Hey

Right I'm looking for a little bit of help and NO debates!

I have been asked by my manager if I will do the nutrition training evening at work (PAH) for all the staff before I leave, which I have agreed to do.

Now I can't go into too much depth because 1) I'm not qualified to do so and 2) they don't need too much information. just enough!

So, although this will only be the training in one store I am hoping for advice, I'm working on going though scenario's of what customers have asked me in the past, as a basis of what knowledge I'm going to try and teach them and get them to understand.

So is there anything anyone feels is a must know peice of information for a PAH staff member?

Hope this makes sence and that you can help.

please remember though this will have to be kept to products that PAH sells, wet and drya nd these staff members have been taught dry food = best all wet food = not good, including ND, NM etc!

er... i suppose the general requirements for different lifestages etc? like the amount of protein, certain vits etc as a pup, adult, pregnancy etc? and maybe a bit of variation for different sizes (like what toys need as opposed to giants etc)

not sure if thats any help

good suppliments for different things and how they can help avoid or help with certain medical issues?

not sure if that helps

Thanks.  the first bit is what I was thinking along the lines of anyway.  So thats ideal. 

however

>good suppliments for different things and how they can help avoid or help with certain medical issues

Do you mean like addding glucosomine tablets for joints and garlic tablets for fleas etc?

yeah that sort of thing, maybe stuff for joints like green lipped muscle or maybe even things that came up on the thread about helping with fertility?

>helping with fertility

And encorage pet people to breed??? I'm afraid here in Bradford theres already enoughy akita, staffy and "pit bull" litters.....not to mention the others!

i did have that concern as i typed it... i suppose the folk you;d want to be helping with breeding probably would get advise from mentors not PAH staff, so scratch that one!

Yea, those who try and get advise from me normally end up with horror stories about loosing £1000's of pounds and the bitch!  Oh I'm so nice arn't I?  Obviously I will help those who have litters do the best by the pups! :)

I'm looking forward to doing this training but nervous aswell as it's the first time I've done something like this.  It's just the managers feels I would be better doing so as I have more knowledge then they do on the subject.

sounds like a really good thing to be doing, and it's always good to have extra stuff for the cv :)

Hiya,

when do you have to have the training stuff sorted by?  I had to do this in our store last year and am still having to train and re-train people....(though 9 times out of 10 if its dog related then its a 'get Robyn' sceneario regardless to whether or not I am working LOL)

One of the big things I find useful and good to teach others is how to read the packets correctly with regards to the colourings, derivitates, meat content, food content, is it primareily meat or cereal etc etc.  Then I went through the life stage thing with them, and making sure to treat each case as an individual as not all are the same (despite what they like to believe!  Puppy = puppy, all pups are the same erm no no they are not!)

Scenarios I have had a lot of include the whole breeding/rearing of litters etc (again not something i would encourage the average joe but there you go), overweight, skin allergies, stomach trouble, protein levels (get that one a lot!), hyperactivity, training problems, joint problems, stinky dogs etc etc i'm sure you know of them yourself but their the few recents I can think of.  oh and how to make a dog put on weight but healthily!

Also just a thought but has your manager given you access to the nutrition centre training material you can get?

Thats funny what you say though regards to the wet food all being bad.  In our store I have impressed on people that if the customer wants the wet give them the decent stuff and even the managers don't seem to mind us making people switch over to it and actively do it themselves (although yeah it doesn't go to the nutrition centre bonus I believe...oh well lol I dont like to think bonus bonus i like to think whats best for the dog!)

Did you do the royal canin training session at all??  If you did or know who has the RC training material, there is some useful stuff in there which can be used to dog nutrition in general

Hope thats of a help, if I get the chance tomorrow I'll go through all my work and see what I can dig out :)

Hi.  My managers going to pull me off some nutrition stuff she has, but if you have anything I could use that would be great!!!! :-D

Unfortantly we are only a small store up here and very much everything is just believe what HO say and thats that, untill I come in and question most things, including "X store does it like this" as I was transfrd when I came to uni!!!

I didn't get the RC training.  only nutrition training I've had was PAH and then I disagreed with so much and add so much more vital things in!  Ohwell!

I do have my own info on afew of the brands (including a possible new organic brand)  and I have Victoria Stillwells Fat dog Slim book which I feel has alot of good points in so will be using that for my reseach. 

I'm doing the training in a couple of weeks (1st june)

I'm not disrgarding the good wet foods at all in this training and Chappie will be coming up for upset tummies!

Most things you've mentioned I do know about, or know where to find out about (and no not just CD!)  But it's great to be reminding for when I start getting it together

>....(though 9 times out of 10 if its dog related then its a 'get Robyn'

Same here, for dogs its "get Rox"

>doesn't go to the nutrition centre bonus

Bonus?  Bonus? I got a measly ammount of bonus in my pay packet it really wasn't even worth it!  Not compared for my brothers "I work for JL and get a 20% bonus because we had a great year and xmas period" and ended up with....well enough to pay the insurance on his car!  Mine brought  me....a Cheep suit for an interview for a job I didn't get! LOL  rant over...promise!

Also have you got any hints and tip then on what to really stress?  What I should do to make it more interesting for people to listen to?  Did you just want a trip to Bradford? :-D

Hi-ya,

That's cool, I have some of that stuff printed off the computer, its basic but good for giving to trainee's as such.  Get the Nutrition booklet as well from head office, can't remember what it says now mind you lol

Yeah we too are a really small store compared to all the others in our area. I've worked in a lot of the stores in the south area and visited others for meetings etc, mind you i always look at the nutrition centres and usually pick holes in them LOL or think dammit I wanna stock X, Y Z etc.

ahh the RC training stuff was quite cool, the rep left a rather sizeable booklet with whover they trained.  Ask your manager and see if they still have it, but having said that I have our stuff and its not in our store LOL

Thats cool, I can't think right now what else has been mentioned/common.  When I come up with more I shall post them

>....(though 9 times out of 10 if its dog related then its a 'get Robyn'

Same here, for dogs its "get Rox"


haha yeah, had this today actually,  Get a call when I am on my lunch to get back to work to help someone with a little dog and a tick.  Well their idea of a little dog and a tick is a 5month old puppy (labrador Cross so not a small dog at all!) whom is tick infested despite using frontline and having a complaint for our manager/SQP....did make me wonder but there we go!

ahh my bonus wasn't too bad, but then I think that comes from the amount of hours I made during the Brentford refit.  Well the bonus paid for me to go to Kos for the week and the rest is in my puppy fund :) :D (fingers crossed that she takes!)  Mind you, our DM kept going on about how he was going to get a bonus of over 3grand....he got 1200 BEFORE tax!!!  hahahaha I couldnt stop laughing at him, shall teach him to brag!!!

Tips to stress mind.....I would really go on firstly at the how to read a bag of dog food and to show and teach the customer how to also as thats usually the thinkg most people just dont do.  if they don't show the customer then how do they know we're not just trying to sell sell sell??  To make it interesting I just used examples of situations I'd been in espech those which are either rather odd, strange or just plain funny, normally keeps peoples attention!  Source of the protein is a good point to stress as well as most people seem obsesssed with protein levels!!!

haha road trip to Bradford would be fun!!  Though doubt they'd let me go lol