May News

May was another busy month for Kim’s Home. 

Firstly, Zoe’s health scare turned out fine.  Test results showed that her lump was benign and that she is a lovely, healthy ten year old Saluki who behaves like a two- year old.  Such a relief!

All the others are doing well although Freya’s back legs are getting a lot worse.  She will soon start another course of acupuncture – it seemed to work well last time.

Our GRWE foster dog, now called Laurie, arrived a month ago from Strayaid.  He was as thin as a wire coat hanger with red, raw, itchy skin.  Since then he has put on 6 kilos and his skin is nearly sorted.  He is however a bit of a handful:  young, bouncy and feeling full of energy.  He has been running off-lead and is muscling up nicely.  He does have an old injury to one hip and this will be investigated next week when he’s at athe vets’ to be neutered.  Then he will be ready for a home with confident, sensible dogs who will continue his education.Here he is showing off his good recall skills.

Sam and Harvey, the lurchers that Kim’s Home bought out of a northern pound, did not linger at St Francis Dog Sanctuary in Newquay, Cornwall.  They have both been happily rehomed.  We are hoping that we can get more dogs down from the NE, where there are so many unwanted lurchers, to the SW where there seem to be good homes waiting.

A couple of weeks ago I had an appeal about a 13 year old lurcher, Molly, who was stuck in a northern pound.  Just the sort of dog that Kim’s Home would take in but I couldn’t because of mad Laurie.  So I sent out an appeal and a friend’s dad offered to foster her.  All is going well and I hope the arrangement will be permanent. Here she is in her new garden enjoying the sun.  She looks like a different dog

Last weekend Kim’s Home attended the South Wales Dog Charity Fun Day.  I took along Grace, Ruby and Freya.  They enjoyed the day – the two lurcher girls love socialising.  Freya supervised the event from her best bed in the van.  We met lots of lovely people, spread the word about Kim’s Home and were very tired by the end of the day.  I judged the veteran class with the help of Lisa of Health Mutt.  Our winner was a black lab who looked extraordinarily fit for his fifteen years and four months.  It was clear that his owner thought the world of him.

Thanks to everyone who has sent donations to Kim’s Home.   It is very difficult to raise funds in these difficult times.  There are so many calls on people’s compassion.  And there are more and more dogs being dumped and abused.  I have emails telling me of such cases every day.  I can’t take them all in and so much of my time is spent liaising with  other rescues to ask if they have places.  And if they do, I organise the transport to the rescues – often right across the UK.

Kim’s Home is very costly because we take in sickly dogs and also have a lot of elderly residents.  Freya’s acupuncture will cost a lot of money.  And her insurance will not pay much because she is so very old.  Insuring the dogs costs me £320 per month – that’s before food, supplements, medication, equipment, petrol and any vet treatment, etc etc.   Thank goodness for the excellent free meat from our organic butcher, Martin Player.

Anyway, many thanks for any contributions

Best wishes

Wendy and the Kim’s Home Residents