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I adopted my first greyhounds as my birthday present for me in March 1994. Little did I know then that greyhounds would become an all consuming passion! Janet Howe was the volunteer who helped me with my adoption of Shy and Razor. During 1994, she became very disillusioned with the adoption person with whom she was working. In November 1994, she incorporated Rocky Mountain Greyhound Adoption. The beginnings were so humble! The dogs were kenneled in a little converted mobile home on Weld County Road 11 in Erie, Colorado. There was an electric heater in the kennel, an old swamp cooler, and a sink that had running water, but the drain emptied right onto the floor. Well, into a bucket! Janet had worked out an agreement with a person who was running a blood donor program and with Torri, who had a dog farm and race kennel next door, to keep the kennel going. There were a few blood donors, a few race pups being boarded for the kennel operator, and the adoption dogs. She was looking for help, and called me, asking if I wanted to bring my greyhounds out to play in the sprint field. We went to play a couple of times, and the next thing I knew, I was being conned into helping with turnouts for the dogs. My first time in a turnout pen was a real experience. There was a litter of race pups boarding that were just about a year old, and all weighed almost 100 pounds. They had a real good time jumping on me in the turnout pen. I learned a few things very quickly:
1. If you drop something in a turnout pen with a bunch
of pups just in the kennel, leave it on the ground
until you put the pups up, unless you want chipped
teeth and a black eye from them smacking you with
their muzzles! I admit, it didn't take long, and I was hooked. The dogs were fun! The next thing I knew, Janet convinced me to help her with the blood donor program. While it was interesting, I have never since had a desire to draw blood from dogs. Then, Janet told me she needed a "partner" in the adoption group. I guess that made it official. The original idea for RMGA was that we would help one kennel operator, Torri Morris, adopt out her retired racers. It was ambitious enough for us in those days. There were over 100 greyhounds on Torri's farm at that time. Our first year in operation was spent primarily taking in returns from the person Janet and I originally adopted from, and finding homes for them. A few months later, the property we were using was sold, and we had to move from that kennel. We quickly found "foster homes" for all of the blood donors (all of them became "adoptions" very shortly after they went to foster). The race pups went back next door, and we started adopting greyhounds from Torri's farm. Janet eventually moved to Colorado Springs for her job, and Torri and I kept the adoptions going with some help from Susan Dreher, who became our next "victim." Adoptions continued, we started taking in a few dogs from other kennels, but we still intended to be a small operation, helping Torri and maybe one or two other kennels. So, what happened? I'm still not sure. I was absolutely burned out and ready to walk away from greyhound adoption. I toyed with the idea of letting another group take over RMGA, but was convinced by a number of our adopters that it wouldn't be a good idea. I asked for volunteers to be on the board, to take over a lot of the duties I'd had. Chris and Deidre Tedford were two of the first to volunteer to help. Chris took over keeping the adoption records. We decided to obtain our 501(c)(3) tax exempt status from the IRS. That seemed hopeless. We rarely had more than a $200 in our bank account, and the application fee was over $500. We decided to try and get more support from the racing industry. I started going to Cloverleaf with Torri, met some of the kennel operators, met Joe Pardi, general manager, and Kevin Allis, parimutuel manager. Joe agreed to help us with the application fee for the IRS. We started getting some financial support from the kennel operators. Torri was steadily reducing the number of racers she had, we started taking more greyhounds from the other kennel operators. Eventually, we were approached by the kennel operators, offered financial assistance and asked to be their adoption group. That put us in the position to be able to pay Torri a small salary for taking care of our adoption dogs. And, since we were then getting donated food for the dogs, she no longer had to buy food to feed them!
When Razor was diagnosed with cancer in 1998, I
decided it was time for someone else to take over as
president of RMGA. I then twisted Chris Tedford's arm
really hard, and he got that job! I always tell him I
should have made him take over much sooner, because
things have just been booming since then! We have
been involved in many summer festival events and have
been at the Boulder County Fair for the past two
years. Adoptions continue to increase. Things have
been going very well!
Maybe too well. You shouldn't ever get too
comfortable. The farm Torri has been leasing for the
past seven years was recently sold, and RMGA is now
looking for a new home. We were panic-stricken for a
while, but this whole experience may end up being a
very good thing. We have discovered how many
wonderful adopters we have, as well as how many
wonderful people there are in our community. We also
found we have a guardian angel in the greyhound
community who is helping make sure we find a place to
go, and that we stay in business. HOME / RMGA PHOTOS / ROCKY MOUNTAIN GH ADOPTION HOMEPAGE
To contact Jan, email
[email protected]
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