Weds 20th June: Can you give a dog a holiday?

I’ve been having a nightmare at night because there’s something wrong with the main high-voltage electricity cable in my part of the bay, and because of the urgency of the situation it’s being worked on throughout the night. It just happens that the main electricity “house” is right in front of mine, so the workmen are directly outside the gate all night, with powerful lights and so on. I think they do make an effort to be as quiet as possible but dogs’ ears can pick up the sound of a mouse on carpet, so my lot are going crazy. It’s so bad that I was almost falling asleep in the dentist’s chair today, and didn’t even notice that I was there for a good hour and a half. Rousing myself from the prone position took some effort, but I had a meeting to go to in the evening, this one being about the upcoming Gala Event in September. It may seem a long way off, but we all realise that in terms of everything that needs to be done it’s like tomorrow. We’ve got an amazing team now and are getting our act together to put on a brilliant evening. A few people have already responded to the newsletter that went out yesterday and are asking for details, and these will be available very soon. One thing I should mention though is that this is a formal dinner and no dogs will be invited I’m afraid. They will have to wait until November and Peak to Fong, an event specially for the dogs and their families.

Cactus, Harvey and Hovis at Kellett School Shau Kei Wan Campus

While I was dreaming about getting some sleep, it was business as usual for everyone else. Cactus was giving a talk at Kellett School in Shau Kei Wan with two of our Ap Lei Chau dogs, Hovis and Harvey, both of whom behaved impeccably. As I mentioned in my newsletter, taking HKDR and our message out to schools, clubs and workplaces is a big part of our education drive, and vitally important. There’ll be a lot more of this in the future.

This 7-month old poodle was surrendered today

At the Ap Lei Chau Centre itself, we had yet another poodle puppy surrendered so it was just as well that the adopters who had said they wanted to return their recently-adopted poodle changed their minds.    The penny dropped that there was actually nothing wrong with the dog other than a normal desex wound which would heal very quickly.

Another surrender: a lovely and small long-haired dachshund boy

Dimple, the poodle girl who was found in a bag in the North Point dog park, also found a new home and made that little bit of extra space needed.

Sweet Dimple found a lovely home despite her skin problems

We also took in a lovely two year-old, long-haired dachshund boy, surrendered because of barking. If you leave a dog alone for too long that’s what you can expect, and anyway dachshunds, like schnauzers, are barkers generally.

Huge thanks to the West Island School Scouts for their incredible effort

With the school holidays upon us, I get a lot of enquiries from under-sixteens, our minimum age for dog walkers, about volunteering. It’s too much of a responsibility for us to allow younger students to take the dogs out because we can’t oversee everyone all the time, but there are lots of way that younger supporters can help. Bake Sales are very popular, and successful too, and on Sunday I received a huge amount (over eleven thousand dollars!) from the 28th West Island School Scout Group who had undertaken a hundred kilometer sponsored hike to raise funds. It was an impressive effort for such young legs, but well worth and and I want to thank them all very much.

From the Scout Leader (who also adopted the two seniour dogs in the photo):

“13 Scouts (age 11 years old to 15 years old) and I had an absolutely fantastic time at Lady MacLehose Trail from Friday 11th to Sunday 13th May 2012. We raised $11349 from this fundraising hike and would like to donate this to Hong Kong
Dog Rescue. We hope that this donation will be able to get medical treatment to help the sick dogs and help to pay towards your new homing centre.

Although we didn’t quite manage to complete 100km, we managed to hike about 80km in total, which is amazing for the first time try in two and a half days! Although we had super heavy rain every day, the Scouts did their best and kept
walking. I am extremely proud of these 13 Scouts. They were all happy and cheerful and helped/supported each other all the time. Some of them had very painful foot, blisters, painful toes, etc…..but they never gave up ….just kept going without complaining! If any of the Scouts were having difficulties walking up the steep hills, walking down very slippery muddy hills, suffering from painful blisters, etc….everyone kept encouraging and supporting each other. When they had to pitch/unpitch their tents in down pour rain, especially in the dark, it was wonderful to see their team spirit. It was funny to hear from many of the Scouts saying after finishing the hike on our last day…….”Well…..next time we will complete 100km! ” Great positive attitude! Maybe we will have a go again next year! We also had an amazing team of parents who supported us by delivering food & equipments to/from the campsite, dropping in at the campsite to give us delicious homemade chocolate brownies and cakes, joined our hike on our last day to push us to keep going.
We hope we will be able to help Hong Kong Dog Rescue again in the future.”

Please remember that we are always in need of foster homes for all sorts of dogs, large and small, young and old, and maybe those of you who are staying in Hong Kong for the summer could consider sharing your holiday time with a dog that needs a holiday too.  If you can, please email Maria at foster@hongkongdogrescue.com for details.