Love and Adoption for the Mongrel Dog at HK Dog Rescue
PETS

Love and Adoption for the Mongrel Dog at Hong Kong Dog Rescue

For 18 years, the city’s leading dog adoption and homing agency for abandoned pets, Hong Kong Dog Rescue (HKDR) has had one top priority on its mind: to spread the love and awareness of adopting Hong Kong’s mongrel dogs, also known as the tong gau (“Chinese dog”).

With a recognizable black or brown-coloured skin, the mongrel dogs of Hong Kong have a history of over 15,000 years in southern China but face discrimination when it comes to providing safe homes to the abandoned slew of dogs in the city.

The mongrel dogs can be found in rural New Territories villages, construction sites, dumps, or roaming country parks. They are the breed most likely to be victims of animal abuse, according to a study by the University of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong Dog Rescue was founded by Sally Anderson in 2003 to save dogs and young puppies from government-run animal shelters. Sally works with several volunteers and paid staff to run the care and adoptions, including Hong Konger Eva Sit.





“When people think of getting a dog [in Hong Kong], they’re buying instead of adopting,” Eva told The Beat Asia.

Eva Sit, the centre’s communications manager, has worked at HKDR since 2009, after graduating from a local university in Hong Kong. Her day-to-day operations include working in the homing centre, taking care of the hundreds of dogs that pass through their bases, feeding, cleaning, and handling adoptions to individuals and families in the city.

“One of the very key messages we want to send out to the public is that people should start looking at how great our local dogs are, the mongrels.”

Advertisements for new dogs who are brought to the centre are usually posted on the HKDR’s Instagram account with information about their health and how to adopt them. “[The] golden retriever and huskies get a lot of interest and a lot of inquiries sent in. However, no one seems to show any interest to our lovely mongrels.”

Eva explains that most pure- bred dogs, if abandoned by their owners for a number of reasons – leaving Hong Kong, poor health issues, loss of interest – are usually adopted by friends. With the mongrels, it is “a struggle” to find a replacement owner.

“People may have some misconceptions about breeds such as the Labrador or poodle that they are guaranteed to be sweet, friendly, and behave well, but the mongrel is one of the most family-friendly breeds that you can find in Hong Kong. They love humans.”

The centre has cared for and re-homed over 9,500 dogs, receiving funding from fundraising events and private donations, to run operations at their main Tai Po Homing Centre, where larger dogs are taken for, and Ap Lei Chau Homing Centre, housing smaller dogs awaiting re-homing.

Almost all dogs brought through the doors of HKDR are cued from the AFCD-run centres in Hong Kong, located in Pokfulam, Tokwawan, Sha Tin, and Sheung Shui. Many of the dogs rescued or procured from the city’s four animal management centres are ex-breeding dogs, only useful for the purpose of producing puppies for the popular luxury pet trade in Hong Kong.

The government runs four animal management centres, operations run by the Agriculture, Fisheries, and Conversation Department (AFCD), that house abandoned and poorly dogs, most of them euthanized due to their sick conditions.





Despite the AFCD actively campaigning for pet owners to refrain from having their pets put down or abandoned, the centres often see many dogs in poor health and condition due to neglect and abuse from former owners. Thousands of dogs and puppies every year are mulled in the centres.

HKDR runs as a No-Kill Organisation, operating under the principle that dogs may only be euthanized if it is the sole humane option, striving to save every soulful dog that comes to their base on Lamma Island, foster homes, and the Tai Po and Ap Lei Chau Homing Centre.

Dogs available for adoption can be found posted on their Instagram, as well as through their website.

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