The family of guinea pigs have arrived and the first job was to sex them and separate the males from the females. they appear to be in good condition though the fact that they have all been kept together means that there will definitely be more babies on the way. I asked Roy to collect them from their home in Bangor and just minutes later I received another call from the same area about two abandoned rabbits so Roy kindly collected them also.These two lovely bunnies belonged to a University student who failed his exams and returned home leaving them behind.His flatmate was returning to his own home in Bristol today so it was an urgent situation. I have many calls from students asking for pets and I rarely agree because this is the type of situation I dread and this is not the only case of animal abandonment by students we have dealt with. What has annoyed me even more is that they are not females as I was told but a male and a female, their nails are overgrown and the female appears to be pregnant!. Brilliant! Just what an overflowing cash strapped animal shelter needs! And it is not even Christmas yet.
I put up my Christmas tree yesterday and couldn't resist taking this photo of Paddy having a snooze in front of the fire.Very Festive. He really hates the cold, I cant wait for his day coat to arrive. In response to my last blog I received a message from Jan who runs the Pig Sanctuary in Vancouver, they have had loads of snow there and having struggled through that ,she now has the mud caused by the thaw to contend with.Even though she was prepared for the bad weather, as she says, it still doesnt make it easy to deal with when you have animals to care for and 39 pigs (plus other animals)take a lot of looking after. Its good to have contact with others who run shelters because they understand so completely how it feels when you are struggling in every way to keep things going and how fed up you can get when it sometimes seems as though the problems are never ending. Small independent shelters never have the funds or help that the big national charities have and so we have no back up when things go wrong. I always believed that by now we would be financially secure but it just never happened in spite of every effort being made to improve our image and to publicise our work over the years. never mind, never say never.It could still happen one day.
There are a couple of ladies coming to see the dogs tomorrow, fingers crossed they will find ones susitable.It would be nice to see some rehomed before Christmas just in case there are any emergencies to be admitted. Of course at this time of year we have to be very careful abaout rehoming pets and there will be a cut off point soon. It isn't that all will want pets as xmas presents but when there are children in the home there will be excessive excitement, there will most likely be visitors coming and going and it is just not the right time to introduce a new pet.Having said that I am prepared to make exceptions, I always have done.If the home is good and the circumstances acceptable I am happy for an animal to leave us during the festive season.Not everybody has a busy and noisy time and a quiet home without excited children can be perfectly suitable for a pet to settle in. Often older people have just lost a beloved pet and can't face the holiday period without him/her. I can understand and empathise with that. It is a matter of being selective and careful which we endeavour to be every time.
When I wrote the last blog I omitted to mention that I have lost yet another of my own dogs, this is the sixth in the past few months. Little old yorkie Suzy died a few days ago after having several fits and losing her appetitite; she had become very frail and for the first time since I have had her(3 years) she did not even have the strength to try and steal my food - her favourite pastime. I felt it was the right time for her to go.She was never the sweetest natured dog and although tiny in size, she was ferocious if anyone tried to groom her or pick her up. Its strange how the bolshy, fiery ones seem to leave the biggest gap. She used to always find the most comfortable place to sleep and when she was on my favourite chair I had to perch on one side of it so as not to disturb her.I keep finding myself doing that even though she is no longer there.There is no doubt she was a real character and I loved her in spite of her unpredictability.I am now left with just three - the smallest number of dogs I have had in years but I think I need to keep it that way now. I need some me space!
PS: good news, the thirdd of the cats abandoined when the owners went to Australia has been found a home.
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