Sat 30th July: Making sense of nonsense

Perry and Mork adopted together (photo is a day late but better than never)

Thanks to the typhoon-that-never-was yesterday, it was a double “holiday” for me, and I took advantage of the time by taking all the stitches out of the puppies that had recently been desexed.  They had been sent over to Acorn in batches of six or seven, mostly girls, as they are the priority when it comes to birth control.  Their wounds were very small, only a couple of stitches, but thanks to all the “nursing” by the adult dogs, Sooty and Ottilie in particular, they were a bit messy.

Sandy's busy licking Meadow's "injury"

There’s not much I can do when the older dogs think it’s their duty to take care of the younger ones, and that includes licking any “injury”.  Even Murphy, who adores puppies and acts as their guardian, has been busy tending to the wounded, in fact it’s something of an obsession with him (as I’m typing, Sandy is busily licking Meadow’s tummy).  As a result, what should be a barely noticeable and tiny scar on the puppies’ tummies are rather lumpy and messy.  They’ll heal, but it will take longer than it should.

At least none of these puppies will give birth to unwanted litters, and without the operation they would be ready to have pups of their own very soon.  It’s a matter of debate as to how early dogs can be desexed without long-term effects, and personally I’m of the opinion that, stray dogs excepted, six months is about right for females and slightly older for males.  What is absolutely clear is that desexing of females must be done before the dog reaches the age when it can start reproducing, and I would like to see the introduction of compulsory spaying and neutering of all dogs.  This is already the law in some places, and as far as I am concerned there is no reason for anyone to keep an entire (non-desexed) pet.  The law as it stands (in Hong Kong) classifies animals as property, the same as any piece of furniture in the house, meaning that anyone has the right to do as they wish with what they own.  Want to paint your walls bright pink?  Fine.  Want to dye your dog bright yellow?  Also fine.  Want to get two dogs and let them reproduce?  Go ahead, there’s no law that says you can’t.  Want to let those puppies grow and have babies of their own?  Great, good for you. And sadly, tragically, many people do just that.  Those people might say it’s an infringement of their human rights to be told what they can and cannot do with their own property, despite the fact that their selfishness affects not just the dogs in their care, but (Hong Kong) society as a whole.  There isn’t a single area of countryside that doesn’t have stray dogs around, from the Peak to Shek O on Hong Kong Island, and they are everywhere in the New Territories.  Pets are abandoned on a daily basis without any danger of prosecution, yet try dropping a tiny piece of litter and it’s an on-the-spot $1500 fine.  Where is the sense in that?

This is Perry, in on Thursday, adopted on Friday

Moppet came from one of those free-for-all breeding homes