There are very few pet shops in Singapore we like very much; our basic belief centres around shops with truly knowledgeable and caring staff, shops with great cat-stuff, and those that don't sell animals because we believe in adoption. Apart from Angels Pet Shop, our only other favourite pet shop is Little Paws at Telok Kurau, which is pretty much the atas version of Angels: they have resident cats Queenie and Crombie - both previously strays, the shop is cat-friendly, and Kyra is extremely compassionate towards animals. We also frequent Pet Lovers Centre at Parkway for everything else we cannot buy from small shops; they only sell small animals, the staff there are knowledgeable - one of them even tries out the pet food herself so that she knows how they fare taste-wise. But of course, being Ubi residents we try to get our cat essentials from Angels to support meaningful, small pet businesses.
Which is why I have been busy helping Angels Pet Shop set up a blog.
It is still a work in progress, as you will see if you do visit the site, and also a very amateur attempt because I am no IT-trained geek - I graduated with a very general degree in management - but it can hopefully be harnessed to market Angels Pet Shop to pet owners, share its philosophy with netizens, and re-home other animals other than cats. In fact, at present there are other animals needing adoption at Angels right now (Syrian hamsters, 3 Netherland Dwarf rabbits and one Rex guinea pig), which I do not post here because I think cat people generally only want to read cat stuff; I made the only exception with Vietnam. Currently Andy helps out in the small animal adoption work by posting on online classified sites like 88db and Mocca.
Apart from the Angels blog, we sometimes hang out at the shop to (in Andy's case, he never owned a dog before) learn how to care for dogs, help clean up the shop, make signboards and labels (that's me, because I have girly handwriting), and act as Mandarin translators and pet educators for Chinese-speaking customers since Aswat is cakap melayu. We wish we could do more, such as invest in the shop, but we are poor folks. So we help out in other ways and derive enjoyment from doing so.
In fact, now would be an apt time to thank all of you who have gone out of your way to visit Angels Pet Shop from regions beyond Ubi, be it whether to adopt cats or to buy stuff. We know you are out there, wanting to adopt cats from Angels, reading about stuff at the shop like Angels Pet Shop cat grass and calling to ask for it (Aswat still hasn't gotten round to making a new batch for sale by the way).
For those of you who haven't yet been to the shop - here are some nearby Ubi shops and activities you might want to try, and hopefully pop by Angels at the same time.
- Big China (Da Zhong Guo) Mooncakes are on sale now at Blk 302! They are cheap and superb and come in really cool, retro brown paper bags.
- Along Ubi Ave 2 there are various wholesale foodstuff stores - roast meats, kueh-kueh, which are apparently very popular, evidenced by the long car-queues.
- For Easterners - Shop n Save at Blk 306 - the alternative to Sheng Siong @ Bedok Reservoir and Giant @ Parkway.
- At Ubi we virtually have every shop possible, except maybe a bookshop and a pharmacy. We have at least 2 bicycle shops, 2 spectacle shops, an aquarium shop, clinics belonging to all sorts of HMOs, TCM clinics, 2 cheap toiletries shops, around 17 coffee shops (1 with soccer), 3 hardware stores that sell everything, 3 electrical appliances shops, 3 bubble tea shops (1 is pet-friendly), 2 cheap cigarettes shops (save 80c per pack), 1 florist, 4 confectioneries... the list is endless.
- SPCA is not far from us, just 1 road - Paya Lebar Road - between Ubi and Bartley Road.
- Do some charity work beyond animal lives: at Blk 301 we have a Touch Community Services' branch that houses intellectually disabled folks. They have a thrift shop that the residents manage themselves as a social enterprise.
- Take a walk for good health in the east. Two good routes - take a walk in Bedok Reservoir, then head down (south?) to Ubi! Another is a route we like - walking from our house through Still Road to pass by 5 pet shops: Angels @ Ubi, Pet Tales @ Eunos (specialises in pedigree cats, though I am not their customer), Little Paws @ Telok Kurau, Benji Pet @ Telok Kurau (very cheap pet supplies) and finally Pet Lovers Centre at Parkway - 45mins in total, excluding shop visitation time. You can even head all the way to East Coast Park from Parkway after that...
- Envious of dog owners having doggie gatherings? We have cat gatherings in Ubi very often, usually involving only kittens because they are more sociable. It is real fun interacting with other cat owners and watching the kittens play and swear at one another.
- Of course, if you really don't want to travel, Angels actually does home delivery (evenings). Just call them up to ask.
Speaking of blogging, I still have a lot more posts I want to write here on Ubi Kuching Project. Thank you for reading, and do keep visiting!
