How You Can Help

There are various ways you can help your local Greyhound rescue by offering whatever services you can and as it's on a volunteer basis you choose what time you put in and when.

Most rescues are always looking for help with homechecking, fostering, emergency overnight accommodation, transportation and helping at fundraising events.

Contact your local rescue who will arrange a mutually convenient time to call and discuss these options with you.

Poster for vets etc Poster.pdf. If you have not got a PDF reader installed, you can get it here

Fostering

Are you Interested in Fostering? Here is one of our fosterer's accounts of her experiences!

Maggie the lurcher came into Greyhound Gap's care in February after having a bad start in life and ending up at Stiles Meadows Animal Sanctuary.

Maggie was a thin, frightened little girl, and once GG's Founder, Lisa, saw her she decided a few weeks in a foster home was what Maggie needed to bring her out of her shell.

As my husband and I foster Greyhounds and Lurchers and had a place free, it was decided that Maggie would stay with us. We have two lurchers of our own, Molly and Henry, but not having had a puppy for a few years, we knew we were in for quite a ride.

We picked up Maggie from GG's Sheffield Co-Ordinator Anna, and on the journey back she slept all the way. We introduced her to Molly & Henry, and then went into the house where all hell broke loose!

Maggie leapt all over the furniture knocking cushions flying. She raced around the room trying to get Molly & Henry to play, still bouncing on and off the settee as she went. Then she discovered the toy box, pulled all the toys out and bounced on and off the settee again!

After hours of this Maggie decided it was time for a kip, but half an hour later the bouncing began again. By now Henry had lost interest and Molly was wondering what we had brought home!

Lurchers have a huge amount of energy and Maggie was proving herself to be no different. Whilst she was clean in the house, and slept during the night her energy whilst awake seemed boundless.

Now Molly and Maggie are good friends, they play together constantly and ruin one soft toy after another. Henry has taken longer to warm to Maggie. He's an old lad and enjoys his sleep, so he had to give her a few warning growls, but now he plays with her for five minutes in the morning - about as much activity as he can stand!!

Maggie has learnt to sit, come when called and that she can't have her own way all the time!

Now that Maggie has had her vaccinations and has been microchipped she has a home waiting, so will only be with us for a further two weeks. The house will be quiet without her, and we will miss her when she is gone - but boy will we need the rest.

This account was written by our Fosterer Lisa Jackson for the February edition of our Newsletter. Maggie is now happily in her forever home, settled and doing really well.

 
Transport

Everyday we hear questions from dog lovers about how they can get involved.

These people already have dogs of their own and are not in a position to be offering a home to another, or indeed get involved with fostering dogs.

One of the ways we explain to these people that they can help and doesn't necessarily have to take up a great deal of time is becoming involved with transporting the dogs to their new home or indeed being the ones to help them from the pound and on their way to safety.

Rescues always struggle to help certain dogs as they don't have enough volunteers on hand or in the right places to help make a difference to that dogs life.

A lot of the members on Gap's forum post regularly BUT there is also an onus on silent members. They don't use the message board but do sign up as they recognise the capability of the forum's mass email facility to get the word out should a dog be in danger. These people kindly respond to requests of help from ourself or other rescues and if they are actively on a route that a dog needs to take are quite happy to make up part of the transport relay. These people really are vital to the safety of these dogs and their generous offers of help are more than gratefully received.

Meet and Greet

One of the best ways that Greyhound Gap find to not only raise funds but also raise awareness to the plight of Greyhounds and their potential as pets, is to arrange and hold in store Meet and Greet's

We have received fantastic support from Pets At Home stores in and around the UK. They allow us to turn up on a pre announced day and remain in store usually between 11am - 4pm.

In this time we speak at length to the general public about the work we do and also the dogs themselves. We make sure that dogs currently looking for homes are with us on the day to allow people to see them and sometimes express an interest in re-homing them.

We take along the collection tubs and can raise anywhere between £100 to £200 on the day which again goes a long way to securing vet treatment for 1 - 2 hounds.

The Pets At Home staff are always fantastic and welcoming and the response from the general public never ceases to amaze us. Less and less are we hearing "do you race them" and more and more "I hear they make great pets".