Home » Plants & Animals » Greyhounds » The Greyhound Underground Railroad

The Greyhound Underground Railroad

© Judy A Tomlinson

One of the most fascinating events that I have learned about since becoming active on the Internet is the term Greyhound Underground Railroad (GUR). If anyone questions the importance of the Internet in our life today, I would have to explain to him or her about greyhound placement over the Internet. The ideal way to place our greyhounds is, of course, in our own area. Unfortunately this is not always possible. Just this weekend Greyhound Pets of America/Oklahoma received 5 older female greyhounds. By older I mean 10 to 12 years. These wonderful senior citizens of the greyhound world deserve a home as much as any of our wonderful greyhounds, but they are hard to place because of their age. Hopefully we will find homes for them in other parts of the country, and if we do the GUR will most likely help us.

The research for this article was done by the editor of GPA/OK's newsletter, Gail Hair. The article first appeared in our newsletter, and Gail was nice enough to allow me to use it. Thanks, Gail!

The name that comes up frequently when talking about the GUR is "Greyhound Mom" AKA, Betsy from St.Louis.

Betsy got her first greyhound early in 1997. Along with her greyhound, who according to her, she fell in love with in 3 seconds, she has a dobie/shepherd mix and a shepherd/lab mix. You can see her family on her home page I met Betsy and Simbah, her shepherd/lab mix in Abilene, Kansas. Simbah is a sweetie, and for that matter so is Betsy!

She became active in GUR soon after adopting Starlight Speed, better known as "Speedie." Betsy has worked with rescue groups from Canada to Texas. She considers a normal run to be about 4 to 500 miles. Her longest run was 1700 miles. Though greyhounds are her first love she helps move all dogs that need her help. Betsy told Gail that she is always in need of volunteers. If anyone reading this article is interested in becoming one of Betsy's volunteers, she requests that you e-mail her at gryhndmom@earthlink.net with your name, location, and phone number. She has a list of people from all over the United States.

To read about an actual run, read these GUR notes.

Betsy uses the computer to organize her runs. Being on several different rescue lists helps keep her informed on what needs to be done.

Below is a sample of what she will post to the greyhound list.

The copyright of the article The Greyhound Underground Railroad in Greyhounds is owned by . Permission to republish The Greyhound Underground Railroad in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.