Big-Hearted Beijing: The Lost Puppies of Beijing

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Over the festive season, we’ll be highlighting some of the organizations and people that give their time and skills to make our city a better place, and looking at what you can do to support them. Spread the spirit of giving these holidays!

In this series, we have mostly focused on those helping the people of this city, and particularly children in need. But our furry friends need our help too, and particularly the doggoes. So we talked to our friend and former beijingkids staffer Auna Harris about the kind souls behind The Lost Puppies of Beijing.

Auna Harris

Tell us about the history of The Lost Puppies of Beijing. How did it start, how has it developed?

Lost Puppies started in September 2018 when founders Alex and Naomi rescued one too many puppies (think 101 Dalmatians, but street puppy version). Faced with so many pups to nurse back to health, they gathered together a network of dog fosters across Beijing to take in and raise the pups until homes could be found.Since then, The Lost Puppies has rescued and homed over 120 dogs and we are growing every day. Now we have a group of nine administrators, and a large network of dedicated fosters who help us rehabilitate dogs to get them ready for their furever families.

Zeus was one of the first puppies saved by The Lost Puppies of Beijing

What is The Lost Puppies of Beijing doing now, and what are your plans for the future?Essentially, we are a core team who coordinates a large network of fosters and volunteers who have come together to rescue dogs. We do not have a central location or space; all our pups stay in foster homes across the city until a permanent home can be found for them.Moving forward, we will, of course, be rescuing as many pups as we can. We also will be continuing to develop our role as a community resource that empowers Beijing’s rescuers and supports dog fosters and owners. Need to know how to register your dog? What vet to take your pooch to? What to do if you find a homeless dog in need? Where to board your BFF while you’re away? We’re happy to walk you through all the ins and outs of these questions and will be actively working to make this type of info more accessible to the community.

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Recently, we have also partnered with Together for Animals in China (TAC), a dog shelter in Beijing. They are a non-kill shelter that is committed to providing the best care. TAC is run by a Chinese woman who has been rescuing dogs in China for years. We are helping them get dogs adopted so they can continue to move more dogs through their shelter. This partnership really has helped us reach more Chinese citizens because as of now, most of our work has been centered around the expat community. We are hoping to get more of the local community involved so we are able to build a more sustainable rescue community here and save more dogs.This month we have a charity gala coming up on December 14 to help raise money for the pups (you can link the article if you want to.) And we are planning to do some adoption days this coming year.

This cute doggo and all the others pictured, except for Zeus, above are available for adoption!

How can people get involved? What help do you need, and how can they contact you?

The most critical need for us at the moment is finding adopters and fosters. Currently we have over 20 dogs looking for homes and we can only rescue additional dogs if we have foster homes available. Fostering is a super fun and rewarding experience –especially for those who can’t commit to long-term pet ownership. Fostering involves taking in a dog for a short period of time or until they get adopted- usually a couple of months. Fosters need to be able to commit time for caring for the animal and taking them to vet appointments. Our organization will reimburse for vaccinations and spay/neuter surgery for our animals.

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If you can’t take in a pup, we are also looking for help with our social media presence, organizing our vet appointments, planning events, collecting supplies donations and more! If you want to contact us please add our official Lost Puppies account by scanning this QR code or adding our WeChat at: lostpuppies. You can also check out our website www.lostpuppies.cn to see our available puppies for adoption.

What makes your organization different or special?I think the best thing we do is offer support to our fosters and adopters. We provide financial support through our reimbursement system, but even more important is our team of experienced dog owners and rescuers who can help with training issues or medical advice. It is hard to own a dog in China: the vets are different, the rules change a lot, and of course, there’s the language barrier. We work hard to make things easier for people. We help to make sure everyone gets the correct vaccinations, goes to the best vets, trains to avoid pups developing behavior issues, and follows dog ownership rules to have the safest, healthiest, and most fun experience with their four-legged BFF.

Photos: courtesy of Auna Harris

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