Sat 8th Oct: Rollcall of newcomers

Saturday is supposed to be my day off but in this line of work that never really happens, as everyone working for HKDR can tell you.  There are always emergencies and urgent matters that  have to be dealt with and that means including everyone in the team, whether or not they are supposed to be working.

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Today was the day the bulldog, now called Zippo, arrived from the breeder, but that wasn't as straightforward as it could have been because he went via somewhere else and we spent all morning chasing the volunteer who was supposed to be bringing him.  She kept sending me messages in Chinese which I then had to forward and so on, until finally I got a call from Acorn letting me know the dog was there and that it was indeed paralysed in the hind legs.  From the photo it also seems Zippo is covered in ringworm (fungal skin infection), but that's standard for all breeder dogs who also invariably have ear mites and scabies too.

Zippo looks perfect from the front

Stage one of the treatment for Zippo was to inject him with an anti inflammatory drug to reduce possible swelling in the spine.  Sometimes, if done soon enough after a disc injury, this can work well enough to have almost miraculous results, but it's been a while since Zippo (apparently) lost the use of his back legs. This problem can also be genetic in bulldogs so we will wait to see how and if he responds before going to the next step of X-rays and/or MRI.

Violet also looks as though she has got ringworm

Corgi Spock (with bad skin)

The breeder Yorkie also came to  Ap Lei Chau, although we were originally expecting two of them.   Andrea was the Manager of the Homing Centre yesterday and today, so she was in charge of all of the new dogs, sorting them out, taking photos and giving them names from a now used-up list.  So the roll call now includes the Yorkie (Violet), terrier/shih tzu Bumpy (because he is all bones), Spock the corgi and poodle/bichon Scooter.  I need to add that Bumpy has a license and a registered owner so technically he can't be adopted yet.

Scooter was surrendered to AFCD without a license 

Bumpy is in a pitiful condition