Fostering

Our hounds are kept in the homes of our foster families in the time interval between retirement and the time they go into their adoptive homes. American Greyhound provides all veterinary care and medication, a crate for your foster hound, and any special things he or she may need.  The fosters provide them with food, a roof over their heads and lots of love and attention.  It is a tremendous way to make a huge difference in the life of a greyhound.

Adoption

Obviously, the ultimate goal of American Greyhound is to find our hounds a wonderful home to live out their lives as a pet. Greyhounds make wonderful family pets.  They are surprisingly low energy dogs who are happy to lounge around the house for hours on end.  That being said, they are likewise always ready for a walk or a run around the back yard.

Our adoption coordinators are on stand-by, waiting for your adoption application, to unite you with the next “love of your life”.  They will help you through each step of the adoption process and help you select the perfect greyhound for your home.

Check out our available hounds to see if a retired professional athlete isn’t the next addition to your home and family.

Hauling

American Greyhound is often in need of help hauling hounds.  It may be a trip to the vet, to meet a potential adopter, or a trip to a southern state to haul hounds from a track, breeding facility or prison.

For most local hauls, the dogs can be moved in personal vehicles.  These sorts of hauls would involve getting dogs to the vet or out to an adoption program when the foster home is unable to get the dog out.

As we are beginning to see, there are a great number of greyhounds ending up in local shelters and humane organizations.  We sometimes need help getting these dogs from where they are to where we are.  Most of these dogs are coming from Western Ohio and Eastern Indiana, but they can be located just about anywhere.

For the longer hauls to the race tracks and breeding facilities, we employ our own custom greyhound hauling trailer.  We are in need of people who are willing to drive our van and pull the trailer on the hauls. We’d like to have at lease four drivers available for the longer hauls, and two drivers on the shorter ones These trips usually take in excess of 30-36 hours and are very demanding, but are worth every bit of the effort when we unload the recently retired hounds and deliver them to their new foster homes.

Adoption events

When we hold adoption events, usually at Petco stores, but also at other stores, fairs and festivals, we can always use help with the adoptable hounds, walking them, talking with people about them, and a number of other things to help promote retired racers as pets.

Polar Bear

It’s an annual tradition to plunge into Lake Michigan to raise funds for American Greyhound’s efforts. Our number one need here is polar bears.  Not giant white bears, but people willing to dive under the waters of Lake Michigan at North Avenue Beach, in Chicago, on January 1st.  Our polar bears use our fund raising pages at FirstGiving to raise funds and awareness.  We also can use support personnel to photograph and record video of the polar bears in action, and to help when they return to the beach, and a few other tasks to assure that the morning goes smoothly.  After the “work” at the beach is over, we move up the street to the “Old Town Ale House” for a warm up party. Be sure to sign up for the newsletter to stay informed when we kick off this fundraiser each year.

Auction

Our annual auction, “Winning Hearts, Not Races” started in 2010, has become our largest single fund raising event.  Every year  we hold our auction at the Avalon Manor, in Merrillville, Indiana.  Our evening starts  with a huge silent auction,  then we are seated for a delicious meal and a simultaneous live auction.  Included with the auction is an open bar and champagne fountain.  The entire evening is extremely entertaining and enjoyable. The auction has raised the funds necessary to make an ever greater difference in the lives of these wonderful dogs, and our goals are set to continue this success.

To make this event come off as well as it has, we are in need of people who would like to participate with the auction committee. The basic tasks are acquisition of auction items, soliciting sponsorships, and promoting attendance.  While these may seem daunting tasks, the support we receive from the auction company makes everything much easier than would be expected.

Everything about the auction is done in a first class way, and almost no one leaves without a smile on their faces.

Miscellaneous Fund Raising

There are quite likely a number of other fund raising activities that we have not yet explored.  If you have some experience with fund raising, please let us know.   We are open to almost anything, as long as it has the potential to be a successful undertaking.

Miscellaneous

There are many things we can use help with that haven’t been listed here.  If you have some skill sets that we haven’t touched on, please let us know.  There are a myriad of tasks that are required to keep this machine operating at the level we have chosen to operate.  Just let us know your skills/interests, and we will find the task that will fit you.

We appreciate your interest in American Greyhound and helping to improve the future for greyhounds.  We know that the more people we include in our operations, the more success we will see, and ultimately, the more greyhounds whose life we can change.

THANK YOU!