As we do not have a marketing or advertising budget, we rely heavily on word of mouth in order for people to hear about the service and this article will hopefully find it’s way into the the hands of those that desperately need assistance.

A big thank you to Janice Holland, Editor of Your Pet Magazine and Tricia Wiles from Purrfect Pawtraits Photography.

This blog post is likely to be one of the most important I have ever written. It’s about making a stand against something that no pet owner should ever have to experience: surrendering their animal because they can’t find a pet friendly rental property in which to live.

As many of you who have been with me from the start will know, I have battled for a long time with how I could make my ideas for Pet Friendly Rentals come to life. In June this year I developed and released a small but significant piece of software which was the first step towards achieving this goal.

Because of this, pet owners Australia-wide can search for pet friendly rentals across several suburbs in minutes instead of hours, greatly increasing their chances of finding a suitable property. And while I’m happy with this progress, there is still so much more to be done.

With this in mind, I remembered something that a friend once asked me: “What would you do if you weren’t afraid and if you knew you would succeed?” The answer, of course, is that I would take my vision for all that Pet Friendly Rentals could be and give it everything I have (and more).

And that’s exactly what I’m now going to do – once and for all - and my plan is that by January 2009, Pet Friendly Rentals will essentially become my full time job!

What does this mean for Pet Friendly Rentals?

In order for me to be able to give Pet Friendly Rentals the time and effort it deserves, I will need to introduce a one-off charge of $9.95 for people to download the extension. This will help pay for the time it takes me to keep the tool working and to continue to develop it over time.

I’ve also decided to allow other businesses to advertise on the site. The details are still being determined but feel free to contact me if you’re interested as I will only have a limited amount of places available and at this stage, advertising will start on the 1st of November.

I’m also investigating the possibility of selling a limited range of pet products, toys and Pet Friendly merchandise on the site – partly to promote the Pet friendly Rentals brand and mission, but also to help raise the funds I need to devote enough time to this cause.

What are the benefits?

I have such a great vision for what Pet friendly Rentals can become and I know how desperately this service is needed. If the funds generated from all these avenues are enough for me to devote myself to this full time, I will be able to develop the existing extension so it will work with other real estate web sites (not just realestate.com.au) in a fraction of the time it would take if I was only able to work on it in my ‘spare’ time. I could also fulfill my plan of integrating the Pet Friendly Rentals site with features such as ‘Developing your Pet Friendly Resume’, ‘ Viewing my recent listings’ and many other features I have been wanting to introduce.

The software extension aside, there are also many other activities I need to undertake in order to make Pet Friendly Rentals all it can be. This includes liaising with real estate agencies to improve the number of pet friendly listings they make available, educating home owners on the tangible benefits of renting to pet owners, building a national database of pet friendly private homes and carer facilities. And that’s just the beginning.

Many wonderful people and organisations are doing a lot of this already and by using my web development and technical skills, I want to add strength and a new dimension to this important campaign.

How can you help?

I know this move will surprise many people and you can’t underestimate how much I wish I could just do this for free in my spare time, but that choice would come at too great a cost to all those pets out there that need a pet friendly home now… not next week, not next year, but right now. It’s time for pets to come first!

If you want to help me achieve my goal of dedicating more of my time to this vital cause, spread the word about Pet friendly Rentals to renting pet owners everywhere. Together I hope we can help prevent the unthinkable happening to them.

Cheers,
Ryan

Since then, Firefox version 3 has been released which contains many important performance and security enhancements so I strongly recommend you upgrade as soon as possible.

How to tell if you need to upgrade?

In Firefox, from the top menu, go to Help, then select “About Mozilla Firefox”. If the window that pops up indicates that you have any form of version, e.g. 2.0.0.16, then you will need to upgrade.

How to upgrade

Go to http://www.getfirefox.com and click on the large green button to download Firefox 3. Once downloaded, install it, following the instructions you’re given. Firefox 3 will automatically take care of importing your old bookmarks and compatible extensions, including Pet Friendly Rentals. This means that when you next open Firefox, the Pet Friendly Rentals extension will already be there.

If you experience any problems, post a comment below.

Cheers,
Ryan

Essentially, this is a maintenance release with no new functionality but I have some great new features planned that I hope to start work on mid September.

How to upgrade

Firefox will automatically check for updates every so often so you should get the upgrade soon but if you want to upgrade immediately:

1. From the top menu, go to Tools.
2. Click on Add-ons. A window will popup.
3. Then click on the Find Updates button at the bottom left of the window.

A quick update

Although the site hasn’t changed much since the launch on the 2nd of June, a fair bit has been happening behind the scenes with the Animal Welfare League on the Gold Coast, RSPCA QLD and Your Pet Magazine helping out with some promotional efforts that should see the light of day soon.

With most of my time taken up with the development of the website and the Firefox extension, marketing and promoting of the site often get forced to the back of the line so if you know of someone who could benefit from this website, make sure you let them know!

Before I go…

I recently went into a pet store near where I live at Wynnum to get some treaties for Tonka, when out of the blue one of the assistants blurted out “I found a rental through your website!”. I remembered telling the staff of the store about my idea just after I had launched it and it was so wonderful and rewarding to hear how someone found and acquired a rental as a result of Pet Friendly Rentals.

So if you have a similar story you’d like to share, please either email me at ryan.blunden@petfriendlyrentals.comau or leave a comment for this post. It’s stories like these that really make my day, as saving pet’s lives is why I started this project in the first place.

Cheers,
Ryan Blunden

The tool that we’ve developed (technically known as a Firefox Web browser extension) enables pet owners to search supported online real estate websites in the usual way, but to be able to quickly identify those properties that allow pets at a single glance rather than having to read through the full description of the property only to find that the last line says “no pets allowed”.

Please note that at the moment, the extension only supports Real Estate.com.au but more real estate websites will be supported as development continues.

So how does this new service work?

The new and improved Pet Friendly Rentals site provides a software extension that works with the popular Firefox web browser, which you can download and then use when you’re searching rental listings on Real Estate.com.au. The extension brands each pet friendly rental listing with our paw-print logo, highlights it with a red border and includes the words “pet friendly” in the property heading text.

This means that you can easily see whether a rental property allows pets straight away and you’ll get through hundreds of listings in the time it normally takes to go through dozens. Also, the extension displays the full property description text, just in case the extension fails to correctly identify a property as pet friendly.

At this stage, the extension works only with Real Estate.com.au – and this was chosen as the first website as it is one of the largest online real estate sites in Australia. In time, the extension will also be able to be used on other real estate sites. To see the simple step by step process for downloading and using this tool, go to the Help page.

We also have many exciting plans for the new site now that it’s up and running, so stay tuned.

We’d also love to hear your feedback so please feel free to drop me a line at: info@petfriendlyrentals.com.au

Thanks,

Ryan Blunden

Founder, Pet Friendly Rentals.

The Animal Welfare League received countless numbers of pets each year from families who can’t keep them anymore because they can’t find a home. Not all of the animals they receive can be placed in new care so anything we can do to help prevent the surrender of our four-legged and feathered family members makes a difference.

Look out for a special feature article to be published by the Animal Welfare League very soon.