Mon 18th July: Murphy's horror story

There may come a week that passes without drama of some sort, but it won't be this one.  Today's horror story involved my little dog Murphy, who for many years has lived quite happily with all of the big dogs, although being wise enough to stay in my bedroom area while I was out of the house.  At night he sleeps together with a group of much larger dogs, and even plays crazy games with them despite them being more than twice his size.

I had come back from the daily walk and was getting ready to feed all of the dogs when I heard Murphy screaming from outside.  I ran down to find him by the front gate, his eye streaming blood and looking as though it was hanging out.  I can handle most things but I'm extremely squeamish when it comes to dealing with any sort of eye injury, so this was beyond any sort of horror story as far as I was concerned.  Other than screaming and scooping Murphy up to carry him to my bedroom, there wasn't anything I could do until I could get to Acorn.  I tried putting a cone on Murphy to stop him from pawing at his eye but he ripped it straight off, and while he was then remarkably calm I was a nervous wreck while waiting for the sampan.  

Poor Murphy post-surgery

To cut the story short I was right in thinking that the eye had been completely pulled, out and Dr Tony told me the optic nerve had been severed so there was ho hope of saving it.  So now my beautiful boy has only one eye, but he's alive and will be fine.  I hope he won't be too badly affected psychologically by what happened, but I can only think that for whatever reason one of the dogs bit him and that may well change a lot of things for Murphy.

One of the other recent emergency cases was Ginny, who turned out to have tick fever but was very sick with it.  She had to go back for blood checks every few days, and seemed to enjoy the outings.  In fact after she was declared well enough not to need any further tests until the end of her "liquid gold" course, she still got very excited when I left the house to go to work and insisted on following me to the sampan and jumping on board.   She was always disappointed to be pushed back onto the pier, and would stand there watching me as I disappeared into the distance.  Today was Ginny's lucky day as she needed to have one final blood test to see that she was now completely better (which she is), so she joined me Murphy for our Acorn trip.  She'll be sorry to know there won't be a next time, at least while she's fit and well.

Ginny

I didn't go to AFCD today because of the Murphy emergency, but I was told there is another turtle there that needs rescuing, and a pomeranian someone surrendered.  The pom isn't a problem as I was told (via Whatsapp by the woman who had taken the dog there) that he's five to six years old, so young for a small breed.  It's the turtle that worries me, because while I can't leave it there I still have five turtles that I took last year and who are still waiting for homes.  I have always been successful in rehoming any sort of animal, including turtles, but these few have stuck.  I know a lot of people who have garden ponds keep red-eared sliders as pets, so please consider taking another one (or more) if you can.  I have more than enough to handle taking care of all the dogs, so email me at sally@hongkongdogrescue.com if you can adopt a turtle.  They are medium to large size.