Weds 1st Aug: Forty three lives saved in July

Three last-minute adoptions in July pushed the total for the month up to forty three, a surpisingly high, and happy, number for what is always a slow time of year.  Those final three were all puppies, two adopted together from Whiskers N Paws where they had been staying as full-time guests and one who was chosen last Sunday but will be picked up this week from his foster home.

Marcus had his adoption paperwork completed last Sunday

Lottie and Impi had been staying full time at Whiskers N Paws

In fact there was another dog who was interviewed and given the nod of approval, but he won't leave our Ap Lei Chau Homing Centre until next week so we'll add him to the August numbers.  That lucky boy is Chowder the chow chow, so he is officially off the available list now and all set to join a chow chow-loving family.

Chowder will go from this tiny cage to a wonderful home

Of course as dogs leave there are always new ones to take their place, and there is a group of four young adults due to arrive from AFCD Shatin this week. Oddly these dogs have already been posted and shared on Facebook forums, and a few people had contacted me to ask if HKDR could help but without knowing where the dogs were or what the story was.  I'm not in any of the Facebook groups so I only get to hear about these cases when I'm sent the posts by others, but in this case I can say categorically that the dogs are not due to be killed.

For the record, AFCD do have a re-homing policy and dogs that are deemed to be suitable will be offered to AFCD-registered rescue groups.  If one organisation can't take them, then the dogs will be offered to another, and they will only be destroyed if nobody agrees to accept them.  The truth is that few groups have the ability (space or foster homes) to accept adult mixed breeds so it falls on the few, like HKDR, to take them in. 

AFCD do kill a lot of dogs, although the number is far lower than it was when HKDR was first set up in 2003 to rescue the dogs from AFCD Pokfulam.  Back then there was an almost 100% kill rate for any dog or puppy that ended up at AFCD and it was a fight to get any of them out, but things have changed over the years thankfully.  I think the drop in the number of dogs destroyed is largely due to the fact that there are many rescue groups that take in abandoned and unwanted pets that would previously have ended up at AFCD, not any reduction in the numbers of dogs and puppies needing help unfortunately.  It seems that will never end.

Brewster and Spike were two of the first dogs rescued from AFCD