Like dollar stores and Wal-Mart, pet retail has been loping through the recession with its tail wagging.

The consumer determination to bunker in for the recession’s duration clearly encompasses man’s best friend and other assorted members of the domestic menagerie. Not only are pets getting treated the same as people, they may be getting treated better. While consumers trade down to private labels and forego restaurant visits, they seem to be spending more on pet edibles. According to Nielsen Co. data for supermarkets, drug chains and mass-market retailers, unit sales of pet food were actually down 3.2 percent for the 52 weeks ended April 18, 2009, but dollar sales were up 11 percent.

Specialty stores are among the beneficiaries of the trend. In the first quarter, PetSmart’s 37 cents per share earnings beat per share profits in last year’s quarter, which came in at 32 cents, its own guidance of 27 to 31 cents and the consensus analyst estimate of 30 cents.

via Pet Products Woof Off Recession, So PetSmart Gains | BNET Retail Blog | BNET.

OpenVPMS is a unique, customer-built application that is affordable and directly addresses the needs of veterinary clinics operating in the United States. OpenVPMS is based on research conducted with veterinarian clinics that needed help streamlining and optimizing their veterinary operations. OpenVPMS offers a complete set of management tools that track electronic health records, detailed customer/client data, real-time appointment scheduling and pharmaceutical inventory. OpenVPMS has been designed from the ground up to focus on core veterinary business processes and activities, and is developed with features that provide efficiency and value to any veterinarian’s business.

“VetAnyware and OpenVPMS was founded on the belief that choice is a good thing. For too long, veterinary practice management software has been a closed system whereby veterinarians are being forced to buy a specific software package, or dictated to on what options are available to them. VetAnyware and OpenVPMS allows veterinarians the option and choice to use what they need and implement the software in the fashion they see fit.” said Albert T. Wong, founder of VetAnyware.

VetAnyware’s OpenVPMS offering enables veterinary clinics to easily and cost-effectively deploy a VPMS solution, which has customer and clinics benefits across a number of areas:

• A central patient record database that reduces patient and medication recording errors
• Easy-to-use budgeting tools that help identify all of the clinic’s assets
• Eliminates client appointment conflicts and “mis-appointments”
• Automates the inventory ordering processing and minimizes inventory overstocks
• Keeps track of referrals and suppliers all in one single system
• Secure, reliable access to veterinary practice information from anywhere through an internet browser
• Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) than competing solutions
• Supports international languages input

VetAnyware OpenVPMS is shipping now. Please see http://vetanyware.com for more information about VetAnyware and VetAnyware OpenVPMS.