Fri 24th Nov: Almost there!

We finally have fosters for these four 

I'm very happy to say that we have enough foster homes to be able to accept the four puppies that have been waiting for space, so they will join the up-and-coming list this weekend after they arrive.

These 3 pups are ready to go, and they're gorgeous!

It's also worth mentioning the totally gorgeous and very sweet puppies now staying at our Kennedy Town Homing Centre, as they also need homes or at least foster situations.  These are the parvovirus pups, now fully recovered and very playful.  They won't grow to be large adults, and there is a fourth member of this litter who managed to escape infection entirely.  Rennie is already in a foster home but she will need to leave very soon as her foster parents are going to be travelling. 

Well, Sunday is almost here and that means Peak to Fong of course.  The team at HKDR and Whiskers N Paws, the event's main sponsors, have been working round the clock to make sure everything is ready, and I know there's going to be huge sighs of relief once the day arrives.  It's not only the arrangements for the meeting at the Peak, the walk down to Central and the street party at Lan Kwai Fong that have needed every detail carefully planned, but all of the legal requirements from the various government departments, including the Police whose demands have been particularly stringent this year.  So thank you to everyone involved for holding steady and staying calm while I've been not-so-quietly tearing my hair out.  

We still have a few - very few - small-sized T-shirts left, so if you want to grab last-minute tickets you can still make it.  If the T-shirts are too small, put them on your dogs. 

Coincidentally, and just following my post yesterday about the importance of desexing, I received an adoption enquiry for surrendered labrador Kaya, who is currently in season. The potential home was actually very nice, but they already have a male labrador who's entire, meaning not neutered, so I asked if there was a reason for this.  The answer was that they didn't think it was natural to desex dogs, and would I mind explaining why it should be done.  I could have gone into a lot more detail but this is what I replied:

You're right that it's natural for dogs to remain entire, meaning not to be desexed.

It's also natural for a female dog to come into season at 5 months, and to have her first litter of puppies while still a puppy herself.  When in season, a female dog will actively seek out and encourage males to mate with her. 

It's natural for male dogs to mate with every female in season, and to fight other males to be able to do that.

It's NOT natural to keep a dog entire while not at the same time allowing other natural behaviour as described above.  

On top of that, females who are not spayed very often develop mammary tumours, something that doesn't happen in desexed females.

The life expectancy of desexed dogs is known to be longer than that of entire dogs.

However, the main reason for desexing is to prevent the many thousands of unwanted puppies that are born, and die, in Hong Kong every year.  Every single rescue organisation insists on their dogs and cats being desexed.