Rescue Dog Turns Netrepreneur – Kevin the Collie Dog Advice Site For Dogs Everywhere

London, Tuesday 22 March 2007 - Two years ago, Kevin the Collie, an eight year old Collie from London, was in a desperate state. Abandoned by his previous owners on London’s busy A40 highway, there could have been no future for this black and tan dog. But two lucky breaks changed his fortunes for the better. First, he was spotted by a voluntary worker from the nearby Mayhew Animal Home in Willesden. This is a Rescue Centre that vows never to put a healthy dog down, so they took Kevin in and offered him for rehoming. Had he been taken to the Police pound Kevin would probably not be alive today. Many Animal Rescue Centres will euthanize older dogs because they find they cannot find homes for all of them. It is a sad fact that most owners are looking for a puppy or young adult dog.

Kevin was duly installed in his cosy room at the rescue centre and waited to find out his future. Then his second break happened. Flora, his future Mum, was looking for a dog. ‘I wanted a Collie or a cross breed, a rough and tumble furry sort of dog’. A chance conversation at the gym put her in touch with a volunteer carer for the Mayhew. This lady visited the home regularly and alerted Flora to Kevin’s arrival. When Flora arrived Kevin had been in the centre for three days. She was shown into his room and Kevin walked up to her and nuzzled into her bag – looking for food, like any self respecting dog. The rest is history, of course. As soon as Kevin the Collie had been in the home for seven days he could be legally adopted, so Flora returned at the appointed time and took him home.

‘Adopting Kevin the Collie is the best thing I have done – for all concerned. He is loved and cared for, we get a faithful intelligent companion who makes friends with everyone he meets.’ The interest in dogs and their care grew quickly as Flora learned to train and care for Kevin. As she was starting to work online they designed a blog for Kevin to write about his adventures, and a web page to keep track of the dog care advice that they were amassing. We called the blog Top-dog-tips, and set it up at Blogger. The web pages were on a sub domain on my web site. Six months later, the site was getting a lot of traffic and it was obvious that we needed t be a bit more serious. So now Kevin the Collie has his very own domain, www.top-dog-tips.com. After just a few days, Kevin’s new web site has been attracting almost as many visitors – four-legged and two-legged as before, so we realise this was the right move. There are plans to research into diet and the link with dogs’ health, so there will be plenty of new material over the coming weeks. Many dogs suffer from chronic conditions and allergies, including skin rashes. Kevin suffers from this in the warmer months so he will be relating his experiences of using holistic cures at www.top-dog-tips.com.

For the lighter side of Kevin's new life, his blog includes reviews of his favourite pubs and dog friendly places to visit- http://top-dog-tips.blogspot.com