Choice Pet Supplies Hemel Hempstead

08/02/2025

Not Hemel, but look at him! Lucky boy.

One of today's very good boys, with his jumbo moose toy which he picked for himself.

07/02/2025

We are now stocking water-resistant fleeces for Dachshunds, in a range of sizes. We are only stocking the green and the mulberry to start with, but if you look on the Pawsome Suits website, there are lots of other colours you can order through us. The stock is in our Hemel store, and it will be landing in Radlett from 9am tomorrow.

05/02/2025

We have this new Kong Cat Punch Bag in both stores. The sucker sticks to any smooth and flat surface.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1493346514653058

02/02/2025

We are now stocking Nutriment's 'Gently Steamed' range. A great backup for raw feeders; 68% meat and gently cooked. You don't need to store it in the fridge or the freezer.

29/01/2025

Today I took a video of myself taking one of Hillier's big trolleys from their car park to our shop. It took about 90 seconds, with me only using one hand. The camera was facing downwards quite often, because I didn't want to film the various customers and staff I met on this epic journey.

29/01/2025

So far everyone has been quite kind to us about the new rules for the gate. We can still load your car for you, if your purchase is difficult to take through the garden centre, but the car needs to be parked in the garden centre carpark while you are doing your shopping, and then you can bring it round when you are ready so we can help you load up.
I can't say I'm not worried. The past 12 months have been a struggle since I made the crazy decision to open a second store in Radlett, and the business needs to grow in sales over the next few months if it is going to survive. Some of our customers who used to go to Hemel are now going to the Radlett store, which is great, but this means Hemel is making less money than it did before, and Radlett still needs to grow in sales before it is generating profit. We are getting there, slowly. The total sales for the business have increased since I opened the Radlett store, but they are still being outweighed by the extra staffing and rental costs. The overall trend is upwards, so as long as that continues then everything will be fine. Trust me when I say that we want to offer the best service we can, but we don't want to jeopardise our place in Hillier, so their clamp down on the use of the turn-in for parking is causing us some anxiety. Don't get mad at us, because we want to stay friends with you and we need your business.
I love it that these sort of posts get a lot of reaction; we really do have the best customers, who actually care about how things are going. It goes against the accepted rules of social media posting; 'keep it light, keep it short'. Recent events, including some which I shouldn't discuss here, have given me food for thought. One day we will get our own unit, where we can sell whatever you want to buy, wild bird food, fish food, and there will be parking right outside the store, and we can help you without any mucking around with locks and stress... it will happen one day. This business is what I and some of my staff intend to do with the rest of their lives, so by hook or by crook we are going to make this work.

27/01/2025

Hello everyone, I need to say a few words about the gate by our shop. Hillier's health and safety officer has told us that we must not use the turn-in for customer parking, because at times it can get quite choked there, which is quite dangerous when vehicles are turning in off the busy road. The other issue is that Hillier have been experiencing a lot of theft lately, and so they want that gate kept locked as much as possible.
The gate is only to be used for collecting bulky orders which can't be taken down to Hillier's carpark, using one of their trolleys. They always have barrows near their front entrance, and you could easily cart up to 100kg of dog food using one of these.
The gate is strictly for collections only, and not parking while you shop. If you are disabled, and walking up through the garden centre is difficult for you, then that is different. We will do our best not to fall out with anyone over this, and please don't take offence with us; this is not our garden centre, and not our gate! We don't want to compromise the good relationship we have with Hillier Garden Centres. Thank you!

26/01/2025

One of today's customers, rocking his new Pawsome Stretchy suit. Red is definitely his colour.

23/01/2025

A quick walk through of some of the new toys that came in today.

23/01/2025

We have some new poo bag holders, in a range of characters. They take any normal-sized rolls of poo bags and have a carabiner clip.

22/01/2025

Also in Hemel!

15/01/2025

We are now stocking the new Ancol 'Cove' beds, which have a hood which allows your dog to get right-in-there. Great for dogs who like to bury themselves in their bed. Demonstrated by Demo Dog and his polar bear mate.

15/01/2025

We have some new dog flotation aids in stock; Trixie 'Life Vests'. In the pictures we have Max, whose owner purchased one for a paddle boarding trip. They range between £27.99 and £44.99, which makes them very reasonably priced compared to some other brands.

12/01/2025

We are all quite excited by this new Kong newspaper. It is a metre long, has a few squeakers, it all rustles, and the 'articles' are actually quite amusing.

31/12/2024

Happy New Year everyone. We had a really good December as a business. We are very grateful to all of our regulars, and it has also been great to meet so many new customers and their dogs over the past few weeks. We are shut on New Year's Day, but Hillier Garden Centre will still be open. I am off to a friend's house to have a drink or five. See you all after tomorrow.🥂

27/12/2024

We are closed today, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. After being closed for three days, and tomorrow being Saturday, I thought I had better restock, so I have driven up to a depot in Luton to get what I can. My Ford van hasn't been beaten yet, but today was pretty close! I felt like I was doing a 'wheelie' on the way home.

21/12/2024

We had some big deliveries this week, and we are still very well stocked!