Pets at Home has credited its loyalty scheme and services such as new vets practices and grooming salons for its strong sales over the summer.

Sales at stores open for more than a year rose 4.2% in the six months to 9 October as food and accessories, also sold well. Christmas is not as important to Pets at Home as many other retailers, because sales of pet food, services and medicines tend to be fairly constant all year.

The group is hoping to cash in on the rising desire to pamper pets with a special range of Christmas accessories including santa hats for guinea pigs, fluffy robin cat toys and woolly sweaters for dogs.

Shoppers may be spending less on food and drink for themselves but the pet market continues to grow strongly with sales expected to rise by 13% over the next three years to nearly £7bn. Pets at Home said sales of merchandise including food and accessories rose 8.9% in the half year.

Shares in Pets at Home rose 2.7% to 176.8p as the retailer said its sales performance gave it “further confidence in our ability to deliver on our expectations for the full financial year”.

However, the shares remain substantially below the 245p level at which the company floated in March.