We have been busy with greyhound events so I thought I would use this blog to chronicle some of them and show off our adoption kennel! This post will be a bit long but worth the read!
As most of you know, I volunteer on the weekends at the Friends of Greyhounds Adoption Kennel. Our kennel is located on the same compound where they house all the active racing greyhounds..... about 3,000 on any given day! Our kennel can hold about 50 hounds and we are always full. (and there is always HUNDREDS more on the waiting list.) While we get most of our dogs from the racing kennels, we will also take in greyhounds that have been found and turned into shelters. When someone rescues a dog from us, they are actually saving 2 lives, the one they rescued and the one that gets to take its place in the kennel.
Here is the housing area:
The kennel is set up just like the racing kennels with girls up top and boys on the bottom. They get turned out 4 times a day and fed twice a day. Our turnout lasts 20-30 mins each time while a typical racing kennel turnout is only 10-15 mins. Our hounds also get fed dry kibble with their raw meat to start the transition to how they will be fed in their forever home.
The turnout area is set up just like the racing kennels, covered in sand with girls going to one side and the boys to the other. They are muzzled to keep them safe as they can get a bit rowdy with each other!
Overall our kennel is very well taken care of. The compound has to put so much money toward adoption and we are lucky to be there and be the sole beneficiary of that. Since our kennel is the only one the public sees, the compound makes sure it looks good. They put more care into keeping the sand deep, the walls painted and the crates in good order. While the compound provides the building, we rely heavily on donations for food, cleaning supplies, treats, toys, etc. We have local vet that gives a great price on spays and neuters enabling us to have a low adoption price of $175.
We also have a show area where we take individual dogs for adopters to have some one on one time with and pick the dog right for them. We highly encourage anyone who already has a dog to bring that dog with them and use this area to see how their current dogs pairs up with their new greyhound sibling.
We don't do fostering here as we have a open house every Saturday and Sunday that allows anyone to stop by and adopt. If the dogs are in foster homes then they are not available for showing to the public. And we just don't have the resources to run the kennel and a full scale fostering program. All our volunteers are needed on the weekends to work the kennel and participate in any events we may have a booth at.
For open house, we have a great play area that the volunteers can bring their hounds too. This allows the volunteers to be free to assist in the kennel and with potential volunteers. It also allows the hounds to socialize with the other hounds.
The play area:
A kennel truck taking some hounds off to the races:
The great thing about the play area is it located right alongside the main road which is a great advertisiment for passerbys to see the dogs and stop by.
We are also lucky enough to have a seperate office in which to run all the operations. This office space is a great spot to first greet potential adopters and talk a little greyhound talk before we show them the hounds in the kennel. There is always a handful of greyhounds in the office so they get to see how a "settled" greyhound will act vice the excitiable kennel hounds they will see later.
Here is our office:
The office also has a seperate room that can be used for one on one visits if the outside show area is in use and its a great place to host parties and other greyhound events. Here is the birthday party for the co-founder of Friends of Greyhounds, Jerry.
Our adoption process is pretty simple. When someone stops by the open house they can pick out their dog and then fill out the application right there. It's reviewed on the spot and if everything seems ok, we set up the delivery. We do the home visit the day we bring the dog. If the home visit goes fine, the hound stays in his new forever home and we head back to the kennel to get the empty crate ready for the next lucky one.
It can be very difficult working in the kennel. You have to look at all of those sad, skinny faces every day and want to take them all home. (which is how I ended up with a 4th one!) They all have a story, some more heartbreaking than others. The hardest stories are the ones that have been returned. To have been in a home and then have to go back to the kennel life must be tough. Those are the ones we try to comfort the most with little blankets and toys. We have a few that have been returned due to foreclosures and there is nothing more heartbreaking than watching a grown man break down into uncontrollable sobs having to return his greyhound of 3 years because the only housing he could rent would not allow dogs. We have dogs ranging from as young as 17 months to as old as 7 years old. Of course the old ones and the black ones always hang around the longest so we do our best to promote those as we can.
We also try to get booths at local events to help spread the word. Recently we have done several art shows and the largest event was the Renaissance Festival. The Renaissance Festival alone has generated almost 10 adoptions!
Here we are at the South Miami Art Show. It was a street vendor venue with LOTS of foot traffic! We had lots of visitors!
The Renaissance Festival lasted 5 weekends and our volunteers stepped up to the plate and we were able to have our booth open EVERY weekend!!! The sheer amount of interest and adoptions this event has generated so far makes this a definite yearly event!
Last year Friends of Greyhounds adopted out 175 hounds to forever homes! Not bad for an organization that started out in the garage of its founders just over 5 years ago! Michelle and Jerry and the Friends of Greyhound volunteers have found forever homes to over 700 lucky hounds!!
