Meet Puppy. Puppy is a mixed breed, a friendly boy who found himself homeless and at our local shelter. His paperwork said Boxer x Bullmastiff however when I saw him on Sunday I found myself baffled, I just couldn’t see it. Puppy has a boofy head, short fluffy ears and his multicoloured coat is quite soft and almost silky feeling, size-wise he is about the same height as a Dalmatian. Thankfully Puppy got adopted and was going home on Monday, however I’m still left wondering with no chance of a resolution. What breeds do you think Puppy resembles?
Last Friday was Take Your Dog to Work day, a fantastic initiative that celebrates the contribution that dogs make to us and society in general and also to encourage people to adopt from shelters and rescues. It is well known that having a pet can lower stress levels, blood pressure and improve activity levels so surely bringing them to work can assist with productivity and morale, providing you don’t have any dog haters in your office environment.
Dogs are not allowed in our workplace, for many reasons but the main one appears to be health and safety. To get around this I implemented a ‘Bring Your (Virtual) Pet to Work’ day and encouraged staff to bring in photos and fluffy toys that represented their pets and to decorate their office space as they saw fit. That day was today and it has been lots of fun, many of my colleagues are dog lovers so the majority of images and toys were dog related. We tied the event to a fund-raising morning tea for the Animal Welfare League Queensland, they rely heavily on donations of cash and goods from the general public and are always in need of old blankets, towels, pet food and kitty litter. I don’t know how much we have raised, the collection of donations has been extended to a week to give all of our work mates the chance to make a donation but every little bit helps. In the meantime everyone got the chance to eat cake, talk about their beloved fur-kids and contribute to a good cause – what a great day to end the week 🙂
I’ve always wanted to work with animals in some capacity, as a little girl I wanted to be a vet but then I discovered that science was not my friend and without it there was no chance of me becoming a vet. Growing up we always had animals around us, sheep, cows, horses, dogs, cats, ducks and chooks until I went to University and moved away from home. Now, as an adult with my own home, the void has been filled with two black dogs, Maxi the dalmatian cross and Bundy the staffordshire bull terrier cross. There is much joy in having a dog, they provide company, an exercise partner and plenty of laughs with their crazy antics. It is not all fun and games, you have to put in the time and effort to make them sociable, (reasonably) obedient and well behaved – it doesn’t just happen but it is well and truly worth the effort.
Nap time for an old girl
As much as I love and obsess over our two black dogs, there are lots of dogs out there that don’t have homes because their owners either don’t want them or can’t have them anymore. Don’t even get me started on the irresponsible dog owners who refuse to get their dog desexed so they keep roaming and procreating and voila! more unwanted dogs. Anyway, I’ve always been a fan of supporting animal welfare groups and our local shelter has an great volunteer program which provides people like me with the opportunity to walk dogs, cuddle cats, foster the young, sick and elderly and help with fund raising. Today was my first day as a volunteer dog walker and it was excellent, I walked dogs of all shapes and sizes and the affection and appreciation comes back at you in spades. It would be easy to walk away feeling depressed about all of the animals that live in the shelter and it is sad that they don’t all have forever homes, yet I walked away feeling good that I was able to help and that each dog I walked spent half an hour less locked in a kennel. My pants were covered in slobber, my t-shirt covered in dirty paw prints, our two black dogs sniffed me from head to toe when I got home and I can’t wait to go back an do it all again next weekend.
Two Black Dogs 