by Andy and Michelle, NSW
Our girl, a rescue named Gracie, came from a trainer who had raced her weekly for two years. Once she was past her “use by date” he just wanted to be rid of her, rather than rehome her properly.
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The trainer wanted to avoid his obligations to pay for her to be desexed, vaccinated and heartwormed and receive the required dental work. All of that is costly, and trainers/owners are in the business of making a profit from their exploitation. So to save himself the cost, he quietly palmed her off to another contact of his. The contact kept her for a year, then put an ad up on Gumtree to give her away. Thankfully an adoption agency noticed the ad and arranged to collect her from these people.
The foster carer drove for several hours to collect her. Despite having an appointment, the people weren’t home when she arrived. She called them up, and they callously said “She’s in the backyard. Just take her”.
She was in a really bad state when the foster carer picked her up.
On heat (so not desexed), restless, with diahorrea, exhibiting anxious behaviour and her teeth were really ground down and brown from where the enamel had worn off. Our veterinarian, who worked in the greyhound industry, advised us that the poor state of her teeth is typical with greyhounds in the industry, as many chew their cages out of stress or boredom.
Because the foster carer could not foster other dogs while Gracie was on heat, we agreed to take her, and pay for the required work ourselves and provide the certificates to the adoption agency to prove we had completed everything the adoption agency would normally do.
GRNSW provided some reimbursement for these things, but it was not nearly enough to cover the true cost.
They refused to provide more, even knowing we were doing the trainer a favour by doing the things he did not do. He got off scot-free – a person at GWIC confirmed to us that he was not going to be fined.
Our council charges a larger desexing fee – a penalty, as per law, for greyhounds that don’t officially come from an adoption agency and are not desexed by a certain age. After we explained the situation and complained bitterly, the lady at the council helped us out with this and the extra fee was waived.
GRNSW and GWIC are either complicit or not properly resourced to be able to oversee the proper rehoming of greyhounds.
Gracie has been with us for nearly two years now and is so affectionate and loving. She will be turning seven next January.
She is a great lover of food, which has earned her the name of Missy Piggins.
She is a counter-surfer of some skill and loves fruit especially (our fruit bowl was raided for pears just this morning!).
She gets on well with our other two dogs (our “first-born” grey and a small dog of indeterminate parentage we inherited from my mum). Due to her food fixation meal-times can sometimes be a bit tense. She loves meeting other dogs and humans and is up for a walk at any time of the day or night.
She has an unholy fixation with cats, though surprisingly that doesn’t include our cat – after some initial interest they now ignore each other.
Like a true greyhound, her first action on arriving at our home was to jump onto the couch and promptly fall asleep.
Though she was initially very nervous when we visited friends and wouldn’t leave our side (we suspect she feared being given away again) she now knows she is in her forever home.
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