April is Greyhound Adoption Month which is a fantastic thing to celebrate, if the adoption of greyhounds is carried out responsibly. Otherwise, it can lead to worse outcomes for dogs and humans.
Here’s what’s currently happening in the greyhound racing industry:
- Everyday there are people, mainly industry participants, trying to give dogs away for free. At the time of writing this, there’s even an event on Facebook that is advertising ‘1,000’s of Free Greyhounds’. These are people who will not offer post-adoption support and who are trying to get rid of dogs quickly to free up racing kennel space that they can fill with money makers.
- These are the same people who are responsible for or complicit in overbreeding greyhounds (80% of which are bred through cruel surgical artificial insemination) by more than 5-6x the amount than can be rehomed every year (creating huge backlogs of dogs waiting to be rehomed which is why they resort to giving them away for free as above to jump the six month plus queues for rescues, including GAP.)
- Rescues bear the brunt of rehoming. In 2021-2022: 12,000 dogs were bred and GAP nationally only rehomed 2,555 dogs. In 21/22 GAP NSW received AUD$6.4m in funding and only rehomed 301 dogs (about $12,000 per dog) while rescues with no funding rehomed more than GAP.
Post-adoption support is critical in assisting the greyhound’s full transition to home life, to keep the greyhound in the home by supporting early behavioural intervention rather than letting it get ‘unmanageable’ and then a rescue having to rehome a dog with large behavioural issues. Or, in the worst case, rehoming the dog if its owner can no longer care for it (finances, illness, unstable housing etc).
Without rescues supporting dogs in homes, more dogs end up with rescues or being rehomed by their owners, perpetuating cycles of insufficient support or disproportionally overburdening responsible rescues (e.g. a rescue taking on a greyhound who was initially privately adopted from a racing industry participant but developed behavioural issues due to insufficient support).
By adopting from a responsible rescue who offers ongoing post-adoption support, the above cycle is broken. It prevents industry participants from getting away with overbreeding and then quickly offloading dogs. GAP is also held to account by a reduction in foot traffic which will hopefully result in a re-allocation of taxpayer dollars or GAP overhauling the work they do to actually support greyhound wellbeing and not the industry’s.
So let’s work together to change the narrative and educate our friends, family, colleagues and the general public. It’s not just adopt, it’s adopt responsibly.
See a list of responsible rescues at Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds.
