Before I forget, can I remind everyone who's waiting for an email reply to check your Spam, because so many messages seem to get filtered out unless the sender is recognised. It can be frustrating to both sides when sometimes important things get stuck in the system this way.
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| Where's Tucker? |
We had two adoptions at Kennedy Town today, with shiba puppy Igloo also moving to a foster home in readiness for surgery on her frog legs.
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| Gorgeous Tucker at his new home |
Dizzy was the second happy adoption, and she's now called Madison, Maddy for short.
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| Dizzy is now Madison |
There was further good news about doglet Penny as she had her forever status confirmed, meaning her foster family automatically become members of the Failed Foster Club. Congratulations! Penny's adoption also ticks another name off the list of the nineteen puppies that arrived together in February, and like recent Failed Foster Avia, Penny was one of the shy ones. She's very pretty, like a fox, and several potential adopters showed interest, but she was just too nervous to pass any interviews. Of course she's fine with the family she has grown to feel secure with, and she also has an ex-HKDR friend as a confident companion in the home.
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| Penny standing next to her now-brother Goku |
If you read my blog regularly you'll already know that the shiba inu is the breed that we receive most surrender requests for and always for the same reasons, resource guarding. This can be food, toys, or anything that the dog considers to belong to them. In a small apartment it can be very difficult to deal with this kind of behaviour, because basically there's no space to get away from the teeth, and no room to provide a private area for feeding. This is why we will never home a shiba to any small home, because it's not fair on the dog and it really never works. In the past we tried it and the dogs always came back.
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| Bubu-now-Boomer arrived today |
The breed that also tops the list for guarding behaviour is the corgi, and last month we received many surrender requests for corgis. We agreed to take the first one that we were asked about, mainly because he's still young at two years, and it was also before all the other corgi surrender enquiries came in. It took a long time between the initial contact and the dog actually turning up, and had we known how full we would be right now we would not have agreed to taking Bubu-now-Boomer. Still, what's done is done, and now we have a young corgi boy with guarding behaviour who will be moving to Lamma on Thursday to begin his (hopeful) rehabilitation. If anyone is experienced in handling guarding behaviour, likes corgis and would be willing to give a home to Boomer, please let us know. It's quite possible to train a dog out of guarding, and we have done it before with corgis and shibas, but it's not for beginners or homes with children.
If you absolutely insist that you must have a breed rather than a sweet mix, make sure you meet the parents of the puppy you plan to bring into your home. Also be realistic about the genetic traits of each breed and never choose a dog based on looks alone, unless you are prepared to end up with problems.
There will be some more adoptions this week, and I hope at least one or two will be from our Tai Po Homing Centre. Not all of the dogs that are staying there are large sized, and many are still doglets (meaning halfway between puppy and adult), so if you're closer to Tai Po than Kennedy Town please remember to take a look there first. Our Homing Centres open every single day of the year, from 10am to 6pm, but please make sure that you allow enough time to spend with the dogs and puppies if you're thinking about adopting. Feeding time at Kennedy Town is at 5pm so that's not a good time to visit, and at Tai Po the dogs have a free-running session between 1pm and 3pm, so again it's not ideal for meeting individual dogs.
For all adoption enquiries please start by completing the questionnaire at www.hongkongdogrescue.com/adopt/adoption-questionnaire/.
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