Sat 23rd June: Queenie and Bess

After three nights of having the men from HK Electric working outside my house (and having given up all attempts to be quiet about it too), I was so exhausted from lack of sleep that I spent a good part of today making up for it.  I’d been asked if I could take puppy Mr. Chips over to Ap Lei Chau for fostering, but had begged Maria to let me have a day off and do the handover on Sunday at Whiskers’n'Paws, and happily my wish was granted.

The baby beagle's paws barely touched the ground before he left for his new home

So while I was dozing on the day bed – along with a collection of dogs, of course – Kathy was busy at Ap Lei Chau handling the adoptions, one of which was the in-and-out beagle puppy.  No sooner had he arrived than he was gone again, and hopefully this time his family will have more common sense than the previous one and understand that what goes in, must come out.  (The “urine” and “excrement” had been too much for his previous owners to cope with).

Tiny really is tiny, and so sweet and playful too

I do hope Blondie's new family know that he likes to play non stop

Two more puppies were adopted, the five month-old poodle boy, Blondie, and ultra-cute and tiny boy Tiny.  I’d made a point of introducing the pair when I was at the Homing Centre on Friday, as both love non-stop play and I thought they’d make a great pair.  Tiny was greatly impressed by Blondie and immediately jumped on his back with the usual boy-style idea of a game, ie. humping, while Blondie was less keen on the idea and just wanted to be picked up and cuddled.  Statistically far more boy dogs are given up by their owners than girls, and I strongly suspect that it’s this behaviour that gets them thrown out, but (especially at that age) it’s not really sexual even though it looks that way.  It’s just part of what animals do as they sort out their position in a relationship or a group, and it happens just the same with females and it does males.  In fact one of our female dogs at Ap Lei Chau insists on mounting every dog, but the wrong way round every time.  She’s clearly not doing it for sex.

Of course a male dog that hasn’t been neutered will have sex on its mind for twenty four hours a day, and quite why anyone would want that is beyond me.  If for no other reason all male dogs should be desexed, and perhaps there would be less abandoned, as well as fewer puppies born.

Queenie is a sweet girl but really doesn't like most men

Two older dogs left Ap Lei Chau today and theirs is an interesting story.  When I saw them at AFCD I was told they were aggressive, and that the (now ex) owner had called the dog catchers to come and take them away (yes, the government do like to make it easy to throw out your pet).  It seemed to me that the dogs were more scared than anything else, and I took one first (Queenie) and the second (Bess) a few days later.  A few things became apparent, one being that Queenie hated most men, the second being that Bess hated other dogs. Anyway, they settled in and Queenie was fine to be with the other dogs downstairs while Bess had to be kept separate.  On Friday a potential adopter came to see the dogs and was especially interested in Queenie and Bess.  She said she was sure they were part of a litter that she had first seen as newborn puppies, and even showed me a photo of one as a tiny pup.  All very young puppies look like Moomins, so it was hard to say if it was Bess or not, but today the adopter came back and took both Queenie and Bess.  I wasn’t there of course, but from what I understand the owners of the mother (of Bess and Queenie) were very upset to know that the dogs had been abandoned by the friend they had given them to as puppies, and while they took Bess back, Queenie went to the new home.  I love it when we get to know the background of our dogs because, as I’ve said before, every dog has a story but we just don’t know what that story is most of the time.