| HOMER - RESCUED 03/07/03
|
| Homer arrived at the sanctuary after a short ferry crossing from Mull. He had been observed at Salen for over 24 hours. As no adults seals were seen with him he was brought into the hospital.
|
| Homer appeared to be in good health with no initial problems other than a little dehydration and malnourishment. His routine blood tests confirmed that he had no serious problems and just needs to be looked after.
At the moment Homer is still being fed a milk formula but he will soon be weaned onto fish and should gain weight very quickly then.
|
| UPDATE 30/08/03
|
Homer was weaned onto fish very easily and has grown very quickly because of this. He has zoomed onwards in his rehabilitation and is now simply being handed his dinner. Unfortunately he has come to a standstill at this stage. Normally he would progress to eating fish from the water in the weaning pool, but after days of trying this method he was still looking for a hand to come and give him meals. Now we are simply getting a little more weight on him so he can undergo a starvation period.
This means that we will not hand feed him for around a week but will simply offer him food in the water. He will get hungry after a few days and will hopefully eat the fish we leave for him. This may sound harsh but if we did not let him get hungry there is no incentive for him to learn any other way to feed.
|
| UPDATE 02/11/03
|
| Homer is now zipping around in our outdoor pools. Since moving in with Lorne, Gigha and Rona he has rapidly put on weight and is now a whopping 32kg. He is always first in line at feed times and gobbles lots of fish straight down. He is a very funny pup and is learning lots of new tricks. He copies Lorne’s head shake which means ‘please throw me a fish’, and he is always scratching his neck just like Gigha. Homer is also a shadow, swimming along behind all his pool mates just beyond their tail. This gets on Rona’s nerves as she is very independent. Sometimes she turns round and chases him back!
|
