Greyhounds As Pets (GAP) is a registered charity established by Greyhound Racing New Zealand to find pet homes for retired racing greyhounds.
Retired greyhounds make great pets – they are intelligent, affectionate and lazy. They adapt to pet life with surprising ease, becoming a family favourite in no time.
Many owners become totally smitten with their greyhound and go on to become part of the GAP community, helping more hounds find homes and enjoying walks and social events.
Programme Director, Jacqui Eyley, helped found the GAP programme in 2005. She has the overall management of the organisation and works with the Board of Trustees on future direction.
Where/when/how did the inspiration for your charity arise?
I adopted my first greyhound in the UK and brought him to NZ in 1996. He was a wonderful pet, living on our lifestyle block in perfect harmony with all our other animals. We also had a greyhound cross and they used to race each other around the paddock with the sheep watching from the side lines. We had twins and moved to Saudi Arabia taking Oscar with us and then onto the UK. When we eventually returned to NZ I was keen to get another greyhound so contacted the local track. I adopted Lucky from a local trainer in the Waikato who told me that Greyhound Racing NZ (GRNZ) was starting an adoption programme and looking for volunteers. It turned out that GRNZ had written a trust deed but was still debating how to set the programme up. I volunteered and ended up writing the business plan for GAP which was based tentatively on the Victorian GAP programme. GAP NZ is quite different from its Vic counterpart in that ours is an independent charity with some financial support from GRNZ, while the OZ GAPs are part of their racing industry.
What was your primary purpose for creating your charity? And has this changed since its inception?
Our vision is to promote the greyhound as a family pet so that all suitable greyhounds can find a home after racing. Greyhounds make truly fabulous pets. They’re gentle, intelligent, laid back and affectionate. They only need one good walk or two short walks each day, unlike many working breeds which would be on the go all day.
Did you encounter any roadblocks when setting up your charity? If so, how did you overcome these?
Firstly, it was all about changing people’s perceptions of the greyhound - most thought of them just as a racing dog. We’ve attended a lot of events, shows and fairs to introduce people to the dogs so they can judge their temperament for themselves. Greyhounds are a breed recommended as a therapy dog and we have a number visiting rest homes, one working in a library as a reading therapy hound and another being trained as a disability assistance dog.
By what means do you promote your charitable work? How are you using social media to drive your message?
It’s all about raising awareness and we’ve found that anything and everything works. People generally see us through several different channels before deciding to adopt. That could be the radio and TV ads donated by Saatchi & Saatchi or an A&P Show or Facebook. We love Facebook. We’re very much a community so Facebook suits our needs perfectly. It’s a chance to highlight the dogs that need homes as well as tell people when walks are being held, share experiences or just share those super cute photos of our hounds.
What has been the best advice given to you by a colleague in the charitable sector?
Acknowledge your volunteers! Sometimes we get so busy and there are so many people helping that we sometimes miss our chance to say thank you. We try so hard to make sure everyone feels appreciated because we can’t do it with without them, but sometimes it feels like trying to catch every snowflake in a snowstorm.
What was your most rewarding experience in 2013?
Our 1000th greyhound was adopted last year, so that was an important milestone. When we started with dog numbers 1, 2 3 and 4 on our whiteboard our 1000th dog seemed a long way off but time has flown and now we’re well over 1100. That said, though it’s rewarding to see every one of those dogs in a good home, it’s also hugely rewarding to have built up such a great team of people at our centre to make those adoptions happen.
What are your goals for the charity in 2014?
More and more adoptions! GRNZ are now totally committed to improving the options for dogs coming out of racing which means this is a very exciting time for us. They are looking at ways to reduce the numbers of dogs coming out of racing and giving us extra support to increase the number of adoptions. To help this happen GRNZ are buying a kennelling property which will enable us to spend more time with the dogs preparing them for pet life. While most adjust very easily and head straight for the sofa, others will benefit from some extra training. Having our own property will give us some much needed security for the programme and enable us to do so much more, including open days. Some people just want to come along and meet a greyhound and we know they won’t be able to resist one once they’ve looked into those deep soulful eyes.
www.greyhoundsaspets.org.nz
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