Glynis and myself hit the road to Kinglake with the red ute loaded to the gunnels. We did visits to dogs on the way up stopping in Hurstbridge to fit a coat for a dog at work with her owner. On to Doreen where a family is temporarily renting whilst they wait for their block in Kinglake West to be cleared. They aim to go back up to Kinglake just as soon as possible and live in the only building still left standing, the shed. Their two senior Labradors are now wearing very smart weather proof coats and they have Hound Houses to keep them warm and dry.

Learning to live in the suburbs in a new housing estate compared to acres of beautiful treed bush land is a culture shock. We can only imagine the depths of the impact this event is having on these families.

In an effort to get up the mountain through the back roads Glynis and I found ourselves at the bottom of a fire trail that was a dirt rock road with about a 1 in 2 climb, very steep indeed.?Whilst we did consider it, out of respect for the red ute we turned around and back tracked.

There are many roads still closed in the country of the main roads and I think we found all of them.

We called into the new Kinglake Vet surgery in waiting, they are about 3 weeks away from being up and running and we picked up a new batch of order forms.

Because we have a stock of items in Kinglake we were able to fill all the orders. We met a particularly happy dog called Murphy who thought his new kennel was fantastic, shooting straight inside and making himself comfy.

We visited 8 locations in all with a total of 17 dogs between them.

We then had 5 kennels to water proof so with Annalise's help the 3 of us lifted and moved , glued and tacked?canvas on the bottoms and interior floors of the kennels. The cold is going to be bone shattering. We have a volunteer called Linda who is cutting up and edging the donated woollen blankets and filling the hessian bags we have had donated. These mats are very dense and will go in the bottom of the kennels stopping the cold from seeping up from the ground.

The government case workers have started to ring us with requests for their clients from Flowerdale to Reservoir and Healesville.

Over the next couple of weeks we will endeavour to collect the donated kennels that are dotted around the state. Taking them straight to new locations where they are now needed.

We are managing to stay on top of the requests but every now and then we feel a slight panic that at some point we will run out of resources and have to say no to a request from people in need.

Keeping this in mind it is our intention to start fund raising again, we have a sponsored walk planned so stay tuned as we will put the details together this weekend.

Lynne Glynis and Annalise.