Health and safety in the workplace is incredibly important to running a successful business with a happy team and customers. As a pet care franchise, we take this responsibility incredibly seriously and strive to have the best health and safety measures in the industry.
The pet care industry can have inconsistencies and issues on the way that local authorities interpret Defra’s regulations on boarding and animal care. There are many people boarding without licenses, boarding pets with no training or support or operating as self-employed for countries outside of the UK. At We Love Pets, we hold ourselves to strict regulations to ensure that we provide the best, welfare-first pet care whilst keeping our staff, customers and pets safe.
To celebrate health and safety at work day, we’re highlighting the importance of excellent health and safety standards in the animal care industry!
Here’s 5 ways we’re making a difference through our strict health and safety regulations:
- Self-regulated – due to the lack of clear regulation within the pet care industry, there are inconsistencies when it comes to pet care businesses. We want to work towards an industry with clear regulations in place for all. This is why We Love Pets have strict self-regulations in place for all of our branches, to ensure we consistently provide welfare-first pet care across the UK. We want to raise the bar for pet care services and advocate for better animal welfare.
- Industry leading training – we pride ourselves on having the best training for our franchisees, staff members and even our customers. Through our OFQUAL accredited learning provider, we offer a number of qualifications and accredited courses from Level 3 Canine Training and Behaviour, to Pet First Aid, to Recruitment. Every new We Love Pets staff member is certified in mandatory courses before beginning their job at We Love Pets, including Pet First Aid and an Introduction to Canine Behaviour. But we don’t stop there, our mission at We Love Pets is to educate the nation to improve animal welfare standards. We offer public animal courses to our customers, educational content through our blog and social platforms and even employ experts at head office such as our in-house Vet, to share their knowledge and advice.
- Members of the PCFA – We Love Pets are proud members of the PCFA, a group of pet care franchises with a shared vision of raising the standard of animal welfare across the pet care industry. Together we advocate for better, consistent welfare regulations across the UK.
- No pack walking and no stick policy – we operate a strict no pack walking and no stick policy. We will only ever walk up to four dogs at a time, this way we can maintain good control and minimise risk of fighting, injury and spread of disease. We understand each dog is different which is why we only pair dogs that match well based on breed, personality and temperament.
- Risk assessments and health and safety documents – each We Love Pets branch documents everything with procedures and risk assessments. Staff members are trained to complete assessments with each pet we look after to ensure safety.
