I had a conversation with a greyhound breeder in Oklahoma last week. Our group had never been contacted by this particular breeder. The lady told me that they had two fawn female greyhounds that she thought would make good pets. I explained our situation to her, telling her we would take them as soon as we had an opening in a foster home. She told me that they usually just put their dogs down, but she wanted to start getting some of them adopted. This was the first time I had ever talked to a breeder that had told me this. Of course, I knew many breeders did this, but even though I am active in greyhound rescue there are still some things I close my eyes to. We were thrilled that one more breeder was taking responsibility for their dogs.
Gary Guccione, the President of the NGA wrote a very though provoking article about the responsibility of breeders several months ago. Our organization has about 20 dogs waiting to come into our program right now, and we have 12 dogs in foster care right now. One time last year we had a breeder with 10 dogs that he needed to move quickly. Our president got on the Internet and telephone and lined up transportation to get these dogs to groups that had room for them. By the time she got back to the breeder, he had already put them down. It is situations like this that makes people in animal rescue wonder, in their darkest moments, "why bother?" Thank goodness this dark moment always passes, and we continue working to save just one more dog, cat, seal, dolphin, or whatever our passion is.
