Dawn: Events and Volunteer Coordinator for Greyhounds as Pets on the organisation's events designed to match prospective owners up with dogs

One organisation is looking to match retired racing greyhounds up with prospective owners looking for a furry friend.

Greyhounds as Pets is a charity designed to match people up to the hound that suits their needs - depending on their lifestyles and family circumstances. 

Events and Volunteer Coordinator Dawn joined the Afternoons team to explain the organisation's process.

"We really try to keep our process simple for the humans in the sense of not making it this crazy journey - but at the same time, making sure that the doggo is going to be loved and taken care of and that it's ending up in a good home."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
Dawn, Welcome to the show. So you are from Greyhounds
is Pitts dot org.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Dot z the Kyota.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Yeah, that's correct. I am the events and volunteer coordinator.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
With gap SO Events. So just so we get this right,
there's a couple of events on today around the country,
isn't there. There's one in Hamilton and one elsewhere with
people can go and meet dogs. Is that correct?

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Yes, that is correct, Thank you so much. Yeah, we are.
We've been having a wonderful collaboration with Bunnings where several
of the Bunnings warehouse stores across the nation have been
inviting us to bring greyhounds to a variety of their
events and tonight is their Easter Family Night. They've got

(00:59):
a lot of cool things going and one of those
things is the opportunity for families to come and meet
greyhounds and chat to our volunteers about you know, what
it's like to adopt a greyhound or foster a greyhound,
and it's a really great way for people to meet
them because a lot of times people have never seen
a greyhound in the flesh?

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, up close? Now, how hard is it? What's the
process once you decide you know, you've meet a greyhound
and you go, look, I want to adopt one. What's
the processed after that?

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Dawn, Well, we really try to keep our process simple
for the humans and the sense of you know, not
making it this crazy journey, but at the same time
making sure that the dovo is going to be loved
and taken care of and that it's really ending up
in a good home for it. And what we do

(01:51):
is we have a rehoming team. They endeavor to match
the greyhounds as much as they possibly can to the
applicant that's come forward. So we're going to ask questions
like what's your lifestyle, Like do you tend to like
to hang out at home a lot, or do you
want a doggo that can go to a cafe with
you and be happy at a cafe or happy you know,

(02:13):
walking through a market, or are you really outdoorsy so
you'd like to adopt a more active greyhound who's going
to be happy to you know, tramp to the hanulas
with you. So we get an idea of what's your
lifestyle like do you have kids, do not have kids?
Are you a little bit older and we want to
make sure we're not giving you a houndie that's going
to you know, jump around a lot and pull you over,

(02:35):
or do you have a two year old and we're
going to make sure that we've got to really calm,
you know, because they're big, they're big dogs. So yeah,
you know, we want to make sure that you're you know,
we're not. No one's getting knocked over.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
So there must be that must be quite a process
to find the traits of each dog at do you
you have have a system where you go, well, this
dog's this kind of dog, the good lights, that's that's
that's that's, that's that's and then and then you keep
wrecords on each one.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Yeah. So that's why I always say, like as best
we can, because you know, it is a it's a
lot to figure out about a dog in what can
be a rather short amount of time. Yeah, So the process,
I'll try to walk you through it quicker so I
don't lose anybody's attention. But FOSS basically is is if
the greyhound finishes racing or they determine that it's not

(03:18):
going to race, it goes into what's called the Great
Mates program. That program is run by Greyhound Racing New Zealand.
They dissects the dog, they vaccinate the dog, o, they
do different temperament testings and they kind of figure out,
you know, there's like a light system for is that
it is a green dog. That usually means that it's

(03:39):
pretty bulletproof, going to happily and easily rehome. Is it
an amber dog. That might mean there's a little bit
of some behavior stuff. You know, maybe it's anxious, maybe
it doesn't like small fluffies things like that, maybe it's
not good for kids, and you know, and then is
it a red dog and that means that it needs
to go It doesn't come to us in that case,
it usually goes to another organization that kind of helps

(04:01):
work with those doggos. So we're looking at greens and ambers,
and that's kind of when they're there. They also can't
test them when they're at the kennels, try to get
an idea of this dog is going to live with
a cat or if it's going to eat the cat.
So I'd say about one in ten greyhounds is what
we would call it pat trainable and then they come
to us. In our ideal world, we get every single

(04:24):
greyhound into foster homes, because in foster homes that's where
we really learn about the dogs. That's not always possible,
so sometimes we are just kind of coming with what
we've learned about them from the kennels. So yeah, that's
kind of where we get the information and start trying
to figure out who they're going to live with best.
Is there some things that you need to see from

(04:45):
potential owners?

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Do they need a little bit of space or can
they potentially go depending on the greyhound and the dog involve,
go to an apartment.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yeah, so I live in a sixty two square meter
apartment with two greyhounds.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
They are rated the second best apartment dog out of
all dog breeds. It's the Great.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Dane apartment dog dogs.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Is it true door that the greyhounds snuggle out real
small though, because.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
The skinny exactly the do exactly so well, Yes they do.
And that's the thing. The big dogs are usually quite
low energy, whereas you know, people think, oh, small apartment,
I need a little dog, But little dogs are quite
high energy, and they've also been bred to protect, so
they're gonna bark, bark, bark, bark, bark. But these big dogs,
you know, greyhounds, they're not going to guard anything.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, but they don't bark.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
You know. Well, okay, there's the odd greyhound who barks,
but for the most part they're not barkers. And so
that's part of the reason they're so great in apartments.
They're not going to annoy your neighbors. And they curl
like you said, the little doughnut dogs, they curl up small. Also, generally,
if you give them a bed or a place that
they can sleep, that's where they're going to be. They're like,

(05:55):
I'm going to lay here. The only time my apartment
feels slightly small is when Henry, my boy greyhound, sees
me pull the lead out. He gets really excited and
he usually like pounces onto his giant cuddle pillar and
sing around the living room with it, making a little
bit of chaos. But other than that, I don't really
notice that I live with these gentle giants in a

(06:16):
fairly small space.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Thank you so much. Dawnside Greyhounds aspitts dot org dot
z as the best port of call to move forward.
If people are interested in adopting a greyhound.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
That's us. We've got a big button at the top
of our main page that says adopt that I'll take
you to the application for adopting and fostering. Also, we've
got to meet the team page. It gives you every
single phone number and email for every member of our team.
We want to hear from you. We're really passionate to
get these guys into lovely homes. Rillie, good on you, Dawn, Yeah,
fantastic to chat with you.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
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