Fri 8th July: Too many Susie Suzies

Chalkie is not a bichon for sure

By the time most of you read this post it will already be out of date (I hope) because one of the dogs in question should have been adopted and taken home.  I'm talking about Chalkie, who is licensed as a six year old bichon frise but who looks more like a very young Westie/Maltese mix.  In fact when he was brought out from the back (and out of view) section of the AFCD Centre during my visit to take out a mongrel who had been waiting a long time, I really thought he was a puppy.  Given that the license is obviously incorrect regarding the breed it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the age is wrong too.  In fact it's quite possible that the license refers to a different dog entirely as it won't be the first time that paperwork hasn't matched the actual dogs.

To prove the point, while I was at AFCD today I met a woman who, it turned out, had adopted a dog from HKDR a couple of years ago and was getting ready to move to England with her family.  At the last minute someone noticed that the age on the license didn't match the rest of the documents so it had to be officially amended.  After all, it's humans who enter the dog details into the computer so whatever errors are made will be recorded as fact.  I have seen some funny names and addresses, but I can't blame the Chinese AFCD staff for not being able to read or decipher often-scrawled Western owner details, as it's not uncommon for us to have to ask adopters what they have written.  Names, addresses and emails might seem obvious to the writers themselves but not to anyone else.

Sweet Suzie Wong

Back to the dogs themselves, I had thought that the owner-surrendered mongrel I had gone to AFCD to collect was an older dog as she is quite overweight.  However when I was given the license it turned out she's barely two years old, and such a sweet girl too. Her original name of Siu Wong was still recorded on the license, so I changed it slightly to Suzie Wong before realising that meant there are now three Susie/Suzies, one being a puppy who was actually with me to have her second vaccination, and the other being the also-dumped young Susie currently being fostered by my Lamma neighbours.  Hopefully at least two of them will be adopted before too long and there will be no confusion about names.

Another very sweet abandoned Susie

I posted the photo of "bichon" Chalkie on my personal Facebook page when I got home, and as a result he may well be on his way to start a new life first thing on Saturday morning. I wish I could say the same about Suzie Wong.

Puppy Suzie and Tony

As an update on puppy Tony, who received a lot of get-well-soon messages (and thank you for your concern), he's doing better after starting on the "liquid gold" so it's looking good for a quick and full recovery.