Christie and I are now nearing the end of our UK Roadshow. It’s been exhausting, but wonderful and I’ll update you about it soon.

Just quickly, I wanted to share with you some good news I’ve received from our lovely vet nurse Hayley in Chengdu. You’ll remember the little white dog called “Tudo” (Potato in Chinese) that featured in my 6 June post. Tudo had saved his owner’s life the day of the massive earthquake by snapping at his legs and running outside. His owner, an old man, followed Tudo and was safely outside when his house collapsed. This sweet old man had been hiding Tudo in his tent, but could no longer feed him properly so had brought him to us to care for him.

Well now they have been reunited. This was Hayley’s message:

Tudo’s family went to the dog rescue centre initially to pick him up but were told he was at the bear rescue centre with us. They drove straight over and were reunited just outside the rehab enclosure. Four of the family came to collect him and their faces broke into huge smiles when they saw him. Tudo recognised them immediately and ran over, dancing in circles at their feet until they bent down to stroke him whereby he just ran from one to the other wriggling in complete excitement. He was over the moon to see them again. It did bring a tear to my eye!

Such a sweet sight. They thanked us very much for taking good care of him and explained that now they have a new apartment they can take him home. They then repeated the story of how he had saved the life of their uncle by pulling at his trouser leg until he was out of his house and then 10 seconds later the earthquake struck, collapsing his house.

While with us, Tudo was a well behaved little dog and got on well with the other earthquake victims who are also waiting for their owners to collect them.

Here is a pic of Tudo (at the back) with our volunteer, Chris, at the Moon Bear Rescue Centre.

Hayley had some more good news too:

Another little rescue story is of Yoda - named because of her big ears. She was rescued from one of the shut down pet shops and was found to have a broken front leg that hadn't healed properly.

She stayed with us while it mended and has now been homed with one of our kitchen girls, who has had her for three days. She says Yoda has settled in well, gets on with all of her family, especially her 11-year-old daughter. Their summary of her? Cute!