Tuesday 27th October: Possum

 Every morning when I make my coffee I also prepare breakfast for the youngest puppies, who share my bedroom. It’s a mixture of Hills puppy small bites, hot water and canned food, so it ends up like doggy porridge. The pups love it and know it’s coming when I go back upstairs, but this morning the youngest and smallest baby, Possum, was lying limply on the ground as the others clamoured for the food. I picked her up and wrapped her in a towel, but I knew that there was nothing I could do to save her as she was already too weak. The best I could do was to give her some pain relief as the spasms racked her tiny body, and I waited for her release. Possum was a singleton from AFCD, and I don’t know where she came from or how she ended up alone there, but she was just too young to survive the days without proper food or warmth before I found her.

I had taken a short video of the puppies just the day before and had shown Possum standing on her own as she normally did, so at least there is a record of her short life.

We also now have a team of volunteers who are going to be posting regular videos on the HKDR Facebook page and YouTube. I know these have been missing from our website so I’m very happy to have them back.  Once everything’s up and running I’ll post the links here.

Today’s new recruit from AFCD was a small-sized mongrel girl who had been found loitering outside the AFCD gates. Maybe she thought it was a dog hotel, but she would have discovered her mistake too late.  Anyway, she’s safely with us now and has a new name, Tippy.  She’s obviously been someone’s pet as she’s very sweet, and was quite happy to explore the vet clinic consult room as well as turning her nose up at the boring dog biscuits offered to her.  I wish we could find out these dogs’ stories but we rarely know anything of their past.

With the adoptions over the holiday weekend leaving spaces in kennels, Mark, Kathy and I sat down with the kennel plan and did some moving around.  We obviously have to try to put dogs who get on together in the same space, and make sure the bullies don’t share with the less confident dogs.  I think most of the dogs enjoy having company in their kennels, but it’s often trial and error to get it right.  Now we have to find out how Tippy gets on with other individuals so we can find the right spot for her.