Sat 12th Nov: Something very wrong

As much as I was dreading doing it, I had to make a trip to Acorn Vet Hospital to pick up Soya the husky so I could return her to AFCD (only temporarily, of course).  With an infectious skin (definitely scabies and maybe ringworm too), putting her with other dogs wouldn’t be a clever thing to do, and without a foster  who doesn’t have other pets in the home there seemed to be no choice.  The good thing about scabies (sarcoptic mange) is that it is very easily treatable, and it requires just three injections of Ivermectin for the mites to be killed off for good, plus the mites that cause mange in dogs can’t live on humans.  In all the years that I’ve handled all sorts of scabby, crusty and infectious dogs, I think I have only ever once had a tiny patch of ringworm, and that is easily treated just by applying antifungal cream.

Anyway, I got to Acorn and spoke to the vet about Soya and the medications she would need,  just to see if it would be easy for the AFCD staff to administer everything.  Soya’s ears are badly infected and need daily cleaning and ear drops, and I was told they’d need re-checking in five days.  Giving tablets twice a day is one thing, but ear cleaning?  Unlikely. So I broached the possibility of Soya staying at Acorn instead of going back to AFCD and was told it was no problem, which meant my trip over from Lamma had been unnecessary but it was worth it.

Timothy Everest, Managing Director of Cyril Murkin (HK) Ltd. poses for photograper at his office in Kowloon Bay.

While I was out I picked up a copy of the South China Morning Post, something I rarely do (I read the newspapers when they come to me as puppy poopy paper, days or weeks old), and saw to my horror a photo of a man, a fur trader, standing next to his booty of dead animals, strung up in bunches complete with heads.  This was part of Operation Santa Claus, an annual – and very worthwhile – fundraiser for children in need, but really, fur?  Isn’t there something really very wrong about promoting a company and product that involves the suffering and murder of animals for vanity and fashion?  I immediately sent a letter of disgust to SCMP and put the paper, photo facing up, on the balcony for the puppies as soon as I got home.  I hope they hit their target.

On the subject of puppies, if there’s one thing I should have learned over the years of looking after them it’s that you should never give tablets wrapped in tasty food by hand, always use a spoon.  Once again I got a very painful reminder of what I already knew when I got my finger neatly sliced open by some very sharp teeth as the puppy grabbed the offered ball of food, and took my finger with it. Damn, damn, damn (actually much stronger than that), I must remember never to do that again!