I posted last week that I was in the process of rescuing my very first greyhound, pending a meet & greet with my resident dog.
Happy to report the meet and greet went amazing, and Marty is home!! Both dogs are happily napping in their own corners of the living room.
Our family feels so complete!
A present for our girl’s seventh birthday, we have never seen her enjoy a toy so much 🥰
Mom was practicing and Magnus stuck his head right there 🤣
Hi all, Benji is back! He might be the unluckiest greyhound in the UK, after a Tendonectomy on his front right third toe in 2024, a million to one freak spine injury in 2025, and now beating the odds by a corn returning on the exact same paw pad as before, post-Tendonectomy. Has anyone ever experienced this or have any advice/medical notes on treatment I can share with my vet?
They first recommended one, then the senior vet that runs the surgery wanted him to come back in to take a look and confirm this is definitely the case, and it is. He’s having to ask around his colleagues at other surgery’s that deal with greyhounds as well to see what the best thing to do is, so I just wondered if anyone else has experienced this and what their vets did :)
Benji’s face upon hearing he has another troublesome corn is the pic :)
Old man JJ has been having increased stiffness lately. His response to the acupuncture has been great, but he need a lil extra help today.
Phinn celebrated with a turkey neck nibble!
So here’s why greyhounds are rescued and not retired and why these terms matter.
“Retired” greyhound is the racing’s industry’s word. It implies that there is a choice, people choose to retire, thus softening and painting the industry in a better light. Greyhounds don’t have a choice.
They don’t have the ability to say no and even if they did, they would still be forced into start boxes or be ‘initial wastage’ (that’s a less glamorous industry term). Anyone who can appreciate risk and consequence would not choose a career in which 128 professionals were killed and 11,400 were injured in a single country in a single year and where there is a study (that literally comes from the racing industry) demonstrating the inherent danger of racing comes from dogs grouping together.
Dogs cannot appreciate risk and consequence, therefore arguments such as ‘they love to run’ don’t hold any weight. As their guardians it’s up to us to keep them safe and racing them is incompatible with this.
That’s why ‘rescued not retired’ matters. Retired is an industry attempt to greenwash and sanction the abuse, injury and killing of thousands of greyhounds.
Just a PSA that on trains in Melbourne, dogs need to be muzzled. I won’t get into whether or not it’s a SMART rule, but let’s follow the rules so we don’t risk big dogs being banned from the only form of transport they’re allowed on (which would really affect some people’s accessibility)
This afternoon Kylie took her first train ride. She was quite excited, Fred was his usual pensive self.