Today we were all very relieved to see that the significant fire threat that both Warburton and Upwey, and their surrounding suburbs faced, had eased. Whilst we appreciate the reprieve we know that we are far from out of the woods and the weather forecast for later in the week is less than encouraging. We are still running at maximum capacity as only a few of the families that brought their pets in yesterday have felt secure enough to take them back home.

In hind sight, it is actually quite amazing just how smooth an operation this has become for us. Over the past two weeks we have fine tuned our procedures and even yesterdays intense and rapid intake of animals went off without a hitch. The only problem that we couldn’t avoid was that we didn't physically have enough room to fit everyone in, but we had that contingency covered too.

We owe a sincere debt of gratitude to the Boarding Kennels, Catteries and Veterinary Clinics both near and far who kindly offered to accommodate any additional animals that needed to evacuate. I am sure that the people that chose to bring their animals to those facilities are just as appreciative. So a great big Thank You to all of you.

Being able to offer the community this kind of assistance is so vital, and there is nothing like a disaster of this scale to show just how important pets are to their people. We are so proud to be able to play this role in keeping families and their pets together and humbled by the level of support that we have received. Things can change so quickly in this environment and with your help we can commit to being here to face what ever challenges come our way.

Please check on our progress through this crisis regularly as we will endeavour to have an update (almost!) everyday. We hope to see you at our Benefit Dinner on this coming Sunday night at Leonda on the Yarra. See our events page on the website for further details.