Pet Expo 2009

Shzm

Total rubbish, would rather have gone to a petshop and bought something with the entrance fee!

Allgäuerin

I agree too, it was totally rubbish and a complete rip off for what was on offer!!!!:(
Went today at lunch time. still angry that we spend 24 euros for NOTHING what i cloud have spent for doggie treats!:eek:

bookerboy

I have to agree it was expensive and they should not have those rubbish car boot sale stalls.I'd say they accept any kind of stalls because their rent is so high.
For me it was worth it as i met some amazing dogs and the kids really did enjoy it to.

lrushe

Was at Pet Expo today, didn't enjoy it as much as last year for some reason? Most worrying thing I saw was a girl walking a Chocolate Lab pup of about 5-6 weeks old, I know its tempting to show off your new baby as I have a 13 week old pup at the moment myself but the animals well being is more important. There was no way that pup was old enough to be fully vacinated, v.foolish considering the amount of strange dogs it would have come in contact with:(

Sigma Force

By the sounds of it very glad I didn't go and end up spending a fortune travelling the 100 odd miles to get there and back. The first year it was on it was excellent except for one pet stall with birds.

There were loads of animal related stalls from Ireland and some came over from the UK as well.

Was approached the other year to do a stall but it was too expensive considering I make cookies for fun and don't make a cent on them. Would of still loved to of done a stall because I love making the cookies and the fun shapes etc.

Totally understand that it's a very expensive venue and they need to cover the costs by the entrance fee and stalls but if they had a lower enterance feel and cheaper stalls relating to animals then they would of made the money. Bad time of year to be charging that much in esp. since a lot of families with 2 or 3 kids would be going.

The one in Cork was rubbish the other year, a few good stalls but weather was awfull and half of it wasn't indoors.

No matter what animal event you go to there's always some child or idiot adult with a tiny puppy drives me mad.

Hope they won't give up on it though and perhaps put more effort into it next year perhaps having it outside of Dublin but with easy access from Dublin so they will still get the crowds perhaps somewhere more open with plenty of free or cheap parking and a really large indoor space perhaps larger than they need to people can feel comfortable strolling and relaxing while they look and shop at stalls that way people may stay longer and buy more.

kamaosju

I was there today, was very impressed with the club that promotes exercising with your dog, think they have meets every so often.
I ended up coming home and getting my old bike out of the shed, going to give it a good dust down tomorrow. Looking forward to getting my guys going with the bike. My neighbors will think I've gone mad!
They were the highlight for me today, enjoyed the display too.

bookerboy

Good idea Guineapigrescue.They shoul get to hell out of the RDS with this show.There must be some cheaper options in the greater dublin area.
This would solve all the problems.
Organisers i hope you made a profit this weekend and don't give up on a great show.

PetrovthePrat

We were there on Saturday. Dogtraining Ireland were worth watching,Dublin Falconry put on a great demo and there were some very cool exotic animals. I got to talk to some groups I'd wanted to meet,and even got some freebie dog food and the most annoying squeaky toy which of course our dog loves! The biggest plus was meeting a pup E.G.A.R. had with them,which got herself thinking about getting our second dog. But overall it wasn't great. For e12 x 2 and e6 for parking it was a bit too steep. As has been said before,there were a lot of car boto sale and gimmiky stalls and very few animal related stalls. Country Hounds was the only commercial stall we bought from (very helpful,even knocked a fiver off a 20 quid lead)! I don't think I'd go again.

Adventure Pout

was also at petexpo today and was very very disappointed..it was better last year. There were so many rubbish stalls and there was absolutely nothing for cats!!! I thought I will bring home some nice stuffs for my kitty and there was nothing interesting, or if there was, it was quite pricey!!
But glad to see again irish seal sanctuary crowd (pls support them if you can)..hope they will do better and cheaper next year....

Howitzer

€12 entry into somewhere you will end up spending more money on food / shopping is ridiculous.
I knew it would be a rip-off, but went as I'm looking at dog breeds at the moment. Thanks to all who brought their own dogs - it was the best way to see those breeds.
I saw a lovely Shiba Inu and a nice Jack/springer cross.

Absolutely rubbish representation for cat owners. Poor.

petchums.com

Petchums.com had a great time at Pet Expo and really enjoyed meeting all fantastic kids and their parents at the show.. You never know where the pink hippo & dinosaur will show up next time! Stay tuned .. Woofs!

EGAR

I am back home and am knackered, Morgan is so conked out, he didn't even want to go and do his wees. It's great to put names to many faces I only know from the boards and was surprised at the volume of peeps who came to the stand and knew EGAR. There were quite a few people who knew about poor Bruce up North and enquired about progress in the matter or lack thereof .

We did well on the raffle for the hamper and the other prizes, and Morgan drew a BIG crowd including Amy Huberman and Brian O'Driscoll and we've got the pics to prove it !!

I cannot fault the organisers, they were helpful to the extreme when we came to set up the stand and even loaned us a trolley, gave us time on stage to do the raffle draw, a place for Morgan to chill out when it got to hot for him etc all this was not pre-planned and got offered and was gratefully accepted by us.

I've met TONS of nice peeps, had only two negative comments about Bull Breeds and did ALOT of networking .

I want to thank all those who supported EGAR and bought raffle tickets.

Bea's Bloodhound drew quite a crowd as well!! And Jack the Lad has a VERY serious enquiry from one of the petexpo peeps .

All in all I enjoyed it massively.

Oh and Morgan stayed with me overnight, I had petfriendly accomodation . The stand was sponsored for EGAR otherwise I would not have been able to afford it.

Hellrazer

We didnt bother in the end.A friend was there and said it was way too overpriced for what it was.

It would have cost us the best part of 50 euros for the whole clan :eek::eek:

ThunderCat

Went there yesterday for the first time and was dissapointed. There is no way that they should be allowing people that sell carpets, vibrating chairs and shoes in the door. For a Pet Expo there wasnt even that many pets.
All credit to the few people who did buy stalls to showcase their pets. I enjoyed looking at the different types of pigeons, snakes, birds of prey and donkeys and the highlight for me was holding a harris hawk. Lovely animal. But the ironic thing is, I popped into a pet shop in santry on the way home and had a better time there!
The organisers should take heed. We dont mind spending the money if we are getting value for money, and unfortunatly yesterday was certainly not.
But once again, fair play to the few pet lovers that did showcase their pets there and the people who were there to generate awareness for animal rescue causes etc. Well done to you.

Sean Quagmire

I went to this two years ago and it was the biggest load of rubbish! Absolute rip off and we left after about 40 mins. Im only seeing this thread now and Im sorry I didnt get in here earlier to tell people about it.

Its all a big money maker for them, stay clear next year!

Kyri

3 of us went and as it was our first time we didnt know what to expect.
Thought it was rather expensive but we did enjoy looking at all the animals.

Very dissappointed that we couldnt find anything for the kittens bar from Molly's which we buy online from anyways. Was hoping to get a nice cat climbing frame from the place advertised on the petexpo site but they weren't there on saturday not sure if they where there at all.

Got a few different types of food for them to try and that was pretty much it.

super_metroid

you would find just as much pet stuff at a market....

What do shoe sellers and carpet salesmen have to do with pets lol...

and we paid to see them...

Bluefrog

I think you must mean Tails n' Trails - www.tailsandtrails.ie.

I can't comment on the Pet Expo as I wasn't there but I can say that www.lostandfoundpets.ie saw a large increase in traffic over the weekend and I guess it was most likely because of Pet Expo and particularly because TnT have been really generous supporters and promoters of the site so I'd like to publicly thank them for showing no bs commitment to lost and found pets in Ireland.

Take it handy on the bike!

kamaosju wrote: »

I was there today, was very impressed with the club that promotes exercising with your dog, think they have meets every so often.
I ended up coming home and getting my old bike out of the shed, going to give it a good dust down tomorrow. Looking forward to getting my guys going with the bike. My neighbors will think I've gone mad!
They were the highlight for me today, enjoyed the display too.

Alun

Vel wrote: »

I agree, it was totally rubbish and a complete rip off for what was on offer. Way too many non animal related stalls and I felt there wasn't enough variety with the animal stalls. I couldn't believe how small it was too. I was expecting another room full of stalls. We did a circuit of the place in less than 10 minutes. €30 for entrance fees and parking equals the biggest waste of money I have spent this year :mad:

TBH the same goes for each and every expo/exhibition they hold there regardless of the subject matter. Utterly pathetic. I went to the Ideal Home Exhibition or whatever they call it, and if it weren't for the fact that I got the tickets for free, I'd have asked for my money back.

TskTsk

Alun wrote: »

TBH the same goes for each and every expo/exhibition they hold there regardless of the subject matter. Utterly pathetic. I went to the Ideal Home Exhibition or whatever they call it, and if it weren't for the fact that I got the tickets for free, I'd have asked for my money back.

Agree absolutely. Is there really a complete lack of quality products for pets in the marketplace, or could they just not be bothered to attend? I don't remember seeing anything interesting for cats there.

Orla K

TskTsk wrote: »

Agree absolutely. Is there really a complete lack of quality products for pets in the marketplace, or could they just not be bothered to attend? I don't remember seeing anything interesting for cats there.

I didn't see much about cats there, it was really just dogs, afew birds and then random stuff, also the odd donkey&pony outside.

But I did get a ball thing that I put food inside and they kick it around to get the food out. (keeps them busy) I did have a look around for cat collars but the quick release glow in the dark ones were nowhere to be found.

Luckily I was up early and avoided the ques outside (they were crazy on Sunday afternoon)


I also saw a holloween costume for a cat, very tempted, just for the laugh I don't think she would have liked me putting it on her, it wasn't worth it for the money, and the damage it would have done to my arms.

fonda

Howitzer wrote: »

€12 entry into somewhere you will end up spending more money on food / shopping is ridiculous.
I knew it would be a rip-off, but went as I'm looking at dog breeds at the moment. Thanks to all who brought their own dogs - it was the best way to see those breeds.
I saw a lovely Shiba Inu and a nice Jack/springer cross.

Absolutely rubbish representation for cat owners. Poor.

That was my shiba inu ya seen, girlfriend brought her and said the attention she got was unbelievable! she had to leave one of the stage shows cause nobody was watching it they were all watching my puppy!!! she said the pet expo itself was fairly crap though!

aboutimeilogin!

crock of crap! went the last few times, free passes! avoided it this year with free passes, nonsense! pure nonsense, all about €€€€€ wrong location, wrong stalls, wrong organisers! pets just an excuse to run a gathering of people with a few quid in their pockets! i'm pro pets but this expo so wasn't!

ca3nie

Howitzer wrote: »

€12 entry into somewhere you will end up spending more money on food / shopping is ridiculous.
I knew it would be a rip-off, but went as I'm looking at dog breeds at the moment. Thanks to all who brought their own dogs - it was the best way to see those breeds.
I saw a lovely Shiba Inu and a nice Jack/springer cross.

Absolutely rubbish representation for cat owners. Poor.

That was me there on saturday with Suki my Shiba Inu, only stayed for about an hour it was far to warm in the venu felt sorry for the dogs that had to stay there all day. €12 was to dear for such a small show. Went last year and loved it. The only highlight of the day was the attention Suki got she loved it, she's a right little poser

Hellrazer

ca3nie wrote: »

That was me there on saturday with Suki my Shiba Inu, only stayed for about an hour it was far to warm in the venu felt sorry for the dogs that had to stay there all day. €12 was to dear for such a small show. Went last year and loved it. The only highlight of the day was the attention Suki got she loved it, she's a right little poser

Beautiful dogs and my next is a Shiba Inu.Do you mind me asking where you got her?