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Our friend, Lisa Johnson, talks about this in her two articles, Meet Our First Born...Fido. Pets hold an elevated position in women's hearts, and Let’s Give Them Something to Bark About. Kimpton Hotels pamper people and pets with equal flare.
Both articles talk about pets and what businesses can do to take advantage of marketing to pet lovers and women. They are a fascinating read if you get the time.
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You might not have noticed, but I was a little busy last Tuesday, having daughter number 2. Here is the official announcement:
John and I are delighted to announce the timely arrival of Erin Bryn Vemby Burchard, born at 11:12pm on Tuesday, January 10, 2006 (she was 50 mins early).
Erin weighed a nice 8lbs 2oz (mom appreciated that she weighed 1lb less than Ellie), measured 18.5 inches long (and 19.75 inches 3 days later – hmmm!), and has the whitest hair you ever did see (in contrast to Ellie’s jet black hair when she was born - and who is now a curly-wurly blonde).
We’re all back home recovering nicely. Ellie loves her new sister and made sure to cover her in Dora stickers when she first met her in the hospital. Erin thought that was cool.
What good news to share with you all. Hope you don't mind if I blog a little less than usual over the next few weeks but I'll do my best :)
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Pets Best has just launched their new vet finder. I tried it for my location and found all the vets near me so see if you get good results too.
Funnily enough, I was sure that VPI used to have a vet locator too but it seems to have gone or I was dreaming or something. Anyone found one that works (there are lots on the web that don't) that I've missed?
Anyway, all current pet insurance policies allow you to go to any vet of your choosing, so choose away...
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Thank you to diligent blog reader, Kristi, for helping me correct something I said about VPI that wasn't true. I originally thought that VPI reset the pre-existing conditions every year at policy renewal but it turns out that this is wrong.
According to VPI, the pre-existing conditions are set at the original policy effective date of coverage, which is great news. Having said that, you need to know the other half of the story about what VPI pay out for their claims.
VPI pay out their claims on a benefit schedule based on diagnosis, which means you get up to a specified amount for the items on the list. For example, if your dog gets diabetes, according to the Superior Plan Benefit Schedule, you would get a maximum of $568 towards that illness and then zero after that. So, while diabetes won't become a pre-existing condition at renewal, you won't get more than $568 in total over the life of the pet for diabetes (I'm all ears if I'm wrong on this VPI.) So, you don't get covered for the life of the pet, you get covered for as long as the benefit schedule lasts, which doesn't look like it would be for very long at all for chronic conditions.
I learn something new every day - and just when I thought I knew pet insurance!
BTW, their exact words in answer to my question were:
Thank you very much for contacting Veterinary Pet Insurance. Unfortunately, the pre-existing conditions on a policy are based on the original policy effective date of coverage. We apologize for any confusion you may have experienced.
This is an odd response - it's very good news that the pre-existing conditions are only set at the start of the policy, not every year, so I'm not sure why the word "unfortunately" is in the answer. A case of scripted answers to email questions gone awry, I suppose?
I did just try to call VPI to confirm that by "original policy effective date of coverage", they mean the first day the policy was taken out, not every renewal, but the wait was too long and when I selected the option to leave a voice mail for someone to call me back, the voice mail box was full - tut tut guys! You are losing business when small details like that go unnoticed.
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OK, this gadget is a lot over the top and isn't very pretty but I love inventors and weird and wonderful gadgets. Check out this entry on the Make blog - technology on your time.
I think there are only about 5 people in the world that would make this themselves and they probably don't read this blog but it would be cool if someone actually did go to the trouble to make it. Let us know!
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Dogs are still being poisoned by the Diamond pet food that was recalled in December because people don't know about the recall (see this blog entry for background). While less than 20 deaths have been confirmed, Cornell veterinarians say that more than 100 dogs have died from the tainted food and are increasingly worried about the situation. While the rate of death is quite high for dogs that have eaten the tainted food, they may also just become very sick instead with damaged livers so you and your vet need to know that aflatoxin may have been involved in your dog's illness for further treatment.
The Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine have developed a test to screen for aflatoxin poisoning and are constantly monitoring the situation with the tainted food. If you suspect your dog has been affected, you should speak to your vet about the test. Blood, tissue, liver and food samples can be sent to the Animal Health Diagnostic Center, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, phone 607-253-3900.
More details are available in this article and from the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine.
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As of January 2006, we are a woman-owned US pet health insurance company mobilizing to start selling policies online by the middle of 2006.
That means we can't sell you any policies at the moment but we are working hard setting up our back office, putting a few more dollars in the bank, and taking on some really cool people to help us get off the ground. Know anyone in the Cleveland area who might be interested? Send them our way.
We can talk to you about pet insurance and what you would like to see in our products. I won't promise we'll give you everything you want but I can promise we'll do our best to do as much as we can. I think you'll be pleased once you see what we have to offer.
We also promise to be open and honest about Embrace and our products. We'd rather sell fewer policies up front because not everyone liked what we have to offer but keep those policyholders longer, than have more sign up because they don't understand what they are buying (whether they know it or not), only to drop out when they find out the truth about their policies.
One of these days, I'll be able to tell you about the experience of selling policies and that will be a great day indeed.
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Are you a big fan of the Dog Whisperer, 
Cesar Millan, the dog psychologist star of the 2004 hit show National Geographic Channel TV show? If so, you'll be glad to know he's back, starting Jan 6 (that's today!).
He's also got a lot of new stuff out (gotta build that brand!) including a new blog, which is obviously taking him some time to get used to because he hasn't posted very frequently nor answered the 89 comments on his first post. Gosh, 89 comments! I'm lucky if anyone but my family comments on my blog (thanks mom!). I think he's trying to link the blog to the tv show, hence the minimal posting but I think that's a mistake. People don't want to be held to a tv schedule when they have specific thoughts and questions. Hopefully Cesar gets it soon or his blog is going to annoy more people than inform.
Thanks Jackie for the pointer. Jackie suggested he get a discussion board going so that fans can help fans and I think that's a great idea. Obviously there's a huge pent up demand for help with dog behavior (generally it's the dog guardian that's the problem, not the dog) and he's drawn a lot of thirsty fans who want to be helped.
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Are you a big fan of Google? Do you have a medium-sized or large dog? If so, this collar is for you (only $6).
There's also a leash to go with the collar ($9.95), with a particularly humorous product description:
Woof! Now your dog's searches and retrievals take on a whole new meaning with the woven black Google dog leash. It features reflective edges for easier nighttime visibility. With a 4 - color Google logo too. Your canine will be the envy of the dog run! Large length 6' with 1" width.
Someone had fun with that!
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Are you confused as to what RSS is really about? You are not alone. While it is a really convenient way to get blog entries sent to you instead of you having to visit each blog individually, it's not obvious what this is all about and how to get started.
I'm not going to try to explain to you what an RSS reader is. OK, I'll try - a funnel for blog entries so you can sit back and blog entries just show up on your PC/laptop/Mac - how does that work? I better not quit my day job right?! Then I'll leave it to the experts.
Talking of which, here's a nice RSS summary that you might find useful - the BBC have summarized what RSS readers do, where to get one, and what to do with it.
[thanks to Hugh at Gaping Void for the tip; however, if you are offended easily, skip the click-throughs - which probably means you are all busy clicking away right now just to see what could be so offensive!)
Let me know if you are still having trouble with RSS if you are interested in setting it up because it's not as easy as it should be yet. The good news is that if you have Yahoo, Google or Firefox, you already have an RSS reader built in and they should be pretty easy to use. I don't have any of those applications but I use SharpReader and like it a lot but there are many other options such as those mentioned by the Beeb summary above. Find one a friend uses and use that - then they can help you if you get stuck.
Let me know how you get on...
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