Hope you had a wonderful Christmas or just a winter holiday. We are also finally back in the office after a nice weekend with our loved ones. Now, year 2009 is packing its bags to give the job over to Year 2010. But before this year ends we want to tell you a little bit about ourselves - the people behind United Dogs and Cats. The easiest way to do that is to tell you about our Christmas party: how we decorated our office, lighted candles and spent one great evening together.
We had a Christmas tree in the office and lots of presents under it. Our dog Riki made friends with it from the very first moment. He loved to lie under it and chew its thorns.
Our Christmas party was quite a traditional one. All of us brought some Christmas food, we drank hot mulled wine and got presents from Santa. In Estonia, we have a sweet tradition that each person who gets a present from Santa must do something to claim it. One can either read a Christmas poem, sing a song, dance or show a trick with the pet

At the end of the party, we finally managed to get almost everyone into the picture. From right to left: there’s Luis, Liis, Nino, Elise, Stella, Henk, Marju, Tajur, Kairi, Reimo, Sandra, Ellen. And in the very front there’s Ragnar with Riki and Sergei. Can you guess what they do? Just by looking at their faces? Hmm…I will make it easier for you:

Luis (1st person from the right, dressed in black) is from Venezuela and working as a Sales Manager for Latin America. He still finds Estonia (this is where our office is located) tooooo cold. Hence, he wears a coat even indoors
Liis (with a picture of herself in her hand) is a designer. She’s the person who creates all the lovely presents that we can send to our friends at Uniteddogs.com and Unitedcats.com. She also creates page designs and often gets angry when Flash programs refuse to work properly…
Nino (peeking from just between Liis and Elise in the picture) is a Sales Manager for Italy. In addition to speaking Italian, he also speaks Spanish and fluent Pizza. The latter is the reason why he does not appreciate Esto-German Christmas food such as black puddings and sauerkraut. He’s currently enjoying proper dishes on a well-deserved vacation.
Elise (grey top) is the head of the Editorial team and Community Manager. She keeps a general eye on everything that goes on at Uniteddogs.com and Unitedcats.com pages - in all 14 language versions! That’s over 300 000 people and over half a million dogs and cats!
Stella (big smile) was with us for an apprenticeship in December. She has an open invitation to come visit us any time! But right now she’s gone back to Paris, France.
Henk (eyes closed, yet happy) is the Chief Technical Officer and knows all there is about technology. If something is wrong with Uniteddogs.com or Unitedcats.com (for example, you cannot upload your picture), he gets a notification about it and decides what to do next.
Marju (longest hair) is also a member of the Editorial team. She replies to all of your letters that are sent to info@…, talks with site moderators, answers queries in the forums and sees that everything is in order with the paper work in the office.
Tajur (tallest of the bunch) is the Creative Director. He makes and looks over design solutions, but also knows what’s behind pretty web pages (that’s HTML, CSS, jQuery, JavaScript, PHP, mySQL). He’s also a talented content producer and that’s why he’s present at every meeting that we hold.
Kairi (beige shiny blouse) is Head of Sales and manages all the work of our sales team. She motivates sales team to reach its goals, puts together sales material, plans and supports campaign offers and deals with product development.
In addition to Kairi, Luis and Nino we have more Sales Managers all over the world: from France, Spain, Lithuania, Italy - Guillaume, Jacobo, Dovile, Laura, Inga and Mari-Ly. All these people are true fans of the site and represent United Dogs and Cats at their region. We’ll always welcome new like-minded people to our team!
Reimo (smiling just behind Sandra) is one of our Software Developers. He develops, improves codes, handles MySql databases and writes MySql queries - that’s the equivalent of writing books in Latin if you’re not really sure about IT definitions. He also fixes all sorts of bugs.
Sandra (red necklace) is a Marketing and Partner Relations assistant. Her job includes all sort of (re)searching, updating site statistics, organizing and assisting campaigns and events on UDC sites, keeping eye on UDC souvenirs and sharing information with you!
Ellen (1st from left) is part of the Editorial team, bringing more interesting and important stuff for you to find on UDC sites: that includes talking to you on Facebook fan sites, helping with non-profit campaigns and finding new partners for interesting content or fun games.
Ragnar (holding the dog) is United Dogs and Cats CEO. That means he keeps an eye on everything: operations, marketing, strategy, financing, creation of company culture, human resources, PR and - most importantly - the quality and quantity of office humour.
Riki is our everything. None of us could ever imagine coming to work without Riki looking over us in the office. His two most favourite things in the whole world? Cardboard boxes and CATS!
Sergei is one of the freshest members of our Development team. He’s currently proofing and migrating databases, but he’s also a certified Real Aikido instructor of the Olympic Committee and has a black belt!!! Don’t mess with him.
MISSING BUT FOUND: Elar & Lauri

Elar is a Software Developer - writing codes, fixing problems on the site. But Elar is not an ordinary Developer. He sings in a professional choir and has performed with big stars. We hope he does not leave us for the fame and glory of stage life.

Lauri has a background in computer programming and interactive media. He works in the field of eCommerce and Partner Relations. He is writing projects and makes sure that all sales campaigns run on time.
Bye year 2009……hope to see you all in 2010.

Have a crazy and fun New Year Celebration!