Thurs 10th Oct: Drama on the high seas

3 lovely dogs available for adoption

One of the new small-sized dogs staying with my Lamma neighbours had his Acorn desexing appointment today, and with the weekend coming up it seemed like a good idea to have Scooter staying at the Ap Lei Chau Homing Centre afterwards rather than coming straight back to his foster home.  I then had the same thought about the other two dogs staying in the same temporary home as both are ready for adoption and are lovely, very good-natured as well as being cute (or handsome).

Scooter, male, easy and very sweet

Two other Lamma dogs had appointments with Dr Tony in the afternoon, poodle Kobe for a check-up after his leg surgery and my long-term senior "border collie" Stardust to have her eyes checked.  The three smaller dogs were put onto the sampan in crates, while Stardust was just on a leash as she's very placid and easy (as well as being confirmed blind, as I'd suspected).

Carter: bright, gorgeous, affectionate, kind (as described by his foster)

A few minutes into the twenty-minute ride over to meet up with the van, Ruthie was scratching at the door of the crate, frantic to get out.  As both she and the other dog, Carter, were wearing harnesses and on leashes too I let them out.  They seemed happy enough, but what I mistakenly took to be Ruthie's excitement at the boat ride turned out to be fear, and in a split second she had backed out of her harness and before I could do anything to stop her, run to the front of the sampan and jumped off into the sea.

Unlike a car, you can't bring a boat to a screeching halt, so by the time the sampan had slowed down Ruthie was already some distance away, swimming for her life in the middle of the busy Lamma Channel.  I was of course beside myself with horror, and grabbed the big net that all sampans carry for scooping things out of the sea.  We turned back and came close to Ruthie, but she kept being washed away with the wake from passing container ships, and at one time I was convinced she'd disappeared under water.   In the end the sampan driver came forward to help, and while she put the net in the water for Ruthie to get hold of, I leaned right over the side and grabbed.  By then Ruthie was exhausted, and while she lay still on the floor of the sampan I was also hyperventilating.   By the time we arrived at our destination, with both dogs back in their crates, Ruthie and I had recovered from the ordeal, but I don't think I want to go through that again.

Ruthie is smart, funny and a good swimmer!

In comparison the rest of the day was a breeze, even if there were other difficult moments and decisions to make, and the journey home was a lot easier.

Atom went home today

There was happy news from Tai Po as akita Atom went home, leaving Kira as the only one still waiting out of the three who came together.

I met another Tai Po dog at Acorn today, a very sweet and happy medium-sized girl called Vera.  She was there for a vaccination, and as I'd never met her before I had to ask who she was. I get to know a lot of the Tai Po dogs this way, and for Vera I can say she's totally lovely.