With the national media predicting hundreds of thousands of ‘Covid pets’ filling animal sanctuaries as life gets back to normal, how is that affecting greyhound re-homing?
Last year’s first Covid lockdown saw unprecedented demand for all breeds of dogs. Homing kennels emptied and began canvassing racing kennels for racers approaching their career end.
The Greyhound Trust, which remains significantly funded by GBGB, ran out of dogs and were importing greyhounds directly from Ireland without having ever raced on the UK mainland.
Having spent much of 2020 unable to meet demand for ex-racers, John Mullins was less buoyant last week when noting ‘it has definitely got tougher’.
But, it is all comparative according to Kevin Stow, who runs Britain’s biggest independent homefinder, Lincolnshire Greyhound Trust.
He said: “Today we re-homed our 154th greyhound this year. His name is Rioja Smasher and he broke a hock in the first round of the Derby, trained by Pat Buckley. He has gone to a 24 year old guy who lives with his parents near Sleaford.
“To put the figures into context, we homed 205 last year, but that was just exceptional. Our previous record was 157 in 2018 and I am confident we will get to somewhere in the 160-165 region. So to have your second best ever year isn’t too bad.
“Unfortunately, having completely cleared the waiting list, we have one again, of around 28 dogs. But I would expect most of them to join us in the next couple of months.
“Back in the bad old days, we would have had 60-70 waiting and we might be telling trainers it would be six months before we could take a boy and four months for a girl. Covid has certainly cleared the backlog of dogs who were waiting in trainer’s kennels”
So has Covid seen lots of returns?
Kevin said: “There have been a few, but not due to new owners changing their minds. There have been cases of people losing their jobs and having to take on a job where they can’t keep a dog any more, or house moves, all caused by Covid.
“But there haven’t been hardly any ‘spur of the moment’ dogs returned which I would like to think is down to our vetting process. When it comes to buying a pet dog, someone can just find £500 and the dog is theirs.
“You have to be assessed for suitability for one of our dogs through home checks and if you don’t appear to be in the right circumstances, we won’t approve it. Our return rate is roughly 10% and I don’t expect that to change.
“Deaths or relationship break-ups will always happen unfortunately, and the change in circumstances will usually affect the dogs.”
Angie Kibble nursed Rioja Smasher through his convalescence until he was fit and able to be a family pet. Roughly what percentage of the re-homed dogs have been retired through injury?
Kevin said: “I guess two or three out of ten. The more seriously injured dogs obviously need to be treated. An injury like a damaged gracilis might affect racing performance but it doesn’t stop a dog becoming a great pet.”
