We drove a long way out of our way to reach the Kennels today, but we made it. A small group of us arrived with no idea what we would find but were amazed at the achievements of the weekend crew. They’d used a pump and managed to get all the water out of the runs so they were dry and the dogs back in. Some are still in Colleen’s house but all the big dogs and Galgos are now safe and dry. Satu Järlbrink and her mum, helped by Heidi Aho worked non-stop in the Puppy House. It was scrubbed and disinfected from top to bottom and that included the ceiling. The sun had returned today and it was hot heavy work but it made it useable once again. Denise Roe beavered all day on the isolation area. There was still a heavy layer of mud and muck that was left once the water went down. She and Alan Dunning then blitzed The Garage pens and Peter’s workshop. Everywhere had been affected by the flood. Alan also worked with Adi Coates, clearing the garden of debris, sodden bedding, furniture, mattresses. Anything that had been stored at floor level was destroyed. Becky Coates, mum Lynn and friend Chris mopped and scrubbed solidly till we could eventually all stand back and see Paradise looking squeaky clean again.
Colleen and Peter’s water isn’t mains water but is delivered to a storage tank. The water is then circulated by a big pump set underground. This was completely destroyed by the flood. As a consequence, there is no running water in the house. There’s a flushing toilet in the puppy house but that’s it. All the cleaning was done with buckets from the swimming pool. That’s also where the dog’s drinking water is coming from. Thanks to your generosity, the first thing that your donations will go towards is a replacement pump. Thank Goodness you’ve been there for us.
We’ve had so many offers of help to get the Kennels up and running again, even people prepared to fly out from UK to help. Because Rita and Bill Fagence and Jill and Gary our new kennel assistants have worked solidly ahead of today’s work party, we won’t in fact need to organise groups of helpers like we thought we would, which is great but very disappointing as we were looking forward to meeting you all. In the light of this, in a month or two, we will be unveiling our newly sponsored pens at an open day. I’ll be putting a post on, nearer the time but we’d love to extend the invitation beyond our sponsors to our wider family of you wonderful people who have offered us help. So once again a massive thank you to all of our supporters and our helpers who are the beating heart of Paradise. There’s no doubt that it’s because of you that we’re still here. xxxxxxx

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