I can’t remember a time when we haven’t had a pet in our family. It’s pretty hard to find a family photo without at least one of our pets pawing over me or doing something funny in the background. To me, pets and family are the same thing, I can’t imagine my life without them.

I’ve been taking care of pets since I was old enough to advertise my own Pet Club in the local newspaper. It wasn’t until I was inundated with subscribers wanting to receive my pet newsletters and quizzes that my mum knew anything about it. You could say that at 10 years old, I was already pet care entrepreneur.

Many years passed and after doing the sensible thing I thought I should do and get a business management degree and a post graduate diploma in law, my mind kept wandering back to my first love which was caring for pets.

Eventually I found a way to do everything and set up We Love Pets – a personal service for busy pet owners who want their pet looked after by a caring and trustworthy professional.

It struck me that you wouldn’t take your kids to a school you’d never seen inside and let them be cared for by a person you had never met before who had no qualifications in childcare…so why should that happen to your pet?

Keeping our family safe is one of the most basic instincts we have, and I can’t tell you how proud it makes me knowing that We Love Pets gives so many people that complete peace of mind that their pet is in loving hands.

Jo and I met at an animal handling course I was giving at Wiltshire College over 10 years ago. I wouldn’t say it was love at first sight for us, but we definitely shared a love of animals straight away!
We Love Pets was just starting out then and when I got talking to her about why she was in my course, I realised Jo and her business were different.

I’ve worked with animals my whole life. It’s a passion that has taken me all over the world from Borneo to America to Germany and many places in between. From rehabilitating aggressive dogs to searching for Pigmy Elephants – I’ll work with any species in any way they need.

My upbringing was surrounded by animals of all shapes and sizes – birds of prey, goats, dogs, poultry and they all fascinated me. Observing them and understanding their behaviour became second nature and set me on a path I couldn’t have imagined.

This path eventually led me into teaching and that’s not only how I met my wife, but it’s also one of the ways I continue my work through We Love Pets.

I make sure that our standards of safety and animal care are not just where they should be in terms of the law, but in terms of our own We Love Pets exacting standards. Nothing gets past me!

But it’s not all rules and regulations. I couldn’t be happier that my legacy to our children will be a business that puts animals at the heart of everything because it’s always been that way for me too.