Mon 10th Oct: Pink and Scruffin, and 3 new babies

Pink waiting for her license at AFCD

An adorable little shih tzu girl, just a year old, was surrendered by her owners today after they had had her for three days but couldn’t cope.  It makes you wonder how they cope with life at all if having a small and very sweet dog proved to be too much, but leaving that aside it was a very lucky day for (newly-named) Pink.  Now she has a microchip and a license, she’s been vaccinated and desexed, and she’ll be in a lovely foster home before she has time to blink.

While I was at AFCD Pokfulam with Pink getting her chipped and rabies vaccinated (nothing at all had been done previously), I was told another little dog had been given the all-clear for release.  Scruffin is the cutest wire-haired dachshund-shih tzu (guess) cross, who has been at AFCD for about a month while they tried to contact an untraceable owner.  Only when the final attempt, a registered letter, has been returned can a microchipped dog be let out for re-homing.  If I lost my dog I’d be waiting at the gates of the Animal Management Centre first thing, and I would say that would apply to almost all dog owners.  To go through the long-winded process of trying to track down someone who clearly doesn’t want their pet seems to me to be very unfair, as the dog has to stay behind bars for however long it takes.  I had been telling Scruffin  that I would be taking her out as soon as I could, and today was the happy day.

Scruffin looks pretty happy at being released

The AFCD staff also told me there were three baby pups there, and asked if I’d take them.  At first I said no, I couldn’t handle having to bottle feed babies but of course I had to have a look, and seeing that they were between two and three weeks old, I gave in.  They are the same age as Irwen and Olivia’s litter were when I got them out, and it only takes a few days for them to learn how to lap their food even if it is an extremely messy process.  These three were so hungry when I got them home that they eagerly grabbed the soft food from a spoon, and the two bigger ones have stuck their faces in the “soup” I made for them, so I know it won’t take long.  Cleaning them is easy – I just hold them out and a group of surrounding tongues lick the goop off.  Still, I need a foster home please, so let Maria know if you can help (foster@hongkongdogrescue.com).

Can I remind the person responsible for the weather that this is October and it’s supposed to be warm and dry with blue skies.  What happened?