Unfortunately my spinal condition and associated complications has me currently disabled and unable to work and practically housebound. For the last month or two Billie has been running the business on her own carrying out all the shop duties (ordering, unloading deliveries and stocking shelves, serving customers, answering the phone, feeding, watering and cleaning all the animals, cleaning the shop, opening and closing etc.) as well as all the back office duties (banking, stock control, website management, supplier issues, finance, answering customer emails and social media enquiries etc.).

This month her brother, George, has returned from New Zealand and has agreed to help out by giving up his Saturday and a couple of evenings a week to take off some of the pressure.

Not only is this good news for us because of the extra pair of hands but we couldn’t have asked for a more qualified, experienced, expert person to step into the breach.

George has a first degree honours in Animal Science from UWE. During this study he won two awards, including top student. He has worked in the UK with a very wide variety of animals both his own and with a professional animal breeder and flown a variety of birds of prey. He has worked on a rhino reserve in South Africa, tracked king cobras in the Thai jungle (where he broke his collar bone – he always pushes things to the limit!), swam with whale sharks (but didn’t check his camera was charged) and worked on black parrot conservation on Mahe in the Seychelles and the Madagascan Fody on Assumption Island in the Indian Ocean during a year off from his degree.

He lived in New Zealand for three years (at one point working on “Mount Doom” from the Lord of The Rings – his “office”) and twice nearly fell off cliffs! He has been working on the conservation of New Zealand’s endemic fauna including Kiwis, Keas, Kakapo, Tuatara etc. and has worked with the Australasian Swamp Harrier, being one of the few people licensed to fly these birds in the world. He even took a few months out to train vultures for a new business venture in Spain. He recently returned to the UK to take up a full time post at an Oxford college to look after and expand their animal collection and to teach students in the handling and husbandry of these animals including reptiles and amphibians, mammals and birds.

So if you wish to buy an animal from people who really do have the qualifications, experience and expertise to give you the best advice on how to set up an animal’s enclosure and look after it for its lifetime, buying and keeping it in tip top condition; you will not find a team that can compete with Angell Pets. Our range of animals and products covers just about any animal suitable to be kept in captivity and extends to wild birds and wild animals and livestock such as chickens and ducks, goats and horses.

We hope you pop in and see us and once I get all this treatment out of the way I will be back too.

The Angell Pets Team