Kennel News January 2025

7th January 2025

Kennels.

Happy and healthy new year wishes from the Wolverhampton GT kennels. As always at this time of the year, we look back and forward.

We had 24 hounds in the kennels at the end of 2024 waiting for their families.

During last year we welcomed104 greyhounds into our gang and found homes for 101. We work hard to match the hound to the family and the return rate remains very low. Usually due to the owners ill health or change of circumstances.

A total of 4808 greyhounds have found a home from this branch since we opened in February 2002 and we are very proud of our work.

During the year some volunteers left our branch for various reasons and we continue to welcome new volunteers all the time. This is fabulous, as they bring new ideas and enthusiasm!

We are blessed to be supported also by many individuals, organisations and other charities who help with our vision. Regular donations of food, bedding, cash and dog treats appear every week.

Our 'Festive Fish' campaign this year saw 685 cans dropped into our big yellow bins.

If we have a particular need, such as cooked chicken and turkey for the resident hounds Christmas dinner, supporterd appear with bags of diced meat. Some fresh and some frozen and the hounds enjoyed quite a few dinners. A huge thanks.

As always, we are massively thankful for our link with Entain at Monmore Stadium and the management team of the company based in London.They welcome us on Bank Holidays and have a bedding collection container on the car park for the hounds. They fundraise and sell merchandise on our behalf. Great team work for the retired Greyhounds.

Importantly, we need to thank the Monmore trainers for supporting our work and ensuring the hounds come to us with the relevant paperwork and a full history of the dog.

You can see it all helps us do what we love doing!

Care Homes.

The year started quietly as far as care home visits were concerned. Since Covid, the homes have adopted a more cautious approach to visitors and sadly one or two of our regular visits seem to have declined.

However, we still enjoy introducing the greyhounds to the residents at Dovedale Court Care Home, where our visits are always greatly appreciated.

We have also taken on regular monthly visits to Royal Park Care Home in Wolverhampton. Here the greyhounds have been meeting residents in the lounges and their own rooms, giving a lot of pleasure to everyone they meet.

For the new year, we are hoping to continue in the same vein and hopefully being invited to take the greyhounds to more homes in the area.

Any registered volunteers who are interested in helping and joining in with the visits should contact the kennels for more information.

Branch Walks.

We have had so many people with their beautiful greyhounds regularly supporting us this year on our Greyhound Walks at Baggeridge Country Park and also people coming along for the first time and it was great to see the Dudley Branch of the trust joining us. A big thank you to all, it is much appreciated.

By supporting our walks, you are helping us raise awareness about greyhounds and what wonderful pets they make. As most of you know after the walks we have araffle. We also have sausages for the hounds, which they thoroughly enjoy.

One of the highlights of 2024 was the Great Global greyhound Walk held on Sunday 29th September, when we welcomed 104 greyhounds and their families to our walk. What an amazing sight it was!

As a matter of interest the next GGGW will be held on Sunday 28th September 2025 and watch the website and our social media site, for further details of this and forthcoming dates of the 2025 Branch walks.

Well thats all for now folks, but please keep an eye out for the next issue of the Kennel News.