Sat 26th June: Nice surprise ending

Bee is 13 years old

 The 13 year-old golden retriever Bee came to us in the morning and quickly left again to go to his new foster home, although not surprisingly he needs to see a vet due to urinary problems and hopefully he can get an appointment for Sunday.

Kitty is like a cat in behaviour

We knew that sweet poodle Kitty was going to move to her new forever home from foster care today, and we also knew that Zippy the shiba inu would be leaving the Homing Centre, so neither of those adoptions were surprises although both happy events of course.  

Zippy

The lovely surprise happened at the end of the day when both of the puppies staying at Whiskers N Paws as resident guests were chosen to go home together, so Xena and Marco are now family members, joining four other dogs in the (large) home. 

Lucky pair Marco and Xena!

Xena's sisters Xyla and Xanthe will be at Whiskers N Paws on Sunday, along with Percy, Teezil, Tucker, Marsh, Mello and Chimney.  Joining the party from Tai Po will be beautiful sisters Ursula and Giovanna, so there's a big choice of size, age and looks.   I haven't mentioned Quartz because he has a morning adoption interview, but if he's not going to be going home then he'll be in charge at Whiskers N Paws as the oldest of the group.  

Marsh and Mello

Xyla

I do need to mention something about volunteer applications because I get a lot of emails every day asking me the same questions.  The first is about the minimum age of eighteen for all volunteers, and while I do know and appreciate that many younger teenagers are responsible and mature, if we make an exception for one we have to make an exception for all, and that's not possible. 

Due to the period when we weren't able to hold orientation sessions there was a backlog of applications to deal with, and unfortunately emailing me directly to jump the queue and get allocated a space doesn't really work.   I need to remind everyone that our Volunteer Coordinators for both Homing Centres are themselves volunteers, so they're not working full time for HKDR.  Also the people who hold the orientation sessions are also usually volunteers, and they can only do that when they have the time.  We also can't accept short-term volunteer applications, because it takes times to get to know the routine and the dogs, and having more experienced volunteers who don't need to be supervised is the ultimate aim. 

If you plan to become a regular and long-term weekday volunteer you can jump the queue for orientations,  as we really do need additional help at Tai Po in particular from Monday to Friday.