Fri 8th June: An avoidable death

Although I didn't have anything special to do today I decided to go over to Hong Kong just to take a break from the dogs.  We were all going a bit stir crazy with the rain, and when you live in a house full of dogs who are starting to argue and get annoyed with each other there's only one thing you can do and that's leave them to it.  As it happened the rain stopped anyway, and just in time for the weekend and what I hope will be a lot of adoptions.

Gunner was so cute and happy, but also sick

There was sad news to start the day though, as one of the little dogs that were left outside in cages when their owner died, was also found dead when the Homing Centre opened.  Cute and happy Gunner had been coughing when he first arrived and the vet said he had a probable collapsed trachea but also crackly lungs, indicating some infection there.  He was prescribed medicine to help the breathing but obviously he was too sick.  It's very upsetting for all of us when things like this happen, especially when the dog in question would easily have found a home.  Too late, however, as the health problem was clearly a long-term one and it should have been treated much sooner.

Gorgeous little Tinky hd his adoption confirmed

Little Twinky was far luckier as he had his adoption confirmed after a trial adoption, and I also forgot to mention that bichon Caroline was adopted after having been with us for some time.

Sweet Caroine is now Ka Ka

I regularly receive emails from school students asking if they can volunteer to walk the dogs even though they're under our minimum age requirement of eighteen, and the answer is always no.  We can't make exceptions for one and not for everyone, so we have to stand by our rule which is in place for the safety of both humans and dogs.  In the past when we did allow students to volunteer we had too many incidents, including unjustified angry complaints from parents, so we just had to stop completely.

The other student request for answers to project questions is also a problem, as it requires either myself or another staff member to spend a long time writing answers to often-impossible questions. It's almost a full time job in itself, so any students who want to ask questions can come to Whiskers N Paws on Sunday and talk to me or one of the other volunteers directly.  I'm always happy to help but not to write long projects for every student who asks.