Weds 10th Jan: Looking for Events and Fundraising volunteers

We've been struggling with our emails for a while as the website is always under attack from hackers, something which seems to be part of normal life nowadays, so you may have noticed that emails sent from myself and others have not been from a hongkongdogrescue.com address, rather gmail.  If you are waiting for a reply and haven't heard, please check your Spam folder as many emails are being filtered out and ending up there.  In the meantime as much as possible is being done to remedy the problem of course, including buying a new computer for myself.

Cleo was very gentle with the resident cat too

There was another rag-to-riches story with the trial adoption of little Cleo, which so far is looking very promising and is why I dare write about it before the final confirmation.  When I saw Cleo at AFCD kennels she was very thin and small and I thought she was a puppy.  Instead she turned out to be a starving young adult with tick fever who was lucky enough to find a loving foster home where she made a very quick recovery, both mentally and physically.  When she first arrived she weighed around eight kilos, and that rose to twelve with good food and care but she could still be considered a small dog.  Along with her health and weight her confidence also grew, and while at first she was too terrified to walk outside she gradually started to enjoy her outings.  When I was asked to find a friend for a young schnauzer adopted from us a year ago, I suggested Cleo as being a perfect candidate and so far that's exactly what she's turned out to be.

For everyone who has adopted a puppy from us in the past few months, the free desexing forms have been held back as they expired today and have to be reissued by AFCD for this coming year.  New forms for 2018 will be sent out to all adopters whose puppies have not yet been desexed, but in a move that took us very much by surprise the approved clinics do not include Acorn, our clinic of choice since it opened in Sai Ying Pun a few years ago.   This decision by AFCD is as incomprehensible to us as it is unhelpful, as all records and medical history are with Acorn and it makes sense to have all of these before surgery.  On top of that, for adult dogs that come to us there is often more than just spay or neutering involved and for obvious reasons other surgery would be done at the same time.   Having trusted and supportive vets is very important when it comes to our dogs, and it isn't at all helpful to ship them out to other clinics with unknown and maybe new graduate vets to just do the desex surgery.  Not only that, the location of Acorn is convenient and easy to get to, and they accommodate our often-erratic timing without complaint and the alternatives offered are not at all helpful.

With the Year of the Dog approaching we have been invited by several companies to participate in related events, all of which is helpful of course but Eva is struggling to cope with the added workload.  If you can offer your help with events and fundraising, including this year's Gala Dinner in October, please contact Eva at eva@hongkongdogrescue.com with details of your experience and also your availability.  You could help on a one-off basis, or become one of our volunteer team.  We may even offer the suitable candidate a full time job if both sides are a good fit.