Back in March, Mark Wallis revealed that in his view, every hound in his kennel was ‘re-homeable’ and would be re-homed at the end of their careers. . . . .with the exception of one.
The new ‘chilled’ version
Roswell Iceman was the kennel bad boy, particularly around food, and he had bitten a couple of kennel staff.
It was no big deal though, the magnificent looking white and black would spend the rest of his days in the Lakenheath racing kennel.
But Kevin Stow at the Lincolnshire Greyhound Trust wasn’t so sure. . .
He said: “The first thing I should say is that when Mark Wallis says he doesn’t think a dog will re-home, you take his view seriously.
“I’ve had dealings with Mark, through the Towcester homefinding scheme, over a long period of time and nobody could argue that the man knows his greyhounds.
“It was because of Mark’s view that we realised that we would have to be very patient with Iceman, but thought we would give it a go.
“The first thing was to have him castrated and change his food from the high protein diet that he would have been on. We also needed him to get out of his racing kennel mentality.
“These dogs love to race and if they know some of the other dogs are going racing, they get all hyped up. But it is a long process, months, not weeks.
“Eventually we saw Iceman start to chill out so much so that remarkably he even passed the cat test that we do for the greyhounds that come into us. But I still realised that we would have to be very careful in choosing the right home and there was a couple in Spalding who looked ideal.
“They had already had a couple of greyhounds and understood that Iceman was a special case, particularly in relation to being fed. But the lady fell in love with Iceman and is very experienced.”
Iceman fitted in with the family’s other pet dog, a rottweiler named Pumba, well and they are best buddies.
Kevin said: “The lady says Iceman was the easiest of the three greyhounds she has had so far and was house trained from day one. Although he is still food possessive over high value treats they are able to deal with that easily and she describes him as a wonderful greyhound who is no bother at all.”
The couple do have a pair of cats too, but they are house cats who live in an upstairs bedroom so Iceman and them never have to meet up.
Lincolnshire Greyhound Trust (LGT) will celebrate their 20th birthday in December this year, but are hopeful that this year may say their best ever year for homing with 118 greyhounds being successfully rehomed to date this year.
Kevin said: “Our best ever year was 136 in 2009 and we are hoping we can match or beat that. One of the reasons has been the integration of two kennels in other areas with Bob and Erica Oakes in Oxfordshire and Olivia and Bethia Noble just north of London looking after our homing in those areas.
“Added to a good year in Lincolnshire from our kennels in Gainsborough run by my brother Andy and his wife Jill Stow and the Boston one we’ve had since 2006 means we will get close, and hopefully beat, our record yearly total.
“Make no mistake the homes for greyhounds are out there, but it is putting the hard work and graft in to find them that is the difficult part.”
