Whittingham Greyhounds looking for a forever home.

Can you give any of these beautiful hounds a home?  https://youtu.be/vQ6ryFyVSYM

GREYHOUND EXPERTS? Is there really such a Person? 

 Even greyhound owners and trainers of of 50 years’ experience will confess they don’t know it all, and I will put myself into the same bracket, nobody knows it all, and to be even a relative font of information would take at least 30 years interaction with the breed. A greyhound is there to make a fool of you, and that is what they do. Obviously they share some traits because they are a greyhound, but without a shadow of a doubt they will confuse you, irritate you and often have you pulling your hair out but they all have one thing in common, they will always love you, and of course every true greyhound owner will not only love them back, but completely adore their hounds to the ends of the Earth.
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Yes of course! You can exchange information on your dog which can be helpful, but on the other hand it may be the completely wrong advice for that particular dog. Just because your hound reacts to something doesn’t mean all hounds will react the same way. Taking a greyhound, if it is your first hound it is paramount you learn as much as you can from books and advice, but the reality is you will only learn about your hound by having him/her with you, and it takes years.
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The greyhound is an enigma, because I’m sure they don’t even know themselves. When I first started with greyhounds, I too had to learn the ins and outs of the breed, but it soon became evident I would never live long enough to be a truly competent expert because even now they do things I’m not really expecting, and even eat things, like salad for instance which allegedly goes against the norm.
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When Pat Bannister was in charge of Wimbledon kennels I took on one of her hounds. Lucy (Ascots Girl/Princess) who used to love blackberry’s, and in season I used to pick them on our walks with half for her, and half for me. I never had another hound who liked them, neither before or after. I had another greyhound girl who would take apples out of the fruit bowl and completely devour them, she loved them, but I’ve never had another hound who liked them too.
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I often see on forums what you can and cannot give your hounds, which once used to be part of their diet that was until all these warnings hit the Internet and people believed them as fact. Garlic for instance, was used by greyhound trainers to keep (allegedly) worms away and help clear them out, and I used it myself on my racing greyhounds, and I never had a problem with any of my hounds. Things that are considered taboo, I still give to my dogs mainly because they were having them long before these “alerts” were adamant you shouldn’t give them to dogs.
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I never post what I actually give my hounds, because there is always someone who says you shouldn’t be doing that or doing this, normally someone who doesn’t even know which end a dog defecates. If I was to write on a forum just what I actually give my hounds I would be castigated by the “fonts” but of course they truly appreciate their fayre without ever falling foul of anything which could in anyway be remotely put down to the type of treats my hounds are given. For instance, my hounds used to love soft ice-cream in a cornet, and still do, but there is a warning on ice-cream too circulating on the internet.
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As I said earlier all greyhounds are different, so obviously there have been canines which have been affected by some foodstuffs, but it is a broad spectrum to include all canines as at risk. Some people have allergies to a lot of foods, but others eat them with no problem, while others suffer, it is I’m afraid just the way of the world, but we still go on eating them. However, about 15 years ago I was in hospital for 12 days after eating Spaghetti Bolognese, I have never eaten it since. LOL
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To conclude, people will still have a rudimentary knowledge of any particular greyhound, normally theirs which will increase as time goes by, but to know it all? No way, but I often wished I did so I wouldn’t make so many silly mistakes.
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Last week, a friend asked me to look after her girl greyhound overnight as she wanted to go out. All was going well, until she had a growl at my 13 ½ Ciara, to which I pulled her up very quickly, something she hadn’t been used too. All I can say was she gave me such a look I’ve never seen before in any of my 50 years with the breed. She looked at me in total disdain along with a look that seemed to say; “Don’t ever talk to me like that again Sunny Jim” I just wished I had my camera at hand.

No! Nobody will ever get to the bottom of the noble greyhound

This appeared on the Whittingham Retired Greyhound Refuge last week. It was written by Louise Clark, who runs the website at Whittingham. The trouble with Louise Clark is she is a Control Freak, as everything has to be done in her way only, despite many people having a far better knowledge of the greyhound than her.

I unfriended her on Face Book, which then brought the real Louise Clark to the fore.

I have for many years done videos of the Whittingham greyhounds desperate for a home, this long before anyone had heard of Louise Clark. So she deleted all my videos from the website, including all the Christmas and Easter kennel gatherings, but worst of all she posted this on the Whittingham Website.

Whittingham Kennels - Greyhound Trust

· 12 June at 12:34 ·

From Johanna (owner of whittingham Kennels): We will not tolerate abusive posts or messages towards our staff at whittingham. All my staff are dedicated to homing the dogs in our care and do many hours unpaid beyond their shifts. Slanderous and wrong posts will be removed and will not be tolerated. We are lucky to have a great team who all work solely for the welfare of the dogs. We have a wonderful group of supporters and volunteers and will not allow our work to be undermined. Thank you all for your support towards finding homes for as many greyhounds as we can!

 

Which attracted a great deal of response of course,

from all those that read it, that is until you dissect it. As I said, this woman is a control freak, so she has set the website up so only she can decide what posts can be allowed. Which means that abusive, wrong or slanderous posts can NEVER be posted. This posting is a figment of her imagination to cause trouble and try to rid herself of people she knows are far more greyhound savvy than her. I can't say I'm surprised at the amount of people at Whittingham she has crossed swords with, but the count is getting bigger.

As for Johanna Beumer having any input, it is just a red herring. Johanna Beumer neither has a computer, or has any knowledge at all how they work. No! this has only been posted to cause trouble and to try and cement Clarks position at the kennels.

 

Poor, Poor Jeffrey.

I used to do a lot of greyhound walking for the greyhounds waiting for their forever homes at Whittingham Greyhound Rescue. It was a nice way to spend a Sunday walking the hounds. However, something happened at Whittingham I found absolutely disgraceful, so much so I never went back to the kennels to walk anymore hounds because of what happened to a Black and white girl called Jeffrey.

It started when some idiot put her in a kennel with a nasty male greyhound that then attacked her. By the time help came she had a plethora of tears all over her body. She was in a very serious state, but it gets worse.

A professional greyhound trainer by the name of John Walsh took a pair of scissors and went to cut off living skin, but I stepped in to stop him. He was not impressed. The be all and end-all was one of the volunteers made her position be known by taking  Jeffrey straight to the vets at Wanstead for immediate veterinary care. Fortunately Jeffrey recovered after some time and was then lucky to find a home with a lovely lady in Harlow, Essex. I dread to think what would have happened to her at the hands of Walsh and Whittingham if Pauline Stevens hadn’t stepped in to come to her aid.

Because of veterinary costs some greyhounds at Whittingham are slow getting the medical help they deserve, but that was the pits by Walsh. I still did the filming and attended open days, but what happened to Jeffrey certainly scarred me.

              Greyhound Patch died today.  30th May 2017

 

I really feel sad this evening as the events of the day catch up on me.
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I hadn’t done any filming of the greyhounds looking for homes at Johanna Beumers rehoming kennels in Waltham Abbey since Christmas. So today I drove over to film all the hounds that were desperate for a home. Not as many as usual as the kennels were half full of hounds who were described as holiday dogs, but the only beings on holiday were their owners, while they were incarcerated wondering whether their owners would ever come back for them, but happily, they always do.
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No! What made me sad was a greyhound I only know as “Patch” But really another poor soul who was just another statistic of the greyhound racing Industry.
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Boy Green, a greyhound trainer of many years standing is now suffering from the debilitating disease senile dementia, with a wife who is physically incapable of walking any greyhound or even looking after them comfortably. So the two hounds they had in kennels in their back garden were turned over to Johanna’s rescue this morning.
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These two old greyhounds both nudging 12 had never known any real home life kept in a garden kennel, so it looked like a very comfortable last couple of years were theirs to be had because there would be selfless adopters who would step forward to take them into their own home instead of leaving them confined once more in kennels. Their future looked brighter than it did yesterday I must say. I even went into the paddock to give them both a fussing before I then went into the kennel block to start filming..
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A short time later, out in the paddock poor Patch had collapsed and was lying on the ground in a great deal of distress. The kennel staff rolled him onto a blanket and carried him into a kennel, and then laid him very gently onto the ground with the blanket under him. He seemed to brighten up for a minute, before he was whisked off to Medivets which began a fight for his life. Their prognosis was he had suffered several heart attacks, so it was to be touch and go what the outcome would be?
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The veterinarian’s did everything they could to keep him alive, and thought they had succeeded for a while, before yet another heart attack took its final toll as he slipped away on his journey to wait all alone at the Rainbow Bridge.
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What happened to the old boy? Did all the stress of being taken away from the only home he ever knew play a part, or was he destined to die today anyway? No one really knows, but the only saving grace was at least he died surrounded by people who cared, and not all alone in a garden kennel with no one aware he was dying.
I don’t know why it affects me like it does, because wasn’t he just another greyhound? The answer to that is a resounding No! He wasn’t just another greyhound; he was a dog who deserved more!!!
I only knew you fleetingly “PATCH” but you left yourself indelibly printed on my heart! God Speed xxx.

 

The more I think about Patch and how he died comes back to why did they leave two old greyhounds in one of their paddocks for over two hours on a very warm day? I think Whittingham have much to answer for. The truth is, if I hadn't been there would any one have known after the less than qualified Louise Clark was forced to write the following day; "We don't often do an update" They had too after I had written about Patch.

 

Greyhound Leo died  6th June 2017. http://www.greyhound-data.com/db.php…

Before I relate how poor Leo fared under the care of Kew's Vets Harlow, UK, it is once again the disgraceful behaviour of the senior staff at this practice that comes very much to the fore.

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My interaction with Kew's goes back to the very early 80’s when I was a naïve greyhound owner, who thought a vet was a vet, but very soon that evaporated as my trust in the veterinary profession was put under a great strain after I took my greyhound girl, Kizzie to have a toe swelling checked over by a Kew's vet. They didn’t really do a lot other than pain control, and some ointment. Very soon I was forced to go elsewhere when the condition worsened. Who I see was Bruce Prole a very eminent greyhound vet, who soon chastised me for going to Kew's as it had now had been left too late, and he could only pin fire the joint to hold it stable. (Now illegal in the UK)

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Sometime after that my Glen began limping, and although I again took him to Kew's where they x-rayed him, their opinion was he had Arthritis in his wrist. Out they came with their pills again, but to no avail. So I then took him to greyhound veterinary author David Poulter. As soon as I walked up to his surgery, David stepped out and very bluntly told me that this was very serious as he had a tumour in his shoulder, not anywhere near his wrist. After x-rays to confirm, I had to have put to sleep immediately.

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You may wonder why I again went to Kew's? It’s mainly, because it was just up the road to me. But it was to get worse.

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I again had to take my greyhound Vincent to see the vet as he was off colour and had been eating grass, but not too much. I will say at this point this practice never appears to employ experienced vets as they all seem so young, so much so I always ask them how long they have been qualified to allay my fears. I must say though they weren’t often allayed. So there I was at Kew's in the evening out of hours with a young girl veterinarian giving me her opinion. This turned out to be open him up and clear his stomach out, which they did. However, they told me they had removed two quarts of grass, but I knew that couldn’t be true as my garden was paved all over, so the only grass he could have eaten was while he was on a walk with me, and believe me it wasn’t a lot, so my doubts were aroused with what they were telling me.

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Vincent was kept in, and they wouldn’t let me see him. However, they did tell me if I didn’t pay up front I couldn’t have my dog back. The truth is I could buy any of them up there so there was no question I couldn’t pay. I steamed up to the practice and corralled the practice manager in a consulting room and let rip my feelings of why a jumped up veterinary nurse could tell me I couldn’t have my dog back. It was like talking to a brick wall. I paid the £1496.00 bill and took Vincent home. It was after this incident that I began to write up my experiences of using this God forsaken practice. It didn’t go down to well with the authors of my misfortune. I’m under the impression think they think their clients should be seen, but never heard? I also had a nasty meeting with another inept vet at this practice when my Lucy lost her battle with cancer and had to be put down. The young vet was so dire, that when she left the surgery to find some more anaesthetic, the veterinary nurse apologised profusely for what had just happened.

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The final straw for me came in January 2016, when out on one of our walks my hound Fonzie began to struggle to breathe, and began dying before my eyes. I was near my car so I managed to get him in with my other two and took him to the nearest vets, which just happened to be Kew's. At the back door I wrung the bell and a veterinary nurse appeared, and I told her my dog that was in the car and was dying so I needed to have him put to sleep quickly as he was badly suffering. She went back inside, appearing in a few minutes to ask me to go around the front. There was no way I could do that as he was a dead weight, and weighed close on 80lbs. So she went in again but I collared another nurse who bought out a blanket, and between the two nurses we got poor Fonzie into the surgery where he was very quickly euthanised. One nurse took care of my other two dogs which I greatly appreciated. It was the delay in in them actually seeing Fonzie in the first place I deplored, as I could only watch his struggle for life as it ebbed away. The decision to go to the front came obviously from higher up than a practice nurse which I can only assume was implemented to cause me much more distress.

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Fonzie had already gone through enough before he came to me so I was not amused. I wrote extensively on that which appeared on our Spotted in Harlow, which gives the small man a chance to get their story across, especially any injustice you may feel. It’s a boon to anyone in Harlow who feels aggrieved. So this is the background to what happened yesterday as I approached the K*** veterinary van where they had just put Leo after the accident, and they knew exactly who I was as I was addressed by name..

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I was there with the blessing of the owner, as I had taken Leo out many times with my gang, I loved the old dog as he was such an old character. I wanted to see just how bad he was to see if the correct choice would be my greyhound vet, or for Kew's to be in charge of his care. I didn’t have a chance, because every time I tried to see him she thrust her rear into me stopping me getting close, it was akin to trying to get round a barrage balloon being buffeted by the wind followed by her accusing me of assaulting her. The only saving grace it was luckily videoed.

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Leo’s owner appeared very soon after, and we followed the van back to Kew's, where this gargantuan woman banned me from going in the building. Leo’s owner went in, and after a while came out with the news all was not well with the old boy.

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I cannot comment on Leo’s care as they wouldn’t let me in. However Toni was constantly on the phone to me, and it was decided if there was any kind of hope he should be given a chance, however slim. It seems that Leo had been hit slightly off straight damaging his back legs. There were no breakages, but an obvious chance of nerve damage, which sadly was the case. However, it was worth giving him 24hrs to let him settle down a bit to see if there was any improvement, but it was just minimal I’m afraid, so very reluctantly Toni decided the time had come to let him go.

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Toni’s mum, sister and daughter were there to see the poor boy off, but once again their animal and customer care took another nose dive. Instead of using the kindest way of passing him on to his maker by putting him to sleep in the cage he was in, they also decided to not carry him into the consultation room where the family waited, but literally dragged him in which caused not only Leo distress, but the family too.

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So the poor old dog has gone, surrounded by his families love, but not their anger at what they had just seen. You want good memories, but I know it has left a bitter taste in their mouths at what they had just seen. The sad thing is of course it will stay with them forever.

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I will just add here that people who say Kew's did well by their pets, must remember that is what they are supposed to do, that is what they are paid for to treat you and your pet with respect. It is when this respect goes out of the window you have a problem as they appear to have no realisation of what the owners of the animals are going through, which to me is the travesty of going to Kew's of Harlow UK.

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The woman who hit Leo and then drove off I hope is the recipient of Karma at its most vengeful. Bryan HG Leach.

 

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