Ben Craik, wife Barbara and daughters Tracey and Lisa hosted a get together of the many hounds they have re-homed. The event was held at their home and show cased their racing kennels in Drury, Auckland.
Although not all those invited were able to attend on the day there was a fabulous turnout and the weather blessed us with a typically hot and sunny autumn day. Many people brought platters of food and the Craik girls excelled their hospitality skills both in the kitchen and with the wonderful preparations for their guest.
The event was co-organised with Georgie Milne who has two Craik hounds, rather well known to many in the greyhound adoptee world.
All invited guests were given a tour of the racing kennels and detailed explanations of how things operated. We all shared a delicious lunch and there were plenty of extra sausages on the barbeque for the happy houndies.
There were organised games, some knowledge related to the greyhound families and some more skill based ie. Draw a picture of your hound! There were loads of great prizes along with some healthy rivalry and good humour.
As a non greyhound owner I was of course an honorary guest for the day. It came as a complete surprise when Ben presented me with a stunning bouquet of flowers and some extremely kind words about the work we do to rehome their beautiful dogs.
Everyone was also given a special Craik Racing reunion booklet to take home. It outlined some of the Craik's achievements and also listed well over 100 hounds who have passed through the GAP programme over the years.
This opportunity for many to experience a racing kennel environment and potentially meet some of their greyhounds' siblings was a wonderful event.
We are extremely grateful to Ben and Barbara and the girls for opening their home to us all and there is already talk of a second reunion to be planned!!
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Annamarie Howe
Hampton Downs Kennel Base