What’s New In Pet Entrepreneur PJ’s Bag After His Career Switch?

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Beijing’s an urban jungle, and in any jungle, we need tools to survive and thrive. As urban jungle dwellers, we’ve managed to blend practicality with style, resulting in the modern bag. Here, form meets function, and what looks stylish and fashionable on the outside contains all our essential survival tools on the inside. Inspired by this, we ask expats each week, “What’s in your bag?” and get insights into which essentials they keep on hand when out and about in the capital city.

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Hey Hey! My name is PJ, I’m a certified Australian Dog Trainer turned e-Commerce startup founder. My wife, Linny and I started Chateau Canine nearly six years ago. Originally, we had one small kennel, then we expanded, then we had two kennels, then in 2019 we started our online store. It’s been a ride.

2020 and 2021 were massive for us, in fact too massive, we wanted to refocus on what would help more animals the most, so we decided to sell our two custom-built kenneling facilities in Beijing. Now we just focus on our WeChat Public Account (chateaucanine) and our WeChat store (Chateau Canine), which can help you with just about everything you need for your dog or cat in China.

My bag’s old content was great, it served me very well for many years and it was everything I needed for working with dogs and their families across Beijing, the contents are the basic tools anyone needs to help doggy be their best:

• A collar and lead – keep the pup nearby when you’re working with them

• A clicker – it’s the way you show them they are doing a great job

• Treats – it’s the way you reinforce the great job they are doing

• Muzzle – Not all doggies play nice straight away, safety first as they say

• Poo bags – What goes in…must come out!!!

Most dog trainers struggle to get enough experience with dogs fast enough to really make a go of it. For us, with the kennels, it was the opposite. At any one time would have been housing between 50 and 80 dogs across the full spectrum of breeds. We had over 100 cameras in our facilities and 6 big screens that meant I was lucky enough to witness more dog behavior in a day than most people would in a lifetime. Whether it was play, eating, sleeping, pooping, aggression, surprise, fear or any other behavior under the sun, we saw it all.

The other thing you do when you have that many dogs in your care is a huge number of meals, we were doing more than 3000 meals per month, for years! As I mentioned above, what goes in…must come out! What we learnt from all those meals and poops is that it matters what you feed your dog. We had hundreds of return clients send their dogs and their dog food to us for years, this meant that we saw how the dog’s health and wellness changed over time, how their weight, skin, eyes, ears, energy and athleticism all changed as they aged and how their diet was a significant factor in their quality of life. It was a remarkable experience to say the least.

This hands-on animal experience and knowledge led us to the next step (and my bag’s new content), which was our WeChat Public Account, where we have posted about 50 videos and articles on anything and everything to do with your pets in China. We focus on 3 main areas; Travel & Adventure, Health & Nutrition, Owner Education & Training.

So what is in my new bag?

Laptop – handy for managing the thousands of products on our WeChat store.

Gymbal, mike & phone – the key tools for recording the vids we produce.

Glasses – Soooooo much screen time in editing videos and article writing means the eyes started to need some help.

Collar & lead – My dog Apollo is with me in nearly every video we make.

Poop bags – Most of our vids are made outside, gotta be a good citizen.

In the last 6 months, so many people have contacted us and asked us why we chose to focus on our online business. The reason for us is simple, we can sustainably improve the lives of more animals.With the online content, we can build a little library of knowledge to help pet owners in China and with the WeChat Store and our donation strategy, we can help hundreds of rescue animals get into their fur-ever homes. When you visit the Chateau Canine WeChat store, there are discount coupons on the front page that link to 3 of our Rescue Partner Organizations (Lost Puppies of Beijing, Suzhou Animal Lovers Network, Second Chance Animal Aid in Shanghai).  When you use your choice of coupon in your purchase, you will get a 5% discount for being a good egg, AND Chateau Canine will donate another 5% of your purchase to your chosen rescue organization.

If you are reading this article and you are a pet owner, you know that every couple of weeks, or every month you do that thing – you buy pet food, treats, toys, etc etc. We would love it if you did your purchase with Chateau Canine and help us help more pets be healthy, happy, and safe in China!

Want to share your Beijing survival tools with us? Shoot us an email at [e-mail], message our official Jingkids WeChat account (ID: beijing-kids), or leave a comment below!

Images: PJ

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