Since October I've had two houses next door to each other. When the neighbours moved out of the house next to mine and I knew I was going to have foster dogs, I thought it was better to take over the house and not annoy any new neighbours. The other house is bigger than mine and the idea was that I'd move into it and the foster dogs would live in the little house with a helper. But the way it's turned out I'm still living in the little house with a selection of dogs, and the big house is unoccupied apart from the other dogs.

The doors of the big house are kept open at night, so when I get up the dogs are all waiting outside the little house - in fact they're hammering on the door. I go into the kitchen, put on the kettle for coffee, and start clearing up the newspapers. Hopefully, the little dogs have pooed and peed on them. Brewster now likes to go out for a pee, so I have to carry him outside and stand guard while he whirls around the garden, sniffing what he has to sniff. The big dogs would beat him up otherwise.

Then I feed the dogs. Some of them hate each other, like Brewster and Spike, so they have to be in different houses. It's really funny: dogs have as many likes and dislikes as humans. In fact, it's more pronounced because they have fewer inhibitions about showing their feelings. I wanted Dusty and Blanche to play together but they wouldn't. Then Jill was depressed and I brought her into the small house to be near me, and Dusty and Jill became best friends. Now Blanche is depressed. She sits in her box at the far end of the kitchen and only comes out when I'm in the bathroom: she has bathroom privileges.

Feeding takes 45 minutes. It costs about HK$2,000 every 10 days to feed them all. Then I sit down with my cool cup of coffee and check my e-mails [hongkongdogrescue@

yahoo.com]. I'll see if there are inquiries about dogs, arrange meetings with prospective adopters, and make appointments to go to the government kennels in Pokfulam. Only registered animal-welfare organisations can go in there.

It was while I was at the kennels in 2002, picking up some other dogs, that I saw a little Schnauzer. All dogs that are surrendered or taken off the streets are destroyed within four days if they aren't claimed. I knew I could easily find a home for that Schnauzer because I was used to finding homes for mongrels. That one started it all. I didn't have any intention of starting a rescue organisation. I did it because I needed to do it, to get the dogs out of the kennels. Then it took on a life of its own.

When I've done the e-mails, I'll give Kirsten [Mitchell, Hong Kong Dog Rescue co-founder] a ring and we'll discuss our plans for the day, then I take the big dogs for a walk. Today was Jaffa's first day out: he skipped out of the gate but then he got lost and I had to go back and find him. He was floundering around wondering where everyone had gone. That takes an hour and a half. Then I have a shower, check the e-mails again and try to grab some lunch, but usually I don't have time.

If I'm taking a dog over to Hong Kong to show for adoption, I have to get the paperwork together, then I ring for a sampan. I get nervous before adoption interviews: I want the dog to do the right thing so that people say yes. Yesterday I did two trips, backwards and forwards, on a sampan. Topper and Beezer have bad mange so they also go to the vet regularly. I've had one dog leap overboard - a Neapolitan Mastiff puppy, which was on a lead. I screamed at the sampan driver and managed to haul it back on board. The dogs are usually sick so I always carry plastic bags.

I try not to take more dogs out of the kennels. There are bad days when the dogs are driving me insane, when I wonder what on earth I'm doing, but if I see a nice, homeable dog I'll take it out. It's awful - I know it's going to die otherwise. I've only been bitten once, by a chihuahua the

size of a peanut.

When I come out of the kennels I stink like a polecat.

I've been in taxis and the drivers have opened all the windows, and I was in a van once when the driver started, literally, to gag. He had to pull in to the side of the road because he said he felt sick. So you wouldn't want to go straight from the kennels out to dinner. I try to get back to Lamma by 5.30 for feeding time, which is the worst part of the day - 20-odd dogs and the food goes everywhere. That takes an hour.

By 7.30 I've usually poured myself a glass of wine and started cooking for myself. The cooker is in the big house

so I have to make several trips backwards and forwards. After that I have to organise fund-raising - we're having

a Dog Walk on the Peak, on February 29 - which means

I'm usually working until quite late. Sometimes I'd like to

go to bed at 8 but I can't - the dogs have to go out for a bedtime pee - so it's usually 10.30 or 11. Then it starts again in the night.

My life has changed completely, and unintentionally. I think about the future a lot. Just before I go to sleep I think: 'Now that I'm in this situation how do I get out of it? This is not how I planned to spend the rest of my life.' People ask me if Hong Kong Dog Rescue is going to expand. It can't expand. I want it to be irrelevant. I want to go to the kennels one day and find there aren't any dogs there to home.