FRIENDS OF GREYHOUNDS, INC.
SUNRISE, FLORIDA

By the time you are able to adopt a retired racer they are leash trained. Greyhounds are also crate trained. This means that they are trained not to do their business in their crates and it is fairly easy to train them after that. Greyhounds have only one coat of hair, making them virtually shed-free and odorless. Their short, sleek coat has more oil and less dander than other dogs, which means they are less likely to trigger allergies. Greyhounds were brought to the United States to help control the jackrabbit population in the west because they were the only breed fast enough to catch the rabbits. Jerry & I liked to go to yard sales. We were always in search of special treasures and unique things. Some of the best yard sales are run by charities. A lady who used to work in the office I was in, sent over a poster looking for yard sale items to raise money for a greyhound rescue. We figured the best way to get in on the good stuff was to “help” them with the sale. There was a meeting at the home of a volunteer named Diane in Davie. We arrived and they had very little idea what they were doing. At first we tried to lay low but we soon decided to jump in with both feet to help. We didn’t know greyhounds but we knew yard sales! That yard sale was Friday, Saturday and Sunday and we worked our tails off. By the end of it, we knew this group was some of the most sincere and dedicated volunteers we had ever met and the lady running the rescue really, really needed some organized help. We continued volunteering with the group and it was a challenge. It was as if she resented it when others did things for her dogs. The bunch of us trudged on taking pleasure in making small victories for the greyhounds. One time we actually hid down the street to wait for her to leave and then our group converged on the house and spent hours cleaning and repairing the kennel. It was a labor of love for the dogs but she was really ticked. We tried to be on good behavior after that but it didn’t last. We formulated an idea of how to help her. We would start a secondary group aimed at raising money for her and doing tasks for her to make her adoption group more successful and more presentable. We wanted to fix up the kennel area so she could make food there instead of bringing bowl by bowl through the house from the kitchen. We wanted to pre-print brochures in quantity before events instead of running out the night before. We had wonderful plans. We held a pot luck meeting in Diane’s home one night, the same place we had started out with the yard sale months before. We had over 20 people. Our spirits were high and everyone wanted to help the dogs. But the lady who founded the rescue arrived and proceeded in very plain language to rip us all to shreds. At one point she said “I don’t need any stinking volunteers”, a quote we all remember. She got into screaming matches with us, Diane and everyone within earshot. People where hiding in the kitchen and slipping out the back door to get away. Jerry & I stuck it out, trying to explain that this was all FOR her and not against her and feeling so bad for Diane and her husband who couldn’t leave- it was their house! Once our car was unblocked, we headed out the front door with her trailing us across the lawn screaming. We knew we wouldn’t be working with the greyhounds any more. The next day, as the shell shock was still wearing off, Jerry turned to me and said “I wish we could just do it ourselves!” . Those were fateful words. I told him we’d need to redesign the garage, put in a new back door, add a gate, board fencing, kennels, move our stuff from the garage into a storage locker, etc, etc. And we did. It took time to do the physical stuff and legal stuff and it took much of our savings that we happily invested for the sake of the dogs. On May 2, 2001, we incorporated Friends of Greyhounds. By October, we were FINALLY ready for dogs. The physical work was done and we had a vet lined up to help. I called the track and boldly asked for the General Manager by name (from the internet) and they connected me. I introduced myself and told him we were a new adoption group. He stopped me mid-sentence and said they already had an adoption group and as he started to dismiss me, I yelled at him – “I don’t want your money – I want access to your dogs.” I think I scared him. But he graciously stopped and listened. He then put me in contact with the manager at Florida Kennels and told me to use his name. Well that name paved the way for us to get our first dogs on October 18, 2001 and we did our first adoption, Snickers, from a party in the park we called “Woofstock” on November 7, 2001. But getting into it was only the beginning. So many, many people have contributed to our progress since Jerry made that wish and I will not attempt to name them all. We are in a transient area. We lose people and get new ones. We hope they spread the gospel of the greyhound as they travel the world. We never have enough volunteers. I never have enough time and there are always more than enough dogs. We had been in this business just about a year when we were asked to take over the adoption kennel at Florida Kennels and be the official adoption group for both Flagler and Hollywood dog tracks. It was a huge undertaking but we immediately recognized the tremendous opportunity it afforded us to adopt out more dogs. Overall, it has had ups and downs but we would absolutely do it again. We lost many of our original volunteers because they felt we were “making the track look good.” Jerry & I believed it would give us the ability to move more dogs out of the kennels and into new homes. We tried desperately to explain it to them but they were steadfast in their own beliefs. Many of them still work with the greyhounds for other groups. That’s what it has always been about for us – the dogs. We miss those people and I especially miss Diane who taught me so much about the greyhounds, their history, their personalities and their needs.