Greyhound Gap

5th July - Derby Gaol - Fright Night

From Lisa:

Okay conclusive proof that too many years in rescue DOES drive you mental. On Saturday 5th July I am entering into my own personal nightmare and am taking myself and a group of 24 other people to the famous reputed haunted Derby Gaol for an overnight lock in to raise funds for Gap.

I have also volunteered to spend 5 minutes on my own if comfortable enough or with one other person locked in the condemned mans cell. This is an area that people spent their last night before being taken and publicly hung. Historical fact states that indeed 2 brothers did actual take their own lives in the cell the night before their execution.

We have all paid Ł45 each of our own money to undertake this so please sponsor us generously and help us raise as much money for the hounds in our care.

The link to the Just Giving page can be found below.

http://www.justgiving.com/derbygaol

Bod update

Bods operation has gone ahead and was a huge success. Sadly the lenses in one eye couldnt be replaced. He is already showing signs of gaining some sight. It wont be as fully restored as we hoped but will still make a huge difference. Updates will be added to the Blog and News Page Shortly

Dont forget the show folks

A week today is the Gap show please take the time to visit the show page and come along and join us for a great day.

Who are Greyhound Gap?

Each year hundreds of healthy greyhounds & lurchers are needlessly put to sleep in the UK and this figure is repeated throughout many countries in the world!

The lucky ones make it into rescue, however the story doesn't end there! There are many rescues the length and breadth of the country looking for homes. There are also many potential adopters looking for the right dog to join their family. There is a "gap" between these two parties in terms of distance, the need for homechecking, transporting the dog or quite simply even knowing that each other exists!

This is where Greyhound Gap comes in. The whole aim of this site is to fill that gap by assisting rescues and new potential adopters in their quest to find the perfect home for the perfect dog. The more the rescues can home, the more lucky ones they can make way for.

Please feel free to use the board to ask any questions you have regarding these dogs, as there is a vast amount of knowledge and personal opinions to be sought amongst the members there.

As well as the service we and our forum members offer to already established rescues, Greyhound Gap also actively takes in and re-homes death row Greyhounds and Lurchers who find themselves in a PTS situation in UK pounds.

Whilst in our care, all dogs are placed in foster situations before homing which we find preferable to kennel facilities allowing us to build up our own history on the dogs.This allows us to match each dog and each new potential adopter making for an easier and stress free homing. We do use kenneling facilities when foster situations are full allowing us to begin the assesment process and undertake necessary medical work. At any one time we may have around 30 dogs in foster environments undergoing assessment and anything between 10-15 dogs in private boarding facilities.

All dogs that come into our care are spayed/neutered, vaccinated, microchipped, de-flead and wormed before re-homing as well as receiving a full vet check and any other necessary treatment. As you can appreciate this costs us a great deal. We are totally self funded and have to work hard to raise the necessary monies required. This is made possible by fantastic support from our network of volunteers and you, the general public. More information on how you can help can be found within the pages of this website.

Homechecks will be required before we will place any of our dogs and we also pride ourselves on the fact we consider our dogs to be rescued for life. Should any problems occur at anytime and it becomes necessary for our dogs to leave their new home they must be returned to our care.

Greyhound Gap operates on a national basis so our dogs can be homed in most areas throughout the UK.

How Greyhound Gap came into existence

How Greyhound Gap was given life.

Over the last year I had spent a considerable amount of time volunteering within a rescue environment - among other things, arranging and carrying out home-checks and generally liaising between the rescue and the potential adopters. Over this period of time the cloudy beginnings of an idea started forming in my mind: there was something missing within the rescue world, a gap I could not quite put my finger on.

This was completely understandable, as the rescue world is very busy and often fraught. My mind was not capable of finding the time for the idea to settle.

Since leaving the organisation that I was volunteering for, that cloudy image suddenly came into sharp focus.

It was that the rescues themselves didn't always have the time and resources to liaise with each other. Often, when answering the phones, potential home offers came in from outside of the catchment area and unfortunately there were no volunteers in place to cover these areas. It is so hard to find volunteers and rescues are always operating at full stretch. They simply do not have the time to go searching for the nearest rescue to the potential adopters or physically don't know which it is as there are so many smaller independent organisations who have no access to the web and are therefore often unknown.

The aim of this site is to provide just that service. On the forum you will find a list of members willing to help in various ways. We hope to help rescues co-ordinate this aspect by acting as a "middleman" where needed. There are many greyhound owners the length and breadth of the country who just don't have the time to offer to help one set rescue as they feel obliged to keep giving more and more. Greyhound Gap is an independent resource of freelance volunteers who can help as and when required in their area.

We also hope that by forming a better working relationship with rescues around the country we may at times be able to get "death row" greyhounds to a place of safety prior to re-homing to their forever homes. However, without support that kind of action is impossible.

Another aim of this site is to promote and highlight the plight of older dogs who, having come into rescue in their twilight years, struggle to find a sofa of their own on which to end their days.

In January 2003 I adopted a 13yr old greyhound called Maisy

Maisy had spent her life in a shed and the fact that this is her first home at that grand age is a tragedy. She loves her life now but she deserved so much more over the last years. Given her age I don't know how much longer Maisy will be with us but I hope that by giving her the happiness she has here, for however long, it will erase the past.

Older dogs have minimal requirements and yet so much love to add to your home. If you have that dog for a week a month a year remember they will leave for the bridge knowing the love and warmth of a home.

Sadly Maisy left for the bridge in August 2004 just shy of her 15th Birthday. The love and joy she gave to us as a family in that short period of time is second to non.

They all DESERVE this chance.

- Lisa