Lincolnshire Greyhound Trust (LGT) are a very successful greyhound homing charity and to date 2,164 different greyhounds have found homes directly through ourselves.
It is important to be aware of the success we have had and the many wonderful homes that we have found with great people providing permanent, loving homes for our greyhounds. However, we get many comments about returns and the fact there always seems to be ‘another one’ coming back into our care.
Numbers?
The question is ‘do we get a high number of returns?’ My honest answer to that is that I don’t think we do and percentage wise I would suggest we fit in with most groups’ returned numbers, but a) we are very open about dogs coming back to us and b) because we are one of the largest greyhound groups in the UK in terms of homing numbers it consequently means that we get a higher number back if we get the same percentage as a lot of other groups.
Reasons?
There are two very important things to say here.
Number one is that everyone that returns a dog (of any breed) believes they are making the right decision and while we may not always agree it leads onto…
Number two is that regardless of whether we agree or not it is LGT’s 100% no option policy that all greyhounds homed by us MUST be returned to us if the owner is unable to keep them. While I have any say in the charity that policy will remain and I was saddened to see the national Greyhound Trust remove this from their adoption forms some years ago regardless of the reasons. I’m also well aware that most of the excellent GT branches and independent charities will tell their adopters that, like ourselves, they must come back to them if they can’t keep them.
Important to consider
Each home is different and each dog is different. We have had dogs returned because they were not clean in the house who have then gone into another home and been clean from day one as well as the other way around. As we say ‘house training’ depends as much on the humans as it does the dog as what you feed, when you feed, your routine, the nature of the household all can impact on a dog’s cleanliness.
Be positive
LGT provide a lifetime back up for any greyhound homed through us and we always ask adopters (new and old) to get in touch with us as soon as they have any problems as most can be resolved and the earlier it is dealt with and sorted the better. While we cannot change people’s natures it is generally true to say that those that are positive, philosophical and laid back about problems generally manage to solve their dog’s behavioural issues a lot quicker than those that are negative and defeatist about things. In most cases if you want it to work then it can.
Second or third time lucky!
While I perfectly understand people’s sadness and disappointment when a greyhound is returned I always think if the people wanted the dog to come back, sometimes for understandable reasons, that the next home will be ‘the right one’ and the dog will be better off in the long term.
Conclusion
If you are an LGT owner and are having problems then do get in touch and if you want to work to try and resolve the issue then we’ll do whatever we can including offering any help and advice that is needed, but if that isn’t enough then we WILL take the dog back into our care.
I may not always be able to mask my frustration and disappointment when a greyhound is returned to us, but I promise every single person that everything we do is because we care for the dogs and want what is best for them in our opinion.
All the greyhounds pictured in this post are ‘returns’ that came back to us for a variety of reasons and are now happily enjoying life in their new homes.