Greyhound Foster Mum Urges Others To Take In Ex-Racing Dogs Waiting For 'Forever Families'

Families across New Zealand are eager to adopt greyhounds after racing was made illegal last month.

Agencies say the demand for adoptions is overwhelming, but they're desperate for foster homes to get the dogs used to life as a pet.

Janelle Broadhurst has been fostering greyhounds since 2017. She says it's the dogs' quirky attitudes that have kept her going for almost 10 years.

"You always meet new personalities, you look at them and they're obviously gorgeous and elegant, but they've also got these goofy, fun, cheeky personalities," she said.

"You really want to help them transition from the kennels, and fosters can do that."

She wasn't alone in loving greyhounds. Lisa Philp, the manager of Greyhounds as Pets, said she had received hundreds of applications for adoptions in the past month.

"The demand has been enormous, we saw a huge upsurge in applications so we have several hundreds now to process, and we're very excited about that.

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"We redeployed a couple of staff and have taken on a couple more staff to help with the applicant load."

But she said the rehoming process had been bottlenecked by a shortage of foster homes. The kennels were full, and many of the dogs needed to be trained before they could be adopted permanently.

"What we're also working on doing at the moment, and one of our new staff is working on this, is building up our foster network throughout the whole country but especially in the North Island because we're a wee bit behind there," she said.

"Because if we have dogs able to go into foster homes it just gives us a lot more capacity."

Tyson, the greyhound Broadhurst had been fostering, was nine years old and had gum disease. He moved into her care when his previous family could no longer afford to pay his vet bills.

"A change of circumstances, y'know, with the financial climate and everything. They went down to one income so they were unable to care for him any longer, so that's how Tyson came into my hands," she said.

"So he's been here waiting for his forever home."

Broadhurst said she had fostered about 15 dogs over the years, most for a few weeks to a few months. But she'd had Tyson since January.

"Everyone absolutely loves him when we go and do pats and chats at Petstock or Animates every Saturday morning, they absolutely love him," she said.

"Then we say his age and that he's got gum disease and people are like, 'Oh, I'm sorry, I'm not in that position.'"

By providing a foster home, she said Tyson could afford to wait until his forever family arrived.

"It's that vital transition that they need between kennel and the new home," she said.

"Because the matching has to be damn perfect so the dog stays in their forever home forever, that family might not be there right then, so it's really important to have fosters."

She said the ex-racing dogs were easy to take care of as many had already been trained.

"They're already house trained, it's a big bonus compared to getting a puppy from the pound. Greyhounds have been handled, trained, walked on lead, so they come with all the most amazing essentials already."

But she said it wasn't always easy to say goodbye when the time came.

"The first couple were really hard, but the beauty of it is you get to stay in touch and you get to visit them, or they visit you, or you catch up at the greyhound walks that are held weekly and monthly," she said, "and you know they've been matched with the right family."

Broadhurst said she hoped more dog lovers would consider opening their homes to greyhounds while they wait for the perfect owner.

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