.

At Helensvale: Class commenced 2 March 2010
Lucy Bambry, Molly Barr, Wilson Dally, Ruby Dally, Zemmy Lumsden, Dash Terry, Pamacs Farkas, Rosey Stuckey.

Class commenced 4 March 2010
Soldier Falvon, Milly Coplick, Jet Coplick, Elmo Ballintine, Lulu Nichol, Africa Strong, CJ Wenck

Congratulations and thank you to all the enthusiastic puppy preschoolers and their dedicated families for sharing the experience with lots of love learning and laughter. 

We hope you will enjoy the memories of your time together at Puppy Preschool by printing your class photo to display in the frame provided. To print your class photo or to email to friends and family go to our website www.thevets.com.au then go to E-cards to find your framed class photo.