Tag: SADR

Council, dogs and trees

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

20130207_120419When I head off to Adelaide on Friday I will not be alone. I contacted the SADR ( South Australian Dog Rescue) and I will be taking two little dogs down to their new homes in Adelaide – or surounds.  We stop about 30 minutes before we hit the city proper where we have a hand over point, in a well known location that everyone can get to.  The new family meet me out there and I  hand the dogs over. Generally I contact them about an hour or so out to give them time to get to the drop off point. I went in to see the SADR and told them I would be leaving on Friday. I didn’t take any dogs down with me last trip because I was going directly to the Flinders Medical Center – a very large teaching and research hospital on the far side of the city –  which takes me well away from the drop off point at Gepps Cross.

The argument continues and the planting of any tree has been halted whilst various council members  battle it out -native trees vs exotic trees. Personally I prefer the exotic trees particularly the Jacaranda . One particular councillor suggests that an avenue of native trees can be quite striking and I suppose that’s so, if you hire people to clean up the mess of limbs and bark and and are not too bothered that nothing will grow near them. So, all you get is a tree that will  break in a reasonable wind, shed bark and clutter up the drains and enhance the dry, dusty outlook of the town – great, go for it.. But they  (council) have admitted that the greening project has not lived up to expectations. Repairs to the system are in the process of being carried out whilst we continue to argue about what trees to plant.20130207_120734

After a week of fairly cool weather we went back into heatwave conditions again, but I don’t think we will make the  necessary conditions for a “heatwave”. Already the temperature is starting to drop back to manageable levels.  The dogs have been inside for most of that time. If the temperature starts to climb again then it will be unlikely that I will have companions on the way down to Adelaide because I, for one,  cannot drive for five an a half hours without some sort of break and I will need fuel and having them remain in the car whilst I fuel up is not a good idea. Without the A/C the inside of the car can become very hot very quickly- even with windows partly open , and little dogs don’t handle the heat too well. Generally when the temperature is above 35, we don’t transport dogs to Adelaide. I generally stop a number of times along the way when I have a dog with me – more than I do when I am on my own. However, tomorrow should be ok.

These are two photographs of parts of the town. The top one is taken from the  Lookout – actually they are both taken from the Lookout – the bottom photograph being the Foreshore.

All very interesting, really!!!

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

What’s interesting?  Well to send a few hours writing  and placing photographs  and save to drafts, then come back a little while later and press trash instead of edit.  Oops. It said I could recover it but I could not for the life of me find out how to do this, so I’ve sort of given up. And the oddest thing is that I cannot remember what I was writing about – well I sort of do to  a point, but it’s long gone now. However, it does give me a chance to talk about  the South Australian Dog Rescue. A dog was recently rescued from the pound – which as I said before is a kill pound.  This poor Poodle was  really in such a mess it was difficult to imagine how any person.with any degree of compassion,  could allow this to  happen. The fur of the animal was so badly matted that the vet  was  present when the groomer started to cut the coat. The matting was so bad that the poor animal is left with bald patches on his skin because the intensity of the matting had pulled the roots of the fur out in these places.  The vet  believes that the fur will never grow back in these areas. The dog will stay with a foster carer for a few weeks until it recovers then it will be vaccinated and desexed and once it is over all that trauma it will be put up for adoption.  Until then, it will stay with a foster carer. I have a friend who has recently adopted a dog and the  even after  quite a few months the dog still has  marks where it was chained up around the neck.No, don’t ask me how people could be so unkind, I honestly do not know. My friend and her husband are over the moon with their dog and were pleased to get the  adoption papers  last Thursday. I will take it out for a walk for them tonight along with one of my own – my son will have the other one.

We had a fundraising event for the Royal Flying Doctors Service (RFDS) yesterday and although I do not know at this stage how we fared, I should imagine we did well since we were very busy. The SADR had a stall not far from us. It was a lovely afternoon and a very flat out busy three and a half hours – 5pm – 8:30pm. I should say that the event yesterday was the Christmas Pageant and we were at the After-Pageant Fare in the gardens.

Before going out to the gardens  I spent the morning and early afternoon in my garden. I decided to remove the old edging, which was looking a bit “faded and Jaded” After ripping out the old edging I discovered that the bolts I had were too big so I will now have to wait until Monday to get into the hardware store and get the right size. Not to worry, it will look nice when completed.  Anyway, with a sort of unhappy story to start off with, I thought I would  insert a photographs of a ‘ Man in His Office”

Dogs, Pounds and Rescue.

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs
This is my Main Man – the MalteseTerrorist!
“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.”
    -Mark Twain

This is Australia and we have a Socialist Government. Actually we have two Socialist Governments, one State and one Federal and one is about as bad as the other because both love to pass legislation that takes the fun and excitement out of everything – except crime. We’re good with crime, we smack people on the wrist hand them lollies and give them suspended sentences. And for those of you in a more enlightened society where you send criminals to prison,  a suspended sentences is where the Judge tells you how naughty you have been, you look contrite and say you are sorry and the judge tells you she/he cannot be swayed by this  (and then is) so he has to make an example and sentences  you to three years – suspended. This means you walk from court free, even if you have been drag racing, crashed into another car and killed someone, you can still walk from court free on a suspended sentence.

I have two dogs a Foxy Lady and a Maltese Terrorist. The foxy Lady does not like going in the car – we do not know why, but the little man does and when he is in the car he likes nothing better than to curl  up on my lap and go to sleep. He is not a barking, head out of the window sort of dog, he just likes to be comfortable and comfortable is sleeping in daddy’s lap. Legislation says that this is illegal. All dogs must be restrained  or kept in a dog carrier when being transported. Tried both ( to obey the law, of course) and the dog carrier just upset him and the restraint, using the seat belt clip,  had me pulling the car off to the side of the road and getting out and  around to the other side and releasing him because he just about strangled himself trying to get across into my lap. Ok, I confess, I is a criminal – I breaks the law – I have an unrestrained dog in my car – a full size, dangerous, bite your head off, Maltese Terrorist. As you can see by the photograph, he is definitely dangerous.  The only time I restrain a dog is when I am transporting a dog down to Adelaide for the South Australian Dog Rescue.(SADR)

The sad thing about this place is that people just wont get their dogs desexed and let them have litters, which they then dump on the RSPCA. They can’t cope  so they go to the pound – which is a KILL pound. Ten days and then the animals are put to sleep. The  SADR rescue do  what they can and try to find the dogs new homes – mostly out of here, so when I am going down to the State Capital, I generally have a couple of passengers with me.  I remember taking one dog and told the SADR that ” if this dog gets Dognapped on the the journey, don’t blame me – he was such a lovely little fellow. It’s ok – he arrived safely to be handed over to his new mummy.