About Greyhound Lifeline
Mission Statement
Greyhound Lifeline are a branch of the Retired Greyhound Trust. Our Mission is to find good pet homes for ex-racing greyhounds in the UK. We have our own retired racing greyhounds to find homes for and we also assist other welfares by promoting some of their "long-stay" or particularly needy greyhounds on our web site from time to time.
Our aim is to raise the public's awareness that Greyhounds can and do make wonderful pets and to see as many retired greyhounds enjoying life as a much loved pet as we possibly can.
Our team are dedicated to achieving the lifetime comfort and welfare of our greyhounds. They give of their time freely and are all unpaid volunteers.
The future welfare of the greyhounds in our care is of paramount importance to us and as such, no adoption will proceed until a successful home check has been completed.
About us
Greyhound Lifeline was founded in May 2007 by a group of people many of whom have had previous experience of homing greyhounds, owning greyhounds as pets, working with greyhounds or with greyhound adoption through other organisations or welfare groups. In other cases our volunteers may have had no dog experience whatsoever before joining our team. Our backgrounds are varied, but we believe our cumulative experience of both greyhounds and life/work/family experiences to be a valuable asset in our Greyhound Lifeline venture.
Greyhound Lifeline began as an independent homing group, but in July 2007 we were proud to become a branch of the Retired Greyhound Trust. Greyhound Lifeline, with the support of the RGT have gone from strength to strength and we have been able to place many more retired greyhounds into their lifetime homes.
In January 2008 we moved into our current kennel premises, near Fleet, Hampshire. Our team of unpaid volunteers have adapted and changed as we have grown. The key staff are now:
- Marie Harris - Kennel manager, emergency foster carer, homing enquiry/adoption contact, home checker, web site updates, administration, first aider and Greyhound Blog author etc.
- Jane Pilcher - Joint Kennel Manager, homing enquiry/adoption contact, foster carer, home checker and marketing.
- Carol Cox - Homing enquiry/adoption contact. Kennel assistant, home checker, greyhound events/publicity, Greyhound Blog author.
- Fiona - Cat testing and cat re-training foster carer and merchanside ordering.
- Lynn - kennel assistant, vet transportation and events.
- Lucy - kennel assistant, home checker, events, first aider and foster carer.
- Paul - Kennel assistant and home checker.
- Saara - Kennel assistant and home checker.
- Sian - Kennel assistant and dog socialisation.
- Sue - kennel assistant, home checker, greyhound Blog author.
- Mo - home checker, blog author, fundraising and awareness (south coast).
- Geoff - Our volunteer DIY and general maintenance type "fix it" specialist and home checker.
- Anne - kennel assistant, administration, web site updates (RGT site).
- Julie - kennel assistant and dog socialisation.
- Lynn and Nigel - Relief kennel assistants (weekends/evenings).
- Maxine - foster carer.
- Kev - Web site and foster carer.
- Penny and Adrian - fund raising (through tombola and home made jam/pickles sales) and homing assistant.
We are also privileged to be supported by many other volunteers some of whom include: -
- Our dog walkers come and help, whatever the weather to ensure that every dog is walked every day.
- Our home checkers are also crucial; without them, our ability to home greyhounds responsibly would be severely restricted.
- Every family that adopts a greyhound is actually helping two greyhounds. How? The greyhound that they adopt leaves a kennel space free for another greyhound in need of adoption to occupy.
Our reward as a team is purely that of being able to say "We have helped a greyhound to find its lifetime home".
We work with Anna and Glenn from The Dog House and have seen some excellent results with some of our longer stay residents.
Page updated 25/08/2011.