Sunday 26 July 2009

Soggy but satisfied

Hey, well, we may have got a bit wet today doing the Mutt Strutt at Boggart Hole Clough but we have had a brilliant day. I have to say a huge thank you to the Park Warden and the council for helping us to do it and being so helpful too, but the biggest thanks of all must go to all the dogs and their owners for braving the whether and raising/donating so much money.

We are all so chuffed cos if all the money pledged comes back in, including gift aid claims, we will have raised £810 for us and the Nowzad Dogs charity. How fantastic is that.

We actually had a bit of a miscount at first and thought it was more like £1k, but it is definitely just over £800. People were so generous with their support and I am truly thankful to everyone. Even some of our home visitors, foster carers and one of our Inspectors (Mel) came along to support us, which is just so lovely. Renews my faith in humans, it really does.

Yesterday, I got to go up to the kennels to see our dogs, which is a rare occurrence, sadly, cos of having to do all the admin for the branch and event organising. Anyway, the reason why I share this snippet is because I got to meet, for the first time, a little lad called Charlie. (If you scroll right down to the bottom of this page you'll see a pic of him and his sad story.)

Charlie is a little sodkin. He is a typical Jack Russell - all the reports I have had say he either loves you or hates you and their is no grey area with him. We've actually had him since January and only one person has ever shown an interest in him but they change their mind just before they had the home visit. I was getting very worried about Charlie's future because of him being so, erm, like a Jack Russell!

Well, let me tell you, I am smitten. He is just magic. Such a character. He couldn't give a monkeys about me, all he wanted to do was walk and play. He loved it when I let out the zippy lead and ran along with him, he loved it even more ragging his lead (I had permission from Ctaherine to let him do that with the lead let out) but his favourite sport of all was jumping and splashing and sploshing in every puddle he found. Oh, what fun he had. Every puddle he made a beeline for and splish-splashed in it and got absolutely filthy. He was ace! And I enjoyed every minute of being with him.

So, you can imagine my excitement today when I learnt that someone has booked in to see him tomorrow. Please keep all your fingers and paws crossed that he likes them and they like him. He truly deserves a new home, he has been with 7 months and he was only 1 years old when he arrived.

Tomorrow is going to be a difficult day for me, I've been quite upset already today. I have to take one of my foster bunnies to be put to sleep. She and her mate have been with me for 4 months, which is why it's so hard. She has recurring dental problems and tooth root abscess, so me, Gilly and Jo have reached the decision to end her suffering. I'm heart broken and struggling with it all, especially because she is only the way she is because of the poor care and wrong diet she has been given by previous owners. I probably won't blog tomorrow cos it's going to be a tough day with the added stress of my own geriatric bunny going in to the vet for the very same problem. It feels like a very cruel irony and I'm not at peace with it all, at all.