Weds 27th June: Troublesome ticks
A fully mature tick, small but deadly. This is a female ready to lay her eggs
Keeping ticks at bay in the summer months is hard enough when you have one or two dogs, but imagine what it’s like at Tai Po, or even Lamma, when there are so many to apply the back-of-the-neck drops to. Even if you do this religiously every month, and add a tick collar for good measure, there’s no guarantee that the ticks won’t attach themselves, and giving your dog(s) a thorough check after every walk is essential. The baby ticks looks like little spiders and tend to get between the toes or in nice dark places like behind the ears, and the sooner you can pull them off the better. Tick fever is rampant in Hong Kong and prevention is not only better than cure, it’s cheaper.
Lovely King has suspected tick fever
King the husky had to go to Acorn today when he seemed not to be himself, and he has suspected tick fever (babesia) as he has a very low red cell count. Normally we’d give an injection of Berenil but it seems huskies don’t take well to this drug and it can even kill them, so there’s no option than to give the very expensive liquid treatment. Now we need a foster for him, as apart from anything else it’s too hot for huskies to live outside at this time of year. I don’t really know why King is still waiting for a home anyway as he’s a young and very beautiful boy, but all of the potential homes so far have been unsuitable. Huskies are really working dogs that need to be exercised, and a thirty minute stroll once or twice a day isn’t going to be enough unless you want your home trashed. Trying to balance this with the fact that they should really be living in snow and ice is very hard, and it’s the reason, I’m sure, why so many huskies are abandoned all the time. Leaving all of that aside, they do have a lovely nature and an interesting singing/talking voice.
Blaze in now called Foxy and is a very happy girl
Just as a reminder, our Ap Lei Chau Homing Centre isn’t for adoptions today (Thursday), the first and only time we’ve ever closed. All of the dogs will be going out to their allocated places and spaces to allow the Morgan Stanley team of volunteer painters to come in and give the place a fresh look. I’m looking forward to being able to hear about the day from the various teams, each with their own group of little charges. At least newcomer Blaze, a lovely pom cross, won’t need to go anywhere with the others as she’s already found herself a lovely new home.
I also received a lovely update on Cotton, now called Popcorn, a very pretty little girl who was surrendered to us some time ago. It’s taken a while a a few failed attempts at finding the right home, but this just came from her adopter so I think all is now well. I loved Cotton when she was at the Homing Centre, but she never liked me!
