Tues 11th Oct: Waiting for the starting gun

Look at that face!

I'm not having much luck with my "holiday", the usual emergencies needing to be handled indirectly if not actually hands on.  Zippo the bulldog went for his MRI thanks to the lift offered, and the results will be back on Wednesday morning.  I spoke to Dr Tony anyway and the fact is it's not looking hopeful but we'll have to wait and see what shows up on the scan.  In the meantime Zippo is now at our Ap Lei Chau Homing Centre and while I'm not really a fan of bulldogs this boy is beautiful.  We are really desperately in need of a foster - perhaps even a big-hearted adopter - to take Zippo in and smother him with love for however long possible.

We got a call from AFCD to let us know that a dog who has an HKDR microchip was picked up and was at their Sheung Shui Centre.  Kathy checked our records and found it was a puppy that had been adopted as one of a pair in 2014, but no license had been issued meaning the dogs had never had a rabies vaccination.  On speaking to the adopters Cactus ascertained that the dogs had actually had nothing done since they were taken home, and that means that they are one hundred percent certain to have heartworm as well as a pair of testicles each.   I wanted to take the dog back but was told by AFCD that as it had been claimed by an owner they would return it.  I argued that there is no owner since a license has never been issued (for either dog), and this is just one of many issues I have had regarding ownership and licensing recently, not to mention the sadness of knowing that two baby pups were given to a home where even the most basic of care wasn't given.  Desexing is free and licensing costs a paltry $80 for each dog, and this is a very large home where money is surely not an issue.  I don't believe the dogs have been badly treated but not giving heartworm prevention, especially in the New Territories, is a form of abuse in the sense that it guarantees infection.

It seems to me that the laws regarding licensing are so random that they might as well not exist, and looking ahead to 2017 and the introduction of the Cap 139b Amendments to the Animal Trader Licensing laws I am now seriously doubting that they ever will be enforced to the extent of making any difference.  We all knew that there would still be unlicensed breeders carrying on their illicit trade in secret whatever laws were introduced, but I was still hoping that AFCD would live up to their promise of being able to cope with the extra workload. Now I'm really not so sure.

For those of you who are eagerly awaiting news of the Peak to Fong ticket/T-shirt release, so am I! We have everything ready to go but are waiting for the starting gun which will mean we can post details and start selling.  Hopefully it will be Wednesday.