Scales and Tails Pet sitting and dog walking services

09/01/2024

Deb enjoyed some time with Ghost this evening. In the first picture he was giving Deb nose tickles.
Hopefully if we keep getting them out and socialising them they might be able to bring them to events soon!

02/01/2024

A new coat for Ishca for the new year

01/01/2024

⚠️ warning ⚠️ 8 legs appear in this video!!!

Excuse my voice and the mess following Christmas but here is our newest addition, Tallulah.

A massive shout out to Jason at Urban Exotics for taking the time to help my husband and I to understand and handle spiders. We actually have a small fear of spiders ourselves. It may not appear in this video like I have but that is down to the patience Jason had to build up our confidence and understanding of these incredible creatures. I've held them before and I don't mind that, in fact I like tarantulas (I'm still working on my fear of house spiders). My problem was how to get them out calmly without getting scared if they move quickly.
So like some of you who are scared of snakes and we say 'don't be, we will help you get over your fear', we also, put our money where our mouths are, and try to conquer ours too. I genuinely feel after being with Jason that I am much better as seen in this video.
Life's too short... Face your fears!

31/12/2023

A new year's eve treat for the new furbies. Happy new year everyone 🥂🎉 ###

29/12/2023

Very pleased and excited to introduce you all to our newest members of the family chinchillas, Ghost and Shadow.
They are unbelievably soft like putting your hand through a cloud. I love them so much. Ghost is definitely the boss of the two but they are a bonded pair, brothers through and through.
Welcome!
Can't wait to bring them along to our events and animal therapy. Keep a look out on their progress. Merry Christmas everyone and a happy New year to you all x

20/12/2023

Not to milk it for all we are worth or anything but the professional photos have come through from our award ceremony...

19/12/2023

Your thoughts are required everyone...

We have the opportunity to take on some chinchillas. I've always liked them and this intensified after holding one on my hen do!

My question to you guys is, in your opinion do you think adding mammals to our events and parties will make us more desirable to book, less desirable or make no difference?
People can obviously choose if they want them or not but do you think it will be beneficial to add these lovely creatures to our little family?
Our competitors seem to have a few mammals so I'm trying to work out if this is maybe something our business is missing or are our reptiles enough? We've certainly only ever had positive feedback about our reptiles and events but what do you lot think?

Thanks in advance

11/12/2023

We could not be any prouder
To receive these great awards.
To have it publicly acknowledged
what we have worked so hard towards.

We’re Pet Sitting Service of The Year
(Which we’ve won two years in a row!)
And Best Animal Encounters
So why not give us a go!

We want to thank you for our votes,
Our customers, old and new.
We know Yorkshire Prestige Awards
recognised us because of you.

Thanks to DeeDee the bearded dragon,
Tilly and Rossi - our Tortoise friends
Taylor, Klaus, Ramona, Lilly,
Oscar and all our other gems.

We don’t just do Children’s parties,
We’ve done Hen and Stag do’s too.
School talks, birthdays, village fates
So, think what we can do for you

Scales and Tails is versatile.
We can offer everything,
We even had one of our snakes
Bearing our wedding ring.

So why not think outside the box
When making plans of what to do
Education or just for fun
We’ll have something just for you.

Still overwhelmed by these awards. We've won 3 since setting up in lockdown 2020 and it's unbelievable! It truly is the best job we've ever had. Will never look back. We've such lovely clients; furry, scaley and the human kind too! Thank you so much to you all for all the support we've had... Long may it continue 🥳🎉🎈

Poem by Personalised Poetry (Nat is a gem. Please check out her page)

26/11/2023

Just a reminder to all you lovely folk.
We also offer some pet sitting at our home, mostly available for reptiles, and snakes, though we are open to conversations about other animals too. Just get in touch to ask us for more information.

In house reptile sitting gives you the opportunity to have your pets continue to be socialised, have regular interaction and you know they are well cared for whilst you are away from home.

We offer two alternatives for this, using our vivariums or your own.
If you use our vivs it'll be £8 per day, and if you would prefer your own this is available from £7 per day.

We have currently got availability for bookings for the Christmas and New Year period too so get in touch if you think we could help you

24/11/2023

Hi all, just wondering if there's any lovely volunteers out there who are happy to help at a Christmas fair at Gorseybrigg school in dronfield 5-7 on 7th december.
Unfortunately I'm a little shy of Santas little helpers and I'm hoping to have someone run a tombola and lucky dip for us to help raise funds for us. A free private 1-2-1 reptile handling session is on offer to anyone who is happy to help.
If any of my reptile experienced friends also want to be extra animal handlers I'd appreciate it. So far only me and Declan available and I know how busy we will be so the more animals out at once the less impatient people will get.

Thank you in advance!

10/11/2023

Another reminder guys that it's Diwali this weekend so lots of fireworks 🎆🎇🎆🎇

Be prepared and keep your furry loved ones safe!!!

09/11/2023

As Christmas is coming near I'm calling out to all schools and anyone else putting on Christmas fairs who still has availability for a stall for us to put on a tombola and a lucky dip to help us raise funds to continue our educational opportunities whilst also show casing what we do by bringing a few animals along too!
Please get in touch if you know of any. In the meantime enjoy a lovely photo of the gorgeous Klaus on our dog walk this morning.
Thank you 😊

08/11/2023

Autumn 🍁 has very much arrived. Me and Rose are enjoying the beautiful colours in grenoside woods today.

What are you up to? I'd love to see photos of your animal friends 😻🐶🐹🐰🐢🐍🦎🐸🐁

07/11/2023

In case you weren't aware everyone it's the Hindu celebration of Diwali on Sunday 12th November.

This means more dreaded fireworks!!! Please be prepared and keep your pets indoors

05/11/2023

🎆Whilst fireworks are all fun and games for us they can cause quite a lot of distress to pets🎆
Here's a few bits of advice that may help you help your pets during this load and noisey time.

🎆Close windows and curtains to muffle the sound of fireworks

🎆Put on a the TV or radio to help reduce the sound too (Classic FM have a really helpful pets playlist they are playing tonight with songs to help calm your pet)

🎆🐕walk your dogs earlier in the day so they are less likely to need to go out during the fireworks

🎆🐈Try to keep cats indoors if you know they are bothered by fireworks

🎆Try to create a safe place for your pet, with things they like, e.g blankets, toys, etc some dogs will prefer a crate, where they can feel safe

Hope you all have a lovely fireworks night whether at home or out celebrating. Keep yourself and your pets safe.

05/11/2023

We had a fantastic time at both our Halloween and bonfire events at The Walkley cottage. Thank you to everyone who came along and showed their support and interest in all of our animals and what we do. It gives us great pleasure to provide these opportunities to the public and educate people of the ways of reptiles. Very misunderstood creatures but with good care and understanding can provide much love and pleasure.

Please do leave us a review on Facebook and post any photos you're happy to share. It really does do the world of difference for us. We are very proud to announce that we have won Best Animal encounter company in Yorkshire and it is largely down to the fabulous reviews we have on Facebook so please do continue to leave these and hopefully we can win it next year too, as we did for the second year in a row for Best pet sitters in Yorkshire. Very proud and overwhelmed

02/11/2023

Here's Freya and Charlie at our event at Walkley Cottage last week
We will be there again this weekend for their fireworks 🎇 (on Saturday, 6-8 ish) with our animals.
If anyone has any photos from our Halloween event 🎃👻 we would love to see them!
And can't wait to see some more of you at this weekends event!

28/10/2023

Hope to see you all dressed up and ready for snakes and lizards at the walkley cottage tomorrow from 4!
Be there if you dare!!!!

25/10/2023

Meet the team
💛Noodle 🍝
Noodle is often one of our slightly overlooked snakes, she moves very quickly and quite fancies herself as an escape artist, because of this she doesn't very often come to events and parties etc. But think of her as a special extra to get to see if you come to ours for an animal handling experience.

Noodle is an albino checkered garter snake

Remember we are still taking animal handling experiences for this week and next during the day times for half term, so get in touch if you'd like to come and meet her or some of our other animals who don't get out and about as often.

20/10/2023

Meet the team
🦎Dahrio 🔥
Dahrio is a fire skink. He is very different looking to our Peters Banded Skinks.
He joined the family just after the wedding, back in April, he was a wedding gift from family.

18/10/2023

One of the newest members of the scales and tails crew
🟠Tango🟠
Tango was purchased at the event that was held at back in September!
He is a boa constrictor and quite an active snake really!
He will make for another big snake for the team!
He is settling in pretty well at home, but we are just giving him time to settle in properly before he comes to events. But if you come to ours for an animal encounter experience you can see him there.

23/09/2023

Hi everyone!
Bit of a different one this time. We are getting more and more enquiries to re-home reptiles and we try our best to either take them in or move them on to the right people as a go between but the cost of keeping all of these animals is getting astronomical. We've got various Vivs set up for boarding that we use for rehoming or temporary foster care but what we are really struggling with at the moment, besides the food etc, is the cost of bowls and hides, large ones in particular.
If we choose to keep the reptile then obviously we provide them with what they need but we have several of our own animals needing to upgrade bowl size and having taken others on for people we are struggling to cover the cost of these required upgrades. Large bowls cost nearly £50 and even then they are not that large.
I'm not going to ask for monetary donations, what am wondering is if any of you have any spare reptile safe bowls and hides lying around that you are no longer making use of, if you'd like to help us continue our work please donate them to us. It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance ☺️.
Here's a snake yawn pic for you

07/09/2023

Calling out to all schools, libraries and book shops!!!

We are looking for anyone celebrating book week this year that would like to choose a jungle/animal themed book to read and then have us come along afterwards with our reptiles for the children/public to get the opportunity to hold, learn about and photograph with our incredible creatures.

If you or any organisation you know of would be interested please do get in touch and pass us on for something different and unusual for this year's book week!!!

P.s we have just won best animal encounter company in Yorkshire 2023/24... Don't take prestige awards word for it... Find out for yourselves

24/06/2023

Scales and Tails is growing!
Please welcome Sarah to the crew
She'll be helping out on Thursdays
With dog walks and admin too.

She's quirky, fun and active
And hard working through and through,
But also likes to relax
With a book and with a brew

We are glad to have her on board
(It's about time our family grew!)
We can't wait to introduce her
To clients old and new.

Everyone please give Sarah (and Willow) a big wave and welcome her to the team

(Poem lovingly created by Personalised Poetry)

27/05/2023

01/05/2023

We have a really lovely set of dogs that we walk regularly now and the dog walking and pet sitting side of the business is basically taking care of itself which is awesome! So we are really wanting to push our reptile encounter business further. This leads me to our amazing new offer...

We would like to offer a huge discount of 50% off to anyone who would like to book in advance regular monthly slots for us to come to your premises with our scaley friends!
We are hoping that rather than you booking us once and not having us back for a year or so that we can build a great relationship with you, your customers/residents/students on a more regular basis.
We would look to do shorter sessions, maybe just bringing 2 to 4 animals so that each time we come we can bring different ones but we can be flexible on what you are looking for. Our ideal would be to book out times after our dog walks to fill in those gaps so from 3pm onwards but this offer is not restricted to this especially for schools!
We are particularly interested in care homes, special needs schools, public schools and colleges, kids clubs, libraries, preschools/kids play areas/nurseries. But anyone can take advantage of this offer!
Animal therapy is really incredible and we have done a few special needs schools now and have found it so rewarding so we really want to do more and tap into the care homes too. But as well as that we would like preschool age groups to start them early, getting them used to these incredible creatures whilst they are young.
Please share, like and tell anyone you think could benefit from putting on these types of events. It really is a fantastic opportunity to receive amazing reptile handling experiences!

30/04/2023

We will be there guys!!! Hope you will be too. God save the king 👑

🤴 SATURDAY 6th MAY! 🤴

👑 Coronation ceremony celebrations come the The Banner Cross! 👑

We have face painting, the big lunch buffet and a visit from Scales and Tails Pet sitting and dog walking services 🐉 🐍
We will also have a craft table for the kiddies! 🎨🖌️

All families welcome! 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦👨‍👩‍👧‍👦