Eeeek! I missed a day of DaisyPets Halloween. I have been crazy busy the past couple of weeks, and had planned so many posts for every day but yesterday. I thought something might pop up, and nothing ever did. It got closer and closer to Thursday, and I got busier and busier. Now Thursday has been and gone, and no post went live. However, all of Thursday we were out collecting for HUHA so I have decided that I will share that experience with you all today. Next week is the last week of October, and we have posts planned, written and ready to go. I promise.
If you are in New Zealand and living under a rock, or you are from overseas, HUHA is a leading no kill shelter and charity within New Zealand. They have been around since 2000 and have been growing strength to strength since then. They rescued plenty of dogs in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes and rehomed them into new homes around the country, they rescued beagles from an old testing facility, fought to get animal testing banned in New Zealand, and many more smaller projects throughout the country. They are 100% volunteer run, and all funds that are donated to the charity go towards the animals in their care. If you want to find out anymore information, or even donate, visit www.huha.org.nz
Last year, when Diego was just a tiny puppy, we volunteered for the full day to collect at New World Thorndon. This was my first charity collecting experience and I loved it so much. It was so great to see such generous people, and hear tales of their experience with HUHA or rescue dogs. After that, I knew I had to make this an annual event that I attended.
This year, we decided that we would love to be at New World Thorndon again, and I am glad we chose that since the weather in the morning was not great. We were there for an hour or so at 7.30am, had a break for breakfast and to walk Diego, and then went back for another hour from 11am - 12pm. Diego was a model of great behaviour, although a little bit distracted by all the food whizzing past in trolleys. He cuddled up to many kids, which are his personal favourite. He is so good at being calm around kids, and slowly interacting with them at the childs pace.
We then headed down to the hub at Blue Illusion at 12pm to catch up with everyone and give Diego a bit of a leg stretch. It was great to see a stall outside with photos, information and also selling some copies of Carolyn's book. After we said hi to everyone there, we headed further down the road to spend some time collecting alone. On a main road, it is a lot more disheartening than at New World. Lots of people walking past would not even look you in the eye, and even less returned a smile to either Diego or I. Too many people are in a rush these days, and forget to interact with the world around them, and that is a mighty shame. However, we did have a couple of groups of people stop by, and they lifted our spirits high. We had a lovely woman speak to Diego in Spanish for about five minutes, and ask lots of questions about HUHA and the work that they do. We also had some teenage girls come over and cuddle/roll around on the footpath with Diego and donated a lot of their spare cash.
At 2pm we were due back at New World Thorndon so we walked back up to there and changed over from the collector that was there for the past couple of hours. We spent another two hours there, and heard many more stories, and a lot more cash. My favourite thing was that children from the local schools were donating all they could. It is awesome to see that children will donate their limited funds to the animals, and great to see some compassion in the younger generations. Diego had many teenage girls lusting over his puppy charms. He also spent multiple minutes with other small babies that enjoyed a kiss to their mouth from Diego and a pat on his head. It is nice to know that the mothers could spare a couple of minutes to do that for their child and start the dog/human interactions early. I love the idea of children experiencing dogs, far too many children these days are scared of dogs.
By 4pm, Diego was exhausted and had collapsed behind me for a sleep while I continued collecting. All in all it was a great day out, and Diego and I spent the rest of the afternoon napping at home and reminiscing on all the great people we met. I am so sorry that we got no photos, we were too busy to get any good pictures. I also want to thank everyone that donated to HUHA yesterday, whether it was into our bucket or any of the other awesome volunteers buckets.
To check out our Halloween posts, visit this post for all the links.
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