Fri 19th Aug: Homing from home

Will Skittle finally find a home this weekend? I don't know why she's been with us for so long

I had every intention of going up to Tai Po again today, but having had a meeting cancelled and with so much catching up to do on admin work, I stayed glued to my desk at home instead.  As it turned out it was good that I did, because by the end of the afternoon I had set up appointments for potential adopters to meet five dogs/puppies that are currently on Lamma, which I consider to be a most productive use of time.  The end of the “dry” season for adoptions has finally arrived, and nothing could make me happier.  Now I can look forward to reclaiming my own territory at home, currently being shared with what seems like a hundred puppies (though thankfully not actually that many).

We’ll soon be starting up with the new volunteer intake at Tai Po, something we had to put on hold for the summer due to a backlog of people waiting to join the orientation classes, and a lack of trainers to hold them.  Taking this break has also given us a chance to update and improve the recruitment and training system as a whole, and the changes will be implemented when we open again for new volunteers in September.  One of these changes will be the upping of the minimum age for volunteers from fourteen to sixteen years old, which I know will disappoint a lot of students who had been looking forward to being able to sign up, but is something that we feel is really necessary.  We will also be asking all potential volunteers to visit the Tai Po site before actually signing up for volunteering, as we were finding that the reality of dog walking didn’t quite match what many had in mind.  This is not an activity for anyone who doesn’t understand that we have a lot of (large) dogs and that exercising them is hard physical work.  You only have to look at the lean and toned physiques of our regular volunteers to see that this beats working out in a gym any day, and we don’t even charge for it!

Ap Lei Chau volunteers

For those potential volunteers who prefer a slower pace and smaller/fewer dogs, don’t forget that we have something for you at our Ap Lei Chau Homing Centre where the little dogs hang out.  They all need to be exercised, groomed and given attention, much more so than the bigger dogs when it comes to cuddling and comforting.  They all love to be taken out for walks too, whatever age or size they are, as it gives them some down time from the inevitable noise and stress of living with many others.  Even if you just want to take one of the oldies out and sit quietly on a bench somewhere, it’s fine.  Having one-on-one attention is something every dog craves.