Greyhound & Lurcher Rescue Stories – A Day in the Life of a Volunteer

Our volunteer team, headed by our three trustees, help with so many things. We have teams of walkers, fundraisers, home checkers and crafters together with our foster carers and Admin. team. All these volunteers work tirelessly with one goal in mind, to find loving forever homes for the greyhounds in our care. Many of our loyal volunteers have been with us since the rescue opened over five years ago and we are now well known and respected in the local community.

A typical day starts at 6.30 am with the kennels being cleaned, the greyhounds being ‘turned out’ and then fed.  More volunteers turn up at 10.30 to fully clean the kennels and carry out any other tasks that need doing. The hounds are later walked - at 1.15 pm during the week and at 10.15 am at weekends - by our team of volunteer walkers. A rota run by our Walking Co-ordinator ensures that we have enough volunteers each day and that come rain or shine, the dogs have a walk every single day of the year including Christmas Day! The dogs are fed again at 4.30 and settled down for the night at 8.30, with some hounds expecting to be tucked in by Siobhan.

We have an average of 18 dogs in kennels at any one time.

A Saturday morning sees the busiest time of the week with the kennels a hive of activity. Once the dogs have been attended to more Volunteers arrive to open the shop at 10 am followed shortly after by the walkers. We have other volunteers who clean kennels, take photos and receive any visitors that call in, there are often adoptions and paperwork to sort out too. A Saturday often also sees our fundraising team out and about at local fairs or events raising funds and awareness of greyhounds as pets.

Siobhan, founder of the rescue sums up how important volunteers are to our rescue ‘ volunteers are invaluable to the centre, it just couldn’t function without them, every little thing our volunteers do for the dogs is always appreciated’.