A kennel on the compound where our adoption kennel is located, ran into some difficulties. They found themselves with a deadline that was not going to be met leading to a one way trip to animal control for a whole kennel full. The 61 hounds and kennel were in a sorrowful state with the kennel itself in disrepair, untended wounds, injuries and ticks ticks and more ticks. Run your hand over a hound and only feel the bumpy TICKS! Lord we spent hours on some of those dogs. I'm finally posting this to GT as some of you may be interested and some groups may be interested. Our adoption group usually has about 60 hounds at any given time up for adoption. Over the last couple of weeks that number has doubled as we gained custody of these hounds, a few at a time. Our volunteers came out in droves and swarms to help withthese hounds. Time was short and they came through like they always have, especially in a crisis. We also could not have accomplished this massive endeavor without the continued assistance of the Florida Kennels manager Luis Miranda. He moved mountains in a very short time to help us with everything! And I do mean everything. That is our home and our neighbors on the compound cheered us on. We appreciate all they have done and continue to do. Lastly, we have been blessed to have had the full support of both Flagler Dog Track and Hollywood Greyhound Track. Their assistance and support, both financially and ethically, have helped us immeasurably with the daunting task started a mere six weeks ago. They all came through for the hounds and we hope to continue this mutually beneficial association and support with them for many years to come. Heres the short version off of our website blog of the follow up. (pictures on the site). Anyone interested - contact numbers on the site. Thanks

Leslie
http://friendsofgreyhounds.blogspot.com/




The D Kennel Dogs

Open House - Their coming out party!
For those of you on our email list, this is old news. For the rest of you, let me provide a quick summary. FoG has been part of the “bail out” of a racing kennel that got into trouble. We gathered our forces and cleaned dogs and kennels, gathered supplies and generally made life a lot more livable for a kennel of greyhounds that were the subject of a state and county animal abuse investigation. We are not going public with this to sensationalize it and we hope anyone reading this will respect that stand. We are a politically neutral group. We’re only in this for the sake of the dogs.

First of all, thank you from the bottoms of all of our hearts. FoG has the most amazing group of volunteers in the whole doggone world. Our people gave huge amounts of their time, talents (vets, dentists, groomers, the whole world came out for these dogs), supplies, and hearts. They broke their necks in the hot sun, shared their lunches with the dogs, and then gave us donations to keep the work going. One of our adopters came to wash dogs after running a marathon in the morning! On Monday and Tuesday our area had an outbreak of a new strain of "Greyhound Flu" as people called in sick to their jobs so they could come work at the kennel. You are an AWESOME group of people! Jerry and I both know that we are so blessed to know each and every one of you.

With all that said, we are happy to announce that (insert drum roll here. . .) our Friends are invited to an open house in Kennel 2 this Memorial Day weekend. It's their coming out party of sorts. Come meet our 54 new FoG dogs. They will be pleased to accept all the love and kisses you can come up with! They look forward to saying thank you to you.

The ‘Marketing’ Plan. . .
Obviously, we can’t keep them all but it does look like Joan (who had the big blue cast) will be staying locally with one of our adopter families. The rest will be featured in a “catalog” (should that be “dog-alog”?) that will be distributed by email to all of the greyhound groups in Florida. The catalog will show photos of the dogs and a brief description in hopes that if each group in Florida can take two or three, we’ll be able to move these babies into homes in good time.

Those dogs are so neat! Did you realize that between the two kennels, we have NINE sets of littermates including a set of 3 and a set of 4. That’s so rare to find. We have one pair of the most wonderful 6 year old sisters who I hope will go to a group together. It’s too much to hope they get into the same home considering their age, but they have been together so long, it’d be nice if they could be close enough to visit each other once in a while.

We’re giving the dogs to the groups for free and we will deliver them, too. So that means we’re looking for any of you or your friends who will be making a long drive in Florida during the next few weeks to let us know if you can take a dog to an adoption group for us. There’s no money in it but you’ll know you have helped a dog make the biggest transition of his life. That’s some wonderful karma.

While they’re waiting. . .
For now, we’re taking on the feeding and some of the “turn out” (walking) of the second kennel. Those of you who would like to help with turn outs on weekends, please see Lee at the kennel. We particularly need reliable help that can come on a regular basis like for afternoon turnouts every Saturday or mornings every Sunday. We don’t want to spend time training you for just one shift. All volunteers for turn outs must be over 15 and must wear closed toed shoes. (Volunteer hours are available.)

Last minute update...
Even while I'm writing this blog, things are changing. We now have 56 dogs in the kennel. When we worked in there yesterday, there were unidentified dogs. Lee met with the trainer this morning and two more of them are ours. They weren't part of the original group but since we were expecting 61, what's two more. (It's two more lives saved. For one, it's another litter re-united. - that's what's two more. Keep em coming!)

Thank God this story has a good ending. Thank you so much and thank you to all the volunteers that worked so hard to get these hounds to where they need to be. It really is All About The Hounds!!!!!

To all involved and for all the hounds

We are starting to get nibbles from the other groups in FL and I think GA. We have so many tracks in FL that most groups are full most of the time with a never ending supply. Hoping my daughter and I can pick up a weekend road trip to get out of town and deliver a couple of hounds soon.
L.

Volunteers are the BEST! You all deserve a big for all you do.
for all the pups.
Tara

GREYT HUGS to all who helped these wonderful greys. You guys are the best of what goes on in the greyhound world

How many of these dogs do you have left now?

We still have about 28 left that we are slowly moving into our kennel and are adopting right out of the second kennel right next to ours where they are currently housed. Would you like a couple? I'll stash a few in the tahoe and use it as an excuse for a road trip? With Hollywood closed for the season, the compound is quiet and still more hounds being hauled elsewhere. We continue to do what we can to place everybody. If you know of any other groups that might like a few let me know.

L.

I'll keep a bug in Judy's ear. Right now we are running around from the trickle down effect of Hollywood closing. I'll remind her after we get over this hump. You might want to stay on top of Dennis, he should be low on dogs real soon, probably by the end of the month he will start looking for dogs at other tracks and the farms.

Rycezmom have you noticed how with the stud dogs that are being used these days that there are far fewer black dogs then ever before? Was it like that in this kennel?

Someone mentioned it to me a few weeks ago so I brought up a whole bunch of programs and looked through them. Sure enough there are way more brindles then before and a ton of reds too. It almost looked like the brindles were about 1 1/2 times as many as there used to be. Just a incredible amount of reds too. Hardly any blacks.

Pat, I know we have about eighteen hounds left. Michelle took a bunch up to Dennis a week or two ago I think. I'll e-mail you the original catalog. I never stopped to see how many were black. Malone, one of the first hounds I worked on was a black boy who put up with several hours and a few biskie/rest breaks to get the ticks off him and clean/dress/photgraph some of his booboos, clean his ears and a double bath.. I think that black hounds get a bad rap sometimes. Dont know why. They sure are some of the best though. But I see your point.

29 brindles out of 56 on my last adoption kennel lists. That doesn't include 10 out of 21 hounds on my lastest D Kennel list. Had to sit down and count them. Makes you want to go "HMMMMMMMM?"

L.

I know what you mean, we just got another kennel closing. No drama about this one though. The kennel owner just want out of her kennel. The dogs are in great shape and she can even help with pet runs if need be. She just can't live on what's left over after taking care of the dogs. It's a shame because she takes real good care of her dogs.