As a not-for-profit animal welfare organisation, the primary mission of Greyhound Adoptions WA is to rescue and re-home greyhounds. No dog is given up on however long it takes every greyhound deserves a chance of a good family life! Greyhound Adoptions WA has been in operation over 15 years. It started out as a one-person operation with only four or five dogs in foster homes. Now we have between forty and fifty dogs in homes across Perth metro and South West region. There was a realisation that there were many Greyhounds that needed homes after finishing racing and there were not enough places for them to go. At this time, it was still acceptable to the industry to euthanase the dogs if homes could not be found. Sadly, at this time trainers were even able to put dogs down for lack of track performance. We never had the opportunity to try and find homes for many of these dogs. Thankfully through advocacy groups they now must now be re-homed. Toni’s first foster dog was Clover and she decided to adopt her - GAWA’s first foster fail! At the very beginning there were only a few members, some stayed, and some moved on due to personal circumstances. Pete, Ellen, Roz, Kristine and Sharon joined Toni and with their passion the group slowly started to grow. These members are still very much part of the ever-growing team. Many of us remember the days when there were no homes to be had for these beautiful dogs and there were many stressful times with the team ending up with the dogs in their own homes if foster homes could not be found! Eventually more members came on board and the load was shared but the bulk of the work was done by Toni as the foster coordinator. Toni found homes for dogs which took hours of work, liaising with trainers, arranging vet appointments, transport of the dogs and finding homes for these dogs. We had a Treasurer, Secretary, Events Coordinator, Adoption coordinator, help transporting dogs even a page to name some the few roles that came available and were eventually filled. Today we have a committee of 10 people, Toni has help with her foster Care Coordinator role, Five Adoption Coordinators included is our Cat Assessment Coordinators, Treasurer, Secretary, Fundraising Team, Social Media Team including both Facebook and Instagram. The team also includes behaviour and food related Advisors, Transport Coordinator and Volunteers. Our group is driven by love and determination to help as many greyhounds find homes as we are able. We give credit to Toni for inspiring us all even when the chips were down in the early days to keep going – the dogs need us! GAWA has grown into this wonderful organisation full of people of every age, workers, retirees, students who have given us their skills and talents to succeed. We have many more wonderful supporters who donate their time making things for us to sell and assisting at events. We have wonderful foster carers who give so much of their time and love to the dogs and the adopted families who keep in touch and come to our events. There is so much more to say and there is always more to do! Everyone is valued the same and we all give what we can every bit of help is so appreciated. So, if you would like to get involved and join our GAWA family please get in touch we are always in need of volunteers, foster carers and help with behind-the-scenes work.
