Consequences of visiting a rescue-centre

When we moved to South Africa, sadly many of our pets had to stay behind in the UK. We told Matias he could adopt a dog here instead, a dog who desperately needed a home and his loving care.

While still in England we'd found the DARG website. It's a dog and cat rescue centre here in Hout Bay. We'd deliberately not gone to visit them sooner: we wouldn't be allowed to have another dog where we're staying at the moment, and knowing myself I'd inevitably fall in love with one immediately.

We went there today, just to have a look, that's all.

We saw some nice kittens first. India was absolutely thrilled with them. We then saw some dogs. Cages and cages of dogs, barking and jumping up & down to get our attention. Some of them showed us their teeth (out of fear mostly), but all of them barked. Except two dogs in one cage. They tried to lick us through their fence. We went to ask more information about them, just out of interest, of course. The blonde one is a bitch called Dixie. She's a labrador cross, about 2 years old. She was found walking around the streets somewhere north of Cape Town. She's been at DARG for almost a year. The darker one is a dog called Turbo. He's an alsatian cross who's been at a kennel (at DARG and somewhere else) for the past 4+ years. He was found at the local informal settlement in an extremely bad condition. Among other things he had a bad mange. It took a long time to get him into any kind of shape.

I thought Dixie might be the one for us. She seemed to have a loving nature, she's a bitch (goes well with our two bitches) and I like labradors. Turbo seemed wonderful too, but he's unfortunately a dog (= male). We took both of them for a walk. They were just adorable. Matias went in the fenced area with them so they could play more. Matias and Turbo bonded there and then. They played and cuddled, and chose each other.

OK, so we weren't supposed to get a dog. But still, we phoned Heikki and got him over to have a look at Turbo. He agreed that Turbo has an especially loving nature. I think the dogs from the informal settlements mostly do, as the ones with a bad temper don't survive long enough to breed. We can't get Turbo home yet, but if our other dogs approve we'll reserve him for us. We'll take Megan and Siru there tomorrow and see how they get along. Keep your fingers crossed.