Just back from a great weekend at the Bedfordshire Show – apart from some torrential rain, it was a really enjoyable show, and the Vet’s Kitchen Health Scan trailer was kept busy all weekend with lots of owners taking advantage of our free health checks for their dogs.
As well as checking over lots of dogs and talking to people about our products I also helped out with the judging of the fun dog show which was great fun, and met some lovely dogs and owners – including these two beautiful greyhounds Gilmour and Kryssy owned by Jackie Staines, who is passionate about the breed:
“We discovered greyhounds by chance and they have rapidly become our preferred breed - partially because of the nature of the breed but also because of the plight of greyhounds bred for racing. It’s not so much that they race that bothers me as greyhounds really do enjoy running at speed, but the intensity of the breeding, and therefore ‘wastage’ of surplus hounds. Gilmour and Kryssy’s fathers and grandfathers between them (i.e. four dogs) have sired almost 18,500 pups between them – and they’re just the ones that can be traced because they did make it to the race track. Goodness knows how many didn’t make the grade.”
I also have a soft spot for greyhounds, and feel very strongly about the issue of racing dogs being very poorly treated at the end of their careers. Thankfully there are lots of great rescue organisations around, and Jackie supports her local branch of the Retired Greyhound Trust – http://www.greyhoundhomer.org.uk/.
