Greyhound Welfare Achievements in 2021

By gapnsw.com.au

December 15, 2021 12:51

Our Why

Our mission at Greyhounds As Pets is to make sure that every greyhound that retires from the racing industry has an appropriate home where they’ll be happy and comfortable for the next stage of their lives.

It's our role to help them succeed by making the appropriate welfare steps to maximise their rehoming success.

Innovative Contributions to Greyhound Welfare in 2021

14 Day Foster Care Program

In 2021, we introduced a 14-day foster care program where people, during the lockdown, could experience living with a greyhound for 14 days. It proved to be a great program not only for individuals at home but also for our greyhounds. They were able to experience a welcoming home life and learn how to settle into an environment.

Due to the success of the program, we’ve now made it permanent.

After living with a greyhound, many of our 14-day foster carers became ‘foster fails' (this is a good thing!). Many foster carers ended up falling in love, so they ended up becoming permanent adopters, thereby helping us settle more pets into loving homes.

Adoption Center in Richmond, Western Sydney

GAP has recently acquired a large property in Western Sydney, which will serve as a new adoption centre for the region.

The facility is a new construction, it has

Quality kennels
Ample space for exercising our greyhounds
An onsite hydrotherapy pool

The Richmond site will be fully launched in 2022. It will be a lovely environment for our team to prepare the greyhounds for pet life as we look to find them their forever homes.

Professional Development for Canine Hydrotherapy

The team that works to develop greyhounds while in our care completed a hydrotherapy course to better assist our dogs with exercising in water in a safe manner.

At our Wyee facility, we already have a pool that many of our greyhounds take advantage of. It will be great for the Western Sydney team to have hydrotherapy available once it’s up and running.

We’re sure the staff will enjoy getting in on a hot day too!

Expanding the GAP Team

While some organisations downsized during COVID-19 lockdowns, we've been able to grow the team at GAP NSW.

With the opening of our new Western Sydney facility, we've been able to add more staff and expand the regional Greyhounds As Pets program to serve four separate regions in the country this year.

Soon, we’ll have six regions up and running to help re-home greyhounds in more parts of NSW.

Promoting Greyhounds at the Royal Easter Show

In the lead up to National Adoption Day in 2021, we had a physical presence at the Royal Easter Show.

Many visitors stopped by to chat with our team and learn more about greyhounds and our program. We had a number of greyhounds at our booth for people to pet and connect with.

At National Adoption Day itself we were able to meet over 500 attendees and re-home many of our greyhounds during the event as well. It was an overall successful day not only for GAP as an organisation but for our greyhounds and their new families.

Contributions from Our Advocates

Greyhounds As Pets is always looking for ambassadors who own greyhounds or have otherwise been involved in helping greyhounds to spread the word about them as pets.

Tim Cahill

Has been our primary ambassador for a couple of years now, and he’s greatly helped to raise awareness through his massive social media following.

Todd McKenney

Visited us during National Adoption Day and adopted a new greyhound from our Wyee facility. Todd has been an active promoter of GAP and has helped spread the word about what wonderful pets greyhounds make for many years now.

Dr Katrina Warren

We also have an ambassador in Dr. Katrina Warren, who has been wonderful in promoting greyhounds to the public and educating them on how well the dogs adjust to pet life, which has been fantastic.

We had a few Olympians who own greyhounds come on board as ambassadors.

Jess Fox

Jess Fox and her greyhound, Miss Pink, made a number of appearances on Olympic footage and on social channels to get our word out. It was great to have her support and bring global recognition to our work.

Rheed McCracken

Rheed McCracken, Paralympian, and his greyhound, Zyla, have been fantastic ambassadors as well. It’s been especially great to see how well Zyla has settled in with Reed.

Becchara Palmer

We also work with Becchara Palmer and Sterling The Gray, who create amazing content for Instagram. Becchara has had Sterling for a number of years and absolutely adores him.

GAP has been proud to work with each of these individuals to grow awareness for us as an organisation and educate the general public about living with greyhounds and the fact that they can make fantastic pets.

Want to be part of our Greyhound Welfare Achievements for 2022?

We’d love to hear from you, there are many ways you can help.

Follow us on social media
Consider adopting, volunteering, donating or fostering
Share our stories with your friends
Contact us to apply for a great career

We thank our staff, partnering organisations and the community for a great 2021. Now, it’s onto the next chapter!