Weds 16th March: We're all over the place

 These are strange times indeed, not only for the obvious reasons that are affecting everyone in Hong Kong, but also because with the forced closure of our Ap Lei Chau Homing Centre at the end of February we're now working out of, or on, four separate locations, even five if you include the Lamma base and six counting the Tai Po Centre.  

We still have the small Red Dog Centre at 21 Main Street, Ap Lei Chau, which is also our current mailing address as well as being home to the more challenging small "red" dogs and a few others that moved in from the old Homing Centre.  The office is now temporarily based at Elgin Street, not too comfortably as there isn't even any air conditioning there yet, but we needed to store all of the office furniture and other stuff somewhere until the new space in Kennedy Town is ready for occupation, and this will also double as the new Red Dog Centre.  Once the new office space is ready, we can start renovation work on the Elgin Street shop, which will become our dog training centre, plus other things. 

The small dogs and puppies, all currently in foster homes or on Lamma, will move to another Kennedy Town space, hopefully by the end of March, but the way things are going maybe even that timing is too optimistic.  

Of course our very large Tai Po Homing Centre at 6 Shek Lin Road has remained open every single day, and we have hundreds of dogs and older puppies staying there. 

Rumble is a great little dog, and very smart

I'm working from Lamma full time now, and know I'm extraordinarily lucky to be living in such an idyllic location, far away from anything that's going on elsewhere in Hong Kong.  I still have my many long-term dogs to take care of, as well as the newer arrivals from Ap Lei Chau, all of whom seem to be enjoying their holiday home.  Very shy River has become best friends with Rumble, and they wrestle all the time (shy dogs really need a confident friend to help them).  Cocker spaniel Phaedra swims every day, along with her new shiba inu friend Damson, and she's doing incredibly well in terms of her nervous behaviour towards strangers.   Funnily enough, she's totally calm around young children (safely on a leash of course), and they don't bother her at all. 

Gorgeous River is still very shy

At the end of all of this moving and renovation turmoil we'll be left with the two Kennedy Town locations, one being the Homing Centre and the other the office-plus-Red Dog Centre (the current Red Dog Centre will be vacated as it's also due to be demolished anyway).  The last of the three new spaces to be transformed will be the Elgin Street shop, and then we'll be done. 

As you must know by now all of the available puppies, and there are many of them, are staying in foster homes while they wait to be chsoen for adoption.  I can't thank our foster parents enough for their  amazing help, not only in taking care of the puppies but also giving them a great start with training.  Puddle-Loki may have waited some time to find his new family but his foster home were very patient, knowing that the right home would come along eventually, which it did.  Here's Loki's story in video: