Fourteen of us on twelve bikes met up at Redbeck Cafe, for our 6th Annual Pet Food Run, and our first organised rideout of 2015.
Great to welcome along Mark from Huddersfield MAG, together with our 'regulars' who have supported this run for a number of years now.
There was an American Car Club meet at Redbeck and this provided a fine spectacle whilst waiting for our designated start time.
We set off at 10:00 for the short ride through Wakefield to the A650, then onto East Ardsley, and our first port of call, Whitehall Dog Rescue.
Brian, the owner of Whitehall met us all, we dropped off our doggie donations, then had a tour through the kennels and we met some of the residents.
We spent quite a bit of time with Keiko, a 3 year old female Japanese Akita.
Keiko was tied to railings in Bradford and just left prior to being rescued. It is bad enough when someone has such disregard for a dog that they tie it up to railings and walk off leaving it to all the dangers that could fall upon it ... but it's nothing short of evil to do it to a dog that is totally blind. Keiko's blindness is due to neglect and sadly she was tied up and left where she remained until people that did care contacted the authorities and she was taken to the dog compound. Fortunately for Keiko, the dog compound she was taken to works very hard to try to find places for the dogs they take in from the wardens and they contacted Whitehall and so Keiko arrived into their care. Despite being totally blind, she has adapted incredibly well, and more than compensates with her other senses. She was running around and darting between people without bumping into them, relying on smell, noise and vibrations to detect objects .... quite amazing and if you hadn't been told she was blind, you would never know. A truly amazing dog who loves people and loves being made a fuss of.
We met a good few other residents for adoption, together with some of the more permanent residents (dogs with various health problems which means they cant realistically be re-homed, so will spend the rest of their days at Whitehall, being pampered by Brian and the other helpers).
Whitehall provide a terrific service, saving many dogs from death row, and are well worth supporting.
Following our tour of Whitehall, we saddled up and headed via Thorpe, to Tingley and the RSPCA rescue kennels.
We were met here by a couple of the RSPCA helpers and handed over our doggie donations.
We were then given a tour of the RSCPA Leeds & Wakefield Branch Rescue Kennels (currently the old MyPetStop boarding kennels). There weren't many residents in attendance as the RSPCA are vacating the premises in April (if all goes to plan) and moving to a new facility at the site of the old Foxholes Boarding Kennels Site in East Ardsley (just down the road from Whitehall). The existing site is to be used as the new Leeds campus of the College of Animal Welfare.
We met several of the remaining residents, which didn't just include dogs, but also cats and rabbits.
We had a photocall at the end, which will be appearing in the RSPCA newsletter, then saddled up and made our respective ways home.
A great first rideout of the year, with a most worthy purpose. A bonus was the lovely weather, the best biking day of 2015 to date. A huge thanks to everyone who came along and donated (doggie items & cash towards vets bills).
If you want to see our furry friends, and possibly offer them a new home, the rescue kennels websites are:
http://whitehalldogrescue.com
www.rspcaleedsandwakefield.org.uk