Yesterday, a group of us volunteered at the animal shelter in Baoshan district. Depressing as hell. There was a sweet old Cocker Spaniel– we bathed him, but his fur was so dirty and matted, it was as if we hadn’t washed him at all. The shelter helpers are nice enough, but from the way they handle the animals, you can see, they don’t really know how to pick up or hold the dogs and cats. The shelter is a worthy attempt, but it’s still so frustrating. The dogs are kenneled in this area where to get into each cage, you have to go through all the others. I dunno who constructed the setup, but it’s a horrible design. Anyway, there was a beautfiul young brittany spaniel mix there yesterday. When we approached her, she shook uncontrollably. God, people can be so evil. Who knows what the hell happened to her: clearly, she was abused.

Anyway, the shelter is about 45 minutes north of Shanghai. If anyone is interested in volunteering, fostering, donating supplies/money, please contact me. More information, including pictures of animals available for adoption are at my site, StarPups*Shanghai. Thanks for your support.

The American Women’s Club held that charity book fair last month… I forgot to update you on that. A really great event– we collected over 5,000 books and sold them for prices between 5 and 20 RMB. Super cheap. The fundraising target was 8k RMB to buy a new library for a local migrant children’s school. Guess how much we raised? 60k! That’s right. Over $7k USD in one day. Can you believe it? I was so impressed and amazed by the power of such a small group. Kudos to the chief event organizers.

That said, I have to comment on the location of the book fair: Season’s Villa. Obviously, it’s an expat community, but my god, after entering the gates, I entered an alien world. It actually reminded me of Disney World. Yeah, THAT ridiculously posh with huge-ass houses, manicured lawns, a clubhouse rivaling a five-star hotel… bizarro for sure. When I left the book fair, I asked the guard to call me a cab. He basically told me to walk out of the community to Huamu Road, because cabs don’t drive around Season’s Villa. Huh? Apparently, everyone has a private driver.

After a rough financial analysis, I’ve concluded that StarPups*Shanghai Buddy Snaps isn’t going to grant me household breadwinner status. Bummer. I guess with any cottage industry, the desire to keep things small scale and well technically illegal prevents you from doing the mass marketing, branding, and advertising that brings in real dough.

The thing is, we don’t want to spend capital on a store/bakery. We just want to do it out of the apartment. Second, we’re not interested in registering the company and obtaining food licensing. That would not only be expensive but time-consuming as well and who knows how long we plan to stay in Shanghai.

So for now, StarPups is a hobby/side gig. I’m having a lot of fun adding new features to the website, designing my biz cards and product packaging, learning about free advertising venues, networking with dog peeps in teh community, and testing out different treat recipes (unfortunately, i need to find more taste testers, as R and M are getting a bit pudgy). It’s a good learning experience. One thing I gotta work on though is NOT micromanaging. Even though I’m not a graphic artist or web designer, I have this tendency to want to do all those things myself. For now, it’s okay I think but once things pick up, it may be wiser to delegate tasks to the pros.

My latest batch of treats were peanut butter flavored– a sure favorite. Previously, I made treats with apples, oats, and fruit. The response was positive but certainly not as enthusiastic. Fortunately, the PB snacks are easier to cut out. This batch definitely LOOKS better than the previous ones.

Yesterday, John finally found a bike worth buying. He’s not really that picky, but for some reason, we were having the toughest time finding a sturdy bike with strong breaks. We’re done the searching. My friend Wendy recommended that we check out Decathlon, a European sports megastore. That place was awesome– tents, sleeping bags, tennis raquets, rock climbing shoes, you name it. Too bad we’re not athletic enough for it. We had never been to this shopping center before. In the basement, there was HOLA, the closest thing to a Bed Bath & Beyond here. Still no stand mixer though.