Greyhound rescues

[miserablemoo]

Hello.

Long time lurker here.

I would love to adopt a greyhound but I have two children ( a nearly 4 yr old and 16 month old) and 2 cats.

Will a rescue just laugh at me?
Any info much appreciated.
Thanks

Why would they laugh?

Around 20% of greys are either cat friendly or cat trainable, and many greys can live very happily with DC, subject to the usual provisos about sensible parenting, enforcing clear boundaries for dog sleep area etc.

Just a quick look online found Codi on GRWE (cat and child friendly) see here

Good luck

Also, come over to the thread "A new cushion for pointies" - lots of grey owners there, many with DC and other pets.

I adopted my greyhound and lurcher when my 5 children were 5,4,4,3 and 6 months old. My lurcher came from a foster home who had a cat. The rescue will cat test the dogs. You will definitely not be laughed at!

Hello

Thank you both for getting back to me. I have seen Codi (I look at GRWE weekly ) but it does mention he might be better off with another dog in the home.

I have been looking at rescues for a long time (not just for greyhounds) and most of them will not allow people with young children to adopt and very few of the dogs are cat friendly.

My only reservation with a greyhound is the recall. Will they always have to be walked on a lead or only let off in a secure field?

One rescue I have looked at looks like all the dogs are in kennels and not cat tested. Is it best to avoid this one?

Most of the greyhound rescues do not actually state if they will rehome to people with young children or not. Because finding a greyhound might be a bit more difficult for us as the dog would need to be child and cat friendly is it best to apply to a few rescues or should I just stick with one?

Thank you for your input and help. I hope you don't mind me asking more questions.

Where do you live? I foster greyhounds and Lurchers for Kent Greyhound Rescue and currently foster a lurcher called Bobby. They use foster homes which i think is a great way for people to know exactly what type of dog they are in a home. Breed specific rescues seem to be happier to home with children then all breed rescues. Most Greyhounds have hardly any recall, I let mine off near my house but he comes back when he wants. No other greyhounds in my area are let offlead. You can find a secure field though and let them off. My lurcher however is much better and although will go off hunting, is much better at recall. Have you considered a lurcher?

My rescue currently has two cat friendly dogs come in to be homed. You do get them but they can get snapped up quickly.

I can't speak for all greyhound rescues, but the two ones I volunteer for most often DO home regularly to families with small children.

As I've said previously, cat friendly greyhounds do crop up regularly - you just have to wait a little longer for them. Contact your local rescue and get yourself on to their books so they can start looking for you.

I wouldn't necessarily rule out a rescue with kennels. For example, take a look at Celia Cross Greyhound Rescue here - a highly reputable rescue that I know other MNetters have successfully adopted dogs from, and have small children. They have an extensive socialisation programme with lots of exercise, walks etc and dogs go out to store collections, meet and greets etc - a dog from here would be very thoroughly assessed in a variety of circumstances.

If you don't mind saying roughly where you are in the UK, we can point you at some good rescues. PM me if you'd rather.

Recall. You need to bear in mind that you have a sighthound, and as such they are bred and trained to respond to visual cues often a long way away, and once they start running they are very, very fast indeed. Having said that, many greys come off the track because they aren't much good at chasing things, and with care, practice and lots of training can come off lead. As with any dog, you need to be sensible and careful. We have three - one who is brilliant off lead, one who comes off in certain, very specific circumstances while wearing a muzzle and a new foster girl (the Norty Minx) who has come straight from a working home and is therefore very keen so not allowed off lead yet, except in the greyhound field.

However, remember that you are going to be adopting a cat friendly hound, and pretty much almost by definition, if they are cat friendly, they won't have a high prey drive so are likely to be much better and safe to let off (again, subject to the usual common sense precautions).

Thanks fluffygal

Kent is far away from me i'm afraid. I would not rule out a lurcher. As long as it is the right dog for us and vice versa I would be happy.

Thanks scuttlebutter.

Belle Vue (Lancashire) is the rescue I have been looking at that have retired greyhounds that are kennelled and not cat tested. They are about an hour away from us. If you need me to be more specific as to where abouts in the UK I am let me know and I will drop you a pm

Norty Minx sounds like a character! Are they by nature ok to be walked on a lead then? I mean do they mind going out and not being let off?

Thank you both for your help and info.

Yes, the Norty Minx is an amazing girl.

There are lots and lots of things you can do with your greys that don't necessarily involve them coming off the lead on every walk. They enjoy having a good sniff and scoping out different places. Obedience classes are terrific. One of ours has done his KC Good Citizen Bronze, Silver and Gold . This had the benefit of improving his recall as well.

DH loves running so goes running with greyhound quite regularly - they have a wonderful time, and DH would like to have a go at a Cani X race with him.

Once you get a reasonable recall in place, you can go off lead in sensible places - the beach is usually great and lots of greyhound charities will have or know about places where you can go for safe offlead play. For instance we regularly go to a greyhound field run by a neighbouring grund charity. It has secure, high fencing and means we can let them run around like lunatics without worrying about a convention of Yorkies suddenly appearing.

Personally, I would not use the rescue kennels you've suggested and can see after looking at the website that there doesn't appear to be the thorough assessment I mentioned that other charities can give. It is also very worrying that they are suggesting dominance based behaviour management including all the old chestnuts like not allowing your dog to go through doors before you, pack leader nonsense and having to eat before your dog. That alone is enough for me to say walk away.

Guessing you are in the North West. I'd suggest Evesham Lurcher and Greyhound Rescue, Greyhound Rescue West of England (they go up a long way!!), Greyhound Rescue Wales if you are in N Wales (we have a great team in N Wales), and Tia Greyhounds. You could also try national organisations like LurcherLink and Greyhound Gap.

GRWE seem fantastic - we didn't end up adopting from them but know someone who works there and they work really hard to match well. Their online fact sheets we found second to none as well; we read them around the time of adoption and return to them every so often.

We ended up adopting from an RGT kennel much closer to us, mainly as we wanted the connection with a kennel the dog was familiar with for holidays etc. You may have to call/visit and leave your details with several kennels but as long as you are prepared for the possibility of a wait your dog will be out there!

We adopted our chap in November last year and have two DSs who are now 4 and 5. The dog is our third baby!

Oh, and come over here as Scuttle says.

I should add that we live in London and GRWE were willing to work with us all the way over here. Though that might have been because of our personal contact.

Hi

Sorry for the late reply. I have a poorly child. The dreaded chicken pox ugh.

I spent a long time looking at the rescues you suggested scuttlebutter and like it has been suggested it looks like I am going to have to get my name down and wait for the right dog to come up as cat and child friendly ones seem to be few and far between but not impossible!

I will steer clear of the other rescue I mentioned then. I didn't notice the dominance based behaviour management they have. Thanks.

Will have a look at the pointy thread also thanks.

Thanks everyone. Fab info and lots to think about. I am going to have to put plans on hold whilst we are cooped up due to CP.

I have one cat friendly (bomb proof) greyhound, who was homed kind of via Greyhound Gap (I got a phone call to get him out of a home situation and cat test him with my cat). It took about 6 months of waiting and learning about greys before he came to me - we celebrated his 5th Gotcha Day last week . My DDs were 6 and 4 when Blue came to us, and there's never been a problem. The cat made sure the pecking order was established immediately (swiped Blue's nose on the first morning....).

As the cat is no longer with us, I also have a completely un-cat friendly greyhound girl, also though Greyhound Gap (properly ths time). She came to us on foster, just over a year AI, but I think we failed within about 5 minutes.

I spent a lot of time on the Greyhound Gap forums, getting to know as much as I could, so I felt quite comfortable with the breed before I found my cat friendly.

I've got a cat friendly greyhound who has good recall 99% of the time. Took her to the forest with us yesterday, we were all on bikes. She was off the lead and just ran behind us for 9 miles.

She went through a stage of chasing hares last spring and would disappear over several fields for about 30 mins every morning. I just used to have to sit and wait for her, she would come back.

Prior to that if she saw a rabbit and started at it she would come back when called. Kept her on the lead for a bit which seems to have broken the bad habit. She's certainly still coming back if she wanders too far to see a dog, etc and I want her back.

She's cat proof as well, wasn't cat tested. I got her from RGT and they let me have her on a day trial to see how she got on with the cats before I decided to adopt her.

My mum has a ex racing greyhound who is cat friendly, and loves our 2 bunnies and all children whatever ages.

My DD was 7.5mo when we got our greyhound, she is 13.5mo now :)

On one of the occasions I was chatting to the rescue woman ages before we got Sprocket but after our homecheck, she told me they had recently rehomed one to a couple with a 6 week old baby I was still zonbified when DD was 6 weeks, no way could I have got a dog then!

It does depend on the dog though, the first one I fell in love with came to our house and 'pointed' at DD, wouldn't leave her alone even when squirted with a water squirter. Found out a couple of weeks later that he snapped at an 18mo so he was then labelled as 'only to be homed with children OVER 8'. Second dog, I rung up the rescue to see if they had anything suitable for us yet and they were just about to go and pick up these 2 dogs from a home (long story as to why they came back) and one of them was perfect for us, lived in a home for 2 years so I skipped the 'from racer to pet training' and he'd lived with 2 toddlers 1 which was ASD. They brought him to meet us on the day they picked him up and he never left :)

Sorry that was a bit long I just thought I would share my experience. If you find a rescue that will rehome with young children, my advice is to let the rescue pick your dog. As I found out, the one I fell for was totally unsuitable. He was white with fawn patches, but I love the one we ended up with even more, he's black with a white tuxedo :o

I dont think you'll have any problem at all finding a child proof and cat trainable greyhound, as long as you aren't fussy about specifics, esp colour. There are many beautiful black greyhounds around. The boys especially get overlooked and they can be incredibly laid back, often more so than the girls.

The GRWE has many more dogs available than are on their website.

Thank you everybody

Some fantastic stories

It has cheered me up no end to hear that the rescues will not outright say no to us due to us having young children and cats. I do not mind about sex or colour (i didnt know black or males were less desirable to be honest) and it is about the right dog really.

I have had to put it on the back burner for now (apart from looking at grwe and greyhound gap in my spare time) as my child has been quite ill and not been able to go anywhere.

How come boys and the black coated dogs get over looked?

Not sure about boys, but black greyhounds are apparently considered to be unlucky! I have a black boy, he is gorgeous. The black ones go really shiny and glossy if they get a couple of tins of sardines (or other oily fish) a week. I always think the black ones look 'posh' :o

We got our gorgeous greyhound about a couple of months before I fell pregnant with my DS now aged 4yrs.
From day one Beaky was smitten with our DS, so gentle and kind. They both used to lay under the baby gym together, not sure quite how B got under it though!!
There has been the odd occasion hen B has growled or snapped to warn our DS, but wouldn't you if had a great big truck pushed over y leg when sleeping!!
We have a rule that when B is on his bed, he is not to be touched that's his spacer/safe place. Especially when sleeping as he gets frightened easily when asleep.
W learnt not to leave our DS soft toys around as B loves them and would play with them.
Now B is getting a hit old at pushing 12 yrs old but he still has the best laid back temperament, sleeps lots, no longer walks as he suffers rom terrible cramps, eats like a horse, raids the bins, we leave him as we work but he doesn't mind in the slightest.
Every now and then we take him to my yard to sprint in the school as its enclosed, he has no recall, we tried for about six months and after loosing him three times, we admitted defeat!
He really isn't bothered that he's on the lead though, out son can hold him no problem.

Good luck, I couldn't think of a better family dog!
Celiac cross are near me, Hersham greyhound rescue but we got B from Battersea at Old Windsor.
Xx

Nanny he sounds like a wonderful pet, it's lovely that he's so good with your DS :)

Yes tis very good, we are lucky. I just know that when he does depart, I am going to be so torn, do we get another or not!!
He is lying on th rug now, waiting for us to eat so he can bark like a maniac when we finish, we can't sit with plates nr us, he goes nuts lol!!
He is defo losing his marbles a bit, which can drive us insane but on the whole he doesn't move once we home

Xx

Oh bless him, he's a good age! Mine is currently refusing to go downstairs he hasn't been for the toilet since about 4, and at this time of night it's unlikely that he will venture down. He must have a bladder of cast iron because he quite frequently does this and doesn't go out till around 7.30-8am! So no toilet from around 4pm till 8am next day because he can't be arsed to go down