We thought it was time we made some introductions for those of you who have not been to visit us here at Allbreeds Paws and Claws, the GAP adoption kennel base in Hampton Downs, Waikato.
We have just completed another great month of adoptions. A total of 12 for November. So it got me thinking about all the fabulous volunteers and home checkers, AC's and RC's who do so much of the behind the scenes work to get us to this point. Without all the events, the media promotions, the wonderful FB posts that drum up so much interest and excitement about the greyhounds we certainly would not have achieved the 330 adoptions from our kennel base over the past two and a half years.
Many of you will already know that we run a full time boarding kennel and cattery as well as working full time to adopt these beautiful hounds.
But what some of you may not be aware of is that there are some other very important personnel who do some very critical and generally unrecognised work for us all, and today I would like to introduce and recognise these much loved and very tolerant little souls.
For every single greyhound who passes through our doors there will be a meet and greet by our pets, Blue, our 4 year old Border Collie and Benji, our 5 year old Shihtzu.
Both these boys have become very greyhound tolerant even though they have been sniffed, snuffed, bashed, bunted, lunged at, licked, and generally molested by some very confused ex racing greyhounds. Benji in particular is very calm and quite staunch and will very occasionally will tell a dog off if they are too inappropriate. But generally the greyhound will establish that this low to the ground little slugger with a tail that closely resembles a lure is actually just a solid little dog with a gentle manner who would be happy to be friends.
And so it is that these two boys are our very very important temperament testers here at the GAP kennels and without them we couldn't achieve what we consistently do each month.
And once the boys have done their job we are ready to do the introductions with Jed, resident kennel cat, a bit of a gangster, and all round Mr nice guy. Most of our adoptees have had the pleasure of being greeted by Jed who likes to parade himself all over the reception counter, talk a lot, and request loads of attention.
He will outstare any keen eyed greyhound, mostly in the knowledge there is the promise of large quantities of Temptations as part of this game. His job is to let the hounds get up close and personal, to walk around in front of them and generally stimulate some interest. Even some of the biggest and best race dogs can be easily distracted to walk away and leave the cat alone.
It is interesting how many times we have identified a really 'bomb proof' cat trainable greyhound and then Jed will calmly walk almost between the hound's legs when we are distracted. It can be a little disconcerting but you know what they say about animals - they just seem to know these things!
There are also chickens, ducks and miniature ponies for all the dogs to see each day which all helps towards introducing the hounds to new and interesting creatures. So spare a thought for our special team here at Hampton Downs. The unsung heroes of GAP successful adoptions. How would we do it without them!!
Jon and Annamarie would like to wish all our adoptees and their beautiful hounds, all our volunteers, our fellow GAP personnel and our kennels friends a very Happy Christmas and a safe and relaxing holidays.