As you will know, we're having to leave our wonderful Soho location at 22 Elgin Street, home to the "Red Dogs", our office, and retail store. We don't have an exact moving date yet as everything depends on whether we can secure a new place, and when, but in the meantime we need to clear as much stock as we can. I'm pretty sure no new location will provide the space we've been lucky enough to occupy for the past two years, so we're holding a big sale of everything (except food and treats) at rock bottom prices. Usually we don't open at weekends but we will be open 24/2 (Sat) 13:00-18:00 and 25/2 (Sun) 11:00-16:00. Make sure you come to grab the bargains while you can!
I'm sure many of you spend at least some time in the day scrolling through Instagram or other similar sites, and that fact is obvious when you travel on public transport and see almost everyone just staring at their phones. I have to admit that I do the same at certain times, although at least I have a reason to want to see updates on adopted dogs and puppies, or to check the responses to our own HKDR posts. Our foster homes also share photos and videos of their temporary puppies of course, and it's an invaluable way of promoting and showing off the youngsters.
One thing that's clear is that there's an unlimited number of dog trainers on Instagram giving their "expert" advice (I've noticed that most of them are pretty young), and while sometimes what they're saying is worthwhile listening to, there's also the danger of becoming confused with all of the conflicting information. Sometimes I totally disagree with what's said, sometimes agree, and often think it's just rubbish. Just recently I couldn't help but comment on one such post because the trainer (I have no idea if these people are actually qualified or not) was 100% against the desexing of dogs.
Regardless of anything else, a recent case with one of the other Hong Kong dog rescue groups is a perfect example of why desexing is not only desirable, but essential if the problem of stray dogs and unwanted puppies is going to end. In this particular case a young female, still a puppy herself at only seven month, gave birth to fifteen puppies! Although exceptional, can you imagine this being repeated only a few times and the results? Assuming all pups survived (which in this case they didn't), and half of them were females, that would mean in just six months they themselves could become pregnant. This is exactly why Hong Kong has so many puppies desperately in need of homes, and why they end up in the kind of home where they are either not properly cared for, including desexing, or thrown out when they become young adults.
We are always being asked if we can take in more puppies, and the sad fact is that we just don't have unlimited space. Today again we were asked by AFCD if we could accept more puppies and we had to say no. Other AWOs (Animal Welfare Organisations) will be asked the same question, and hopefully one of them will be able to take in the pups, who incidentally were born at the AFCD Centre. However this is not the solution to the problem of unwanted puppies, as the only real and permanent solution is for dogs to be desexed, particularly the poor homeless females whose life is a never-ending cycle of giving birth over and over until they finally die.
If you were at Whiskers N Paws on Sunday, or have looked through the photos taken that day Puppy Adoption Day 18th Feb 2024 , you will have seen how many puppies were there. These aren't even all of the available puppies we have at HKDR, as some are not ready to attend the Puppy Parties, and others are at our Tai Po Homing Centre. Names have been added to the photos now, so if you're interested in adopting please start by completing the questionnaire at www.hongkongdogrescue.com/adopt/adoption-questionnaire/. We actually have some meetings lined up for some of the puppies shown, so I hope I'll be able to share good news very soon.
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