Herefordshire business news: Hereford company bucks economic downturn (From Hereford Times)

Herefordshire business news: Hereford company Animal Search UK bucks economic downturn

3:21pm Friday 20th January 2012 in Business By Mark Bowen

ONE Hereford company is bucking the trend and beating the economic downturn.

Animal Search UK is opening a new office and call centre in the city and has just recruited another full time team member in Jaimes Wall.

Tom Watkins, founder and former police officer, said: “We’ve grown from a small business set up in my dining room to the largest organisation of our kind in Europe.

"With a small fleet of missing pet patrol vehicles we are the only organisation in mainland Britain to offer a team of professionally trained and uniformed specialist search co-ordinators who will visit an area where an owner has reported a missing pet.

"We carry out police style door-to-door enquiries, searches of outbuildings in the community where, for example, a missing cat was last seen."

Every year over the last five the company has taken on more staff and deals with up to 100 reports a day of lost and found pets These are reported via its free website at www.animalsearchuk.co.uk where owners can publicise their pet with up to four photos free.

The company is also looking for a volunteer based at its city centre headquarters to manage its social networking sites. The work will provide a useful insight into the world of being a pet detective and may lead to employment with the team.