They say a dog is a man's best friend and it's no secret that we are a nation of animal lovers. Ahead of the annual Pets in the City event, organised by Dublin City Council, newshound Liam Geraghty hit the streets and met with some of the city's businesses that are making it easier for you to pamper your pooches.
Audrey Dalton is the owner of 'Pawtrait' which is a Wicklow based company that specialises in dog photography on a nationwide basis. The dog lover shares with us that dogs have been around for thousands of years, and seem to understand humans better than we understand them. Knowing how to read a dog's body language accurately is the biggest battle when doing her job.
“If you can read a dogs body language and read what makes them comfortable and what makes them uncomfortable, that will make your job really easy.”
Gráinne Byrne packed in her job of thirty years in PR to become a full-time dog walker. She expressed that she was bored of doing the same thing every day and loves walking by the sea and admiring the greenery. Of course, when starting any new job or business, time and experience play a huge part in your success. For Gráinne, it was time that taught her to carefully select dogs around her locality and not to be traipsing the whole way across the city to walk one dog.
“When I started my first dog was in Fairview and I live in Milltown. So I spent the Summer driving over and back walking the dog.”
Georgina O'Neill is the owner of the cat lounge in Smithfield where punters pay to come in, have a cup of coffee and be surrounded by cats. Georgina found it somewhat difficult opening this type of business because of Irish legislation regarding animals near food.
“My way around it was to open a retail unit with tea and coffee available. So we're not actually selling any kind of foods or anything like that. I was open about two months and they scrapped that legislation.”
Georgina is already the proud owner of three cats at home and claims that this is a good way becoming the Mother of 20 cats, despite her husband's cat quota.
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