Welcome to our latest edition of the GGTSA newsletter! I’ve had to tear myself away from digging up the lawn and doing

some Spring decorating with toilet paper to get on the computer and get writing.

Unfortunately, we start with sad news. We have lost our

wonderful members; Cara, Tiger Lilly and Turbo. On behalf of everyone at GGTSA, our sincerest condolences and warmest

greyhound snuggles.

On a happier note, I would love to welcome some new members to our group. We have Quincy and Willow, Messi,

Bruno and Audrey. You can see their pictures further on in the newsletter, so say hi at the next walk!

If you feel inspired to write something for our next newsletter, please don’t be shy!

We’d love to hear from you. Our email is at the end of the news, so once you’ve finished reading, get writing!

That is it for another quarter, sit back relax and enjoy!

Sergio xxx

Welcome to the third GGTSA newsletter for 2016!

Inside This Issue

1 Welcome

2 Walk Schedule

3 The Royal Hounds

4 Member

Contributions

5 Sergio out and About

6 Member Birthdays

7 Harry’s Web

8. Levi the Newshound

Issue 3, 2016

Mission Statement: Greyhound Get-Togethers aims to promote and educate the public on these beautiful and gentle hounds and we encourage families to include them in their lives. We exist to give

friendship, information and advice to owners of these Greyhounds on such matters as health and welfare, nutritional suggestions and support in times of need.

WALK SCHEDULE

October 9 Oaklands Wetlands. Located at 237-265 Oaklands Road, adjacent to the old

Army Barracks and across the road from the Marion Swimming Centre. Meet in the

carpark at the front of the complex

November 13 Christmas party at Rymil Park. Starting time at 9.30am to assist with

parking and cooking times. Under the trees near the Rundle Road end.

THE ROYAL HOUNDS

Hello everyone,

It’s Nicki here. Things have been very quiet up here lately. Mum and Dad have been a bit sick, Dad’s had a really heavy cold and Mum got something called new-monia. (pneumonia). Mum hasn’t even been able to take us to training or anything so we know she’s been sick. However, Heath and myself have been taking it in turns to sit on her lap and keep her warm. We also took it in turns to lie on the bed with her as well, it was tough but we made sure she felt better with us there. Mum was very grateful for our nurturing and told us all the time how wonderful we are. Candy was very busy supervising to make sure all of us kept on schedule. . . On a different note I have been having trouble with my feet. . . Again. . . Well now I am developing auto-immune problems but Aunty Rach and Mum are on to it. I have tablets to take but my feet are a bit of a mess as we had to look after my amputated toe and get that healed first. Sigh. . Well now things are looking a bit better but I do like to lick my feet a lot and apparently this is not the thing to do. Mum gets really upset with me. So after looking up a lot of healing creams etc. Mum and Aunty Rach decided to give Manuka honey a try to heal the damage I have done with my licking. So Mum bought the honey, more new socks and away we went. I have to say I’m not that happy with all this fuss happening with my feet but the funny thing is Mum sitting on the floor, washing my feet, drying them, putting honey all over them and then trying to get my socks on so the honey doesn’t go everywhere. As you can imagine things don’t always go according to plan and then of course there is the support crew of Heath and Candy who come out to help, eat some of my treats and generally get in the way. It makes for a challenging time but Mum always says that she wouldn’t have it any other way. Well that’s about it from us up here, we are looking forward to the next walk, Mum is sure she will be better by then and of course we will continue to look after her until she is really well.

PAGE 3 EMPLOYEE NEWSLETTER

Take care and look after your families, just like we look after our people. Lots of love

Nicki, Candy and Heathy

Member Contributions Members love to share their photos through our Facebook page. Here’s just

a sample from our latest walks.

Have you experienced one of these?

Ever wondered what is safe for your hound to eat? June and Bunter sent us this great little chart (see next page).

PAGE 5 EMPLOYEE NEWSLETTER

Assistance Dogs and GGTSA- a member story.

Hello everyone, I am Tanya Freeman and I would like to introduce you to a new member of GGTSA - Bruno!

I do have a little story for you...

As many of you might know, my husband Robert and I have two sons, both on the Autism Spectrum. Jason is our 12 year old who has a few other health issues going on, he is a very sensitive and anxious boy who finds daily life to be quite testing. Jason requires a lot of support to cope with pressures such as self-care, social skills and organisation. And then there is Dylan - 10 years old and behaviourally challenging, Dylan struggles with speech recognition, social interactions and engaging in learning.

Brock, the golden retriever, was an honorary member of our group and he came to us in March 2012 from Assistance Dogs Australia (ADA) and very soon became Jason’s absolute best friend in the world. Brock helped Jason start to develop some much needed confidence and independence through the responsibility of assisting with Brock’s care routine.

Our sons found some common ground with Brock – they shared feeding responsibility as Jason agreed to give Dylan breakfast duties and Dylan also enjoyed the walks, trips to the park and of course the play. As a younger child, Dylan was never quite at ease around animals but Brock helped him overcome this through building a relationship of trust. Dylan tidied the yard regularly so that Brock wouldn’t hurt himself. If only he’d keep his bedroom in order...

Unfortunately, we lost our beautiful Brock to Lymphoma in February 2016. Assistance Dogs Australia were a wonderful support through this very distressing time. ADA encouraged

us to re-apply but we were unsure of how this would work out for us. Whilst waiting to see what would happen we fostered a lovely GAP dog named Coin (Lektra Coin) who is now living the good life with her wonderful forever family in the Adelaide Hills as Penny.

PAGE 7 EMPLOYEE NEWSLETTER

ADA notified us that they had a dog that would suit our family and I spent a full-on five days in NSW during July undertaking pre-placement training. As a result, I came home with an Autism Support Dog - a chocolate brown Labrador named Bruno.

Bruno has some big paws to fill, but he is settling in nicely, and the boys adore him.

As Bruno has undergone Public Access Testing , he is able to come most places with our family. I am busy with maintaining the strict training that Bruno requires. We find that at times of high emotion/anxiety, the boys calm down much faster in the dog's presence.

We hope to see you on the walks, we do tend to stand out a little, not being the normal greyhound size!

Assistance Dogs Australia is a national charity which trains Labradors and Golden Retrievers to help people with disabilities, providing them with greater freedom and independence. Find out more at www.assistancedogs.org.au

Kind regards, Tanya

Introducing our New Members….

Audrey

Bruno

Messi

Quincy & Willow

PAGE 9 EMPLOYEE NEWSLETTER

SERGIO – Out and About!

For this newsletter I thought I would review a greyt spot for an outing, especially with the weather warming up and summer on its way.

Last weekend I hopped in the car and went to Brighton beach. There is lots of curb

parking along the Esplanade making it easy for us hounds to get in and out of the car for starters. The beach itself is nicer, I think, to the south of the jetty as the tide often

comes in right up to the rocks to the north and that’s just not for me.

After a good walk, to work up and appetite and meeting lots of new friends, I headed up Jetty Road. I didn’t need to go far as the Brighton Jetty Bakery is right at the beach end

of the road! There is limited seating, but there is lots of hound room between tables and many tables would have enough space for multiple hounds.

The food comes quickly and is oh so very tasty (I stole a croissant from a child here, see earlier newsletters for the full story). My humans even say the coffee is good, but I only drink cold earl grey, but that’s a story for another day. You might even be lucky enough

to be given some dog treats or a stale roll!

I loved my visit so much the local paparazzi took my picture for the bakery’s Instagram account. So if you want a greyt walk, yummy food and a chance to be famous I

recommend The Brighton Jetty Bakery! You can check out their Instagram account here: https://www.instagram.com/dogsofbjb/

MEMBER BIRTHDAYS This is a new feature to help celebrate birthdays within our group. These birthdays cover July to September 2016

Milly 28th July 2005 (Age 11)

Candy 23rd July 2005 (Age 11)

Candy Loves… My favourite things so far are my new bed, my toy Elephant and all the new yummy food that is here. I love to get kisses on the nose and lots of cuddles. I have only just come out of the kennels so a lot of things are very new, but I am learning very quickly.

Martha Aug 2006 (Age 10)

Sherlock 28th Sept 2007 (Age 9)

Sherlock Loves… Car rides, cheese, squeaky toys, visitors and chasing ducks (sneaking on the bed, but sssshhh cause mum and dad can't find out) Sherlock Dislikes… Being outside

Whiskey (on left) Sept 2010 (Age 6)

Sophie Aug 2012 (Age 4)

Lucy (on right) 28th Aug 2012 (Age 4)

Mr Wickham Aug 2013 (Age 3)

Lexi 18th Aug 2013 (Age 3)

Hugo 18th Aug 2013 (Age 3)

Audrey 10th Sept 2013 (Age 3)

PAGE 11 EMPLOYEE NEWSLETTER

Willow 18th July 2013 (Age 3)

Willow Loves… Squeaky toys, food, stealing things and taking them into mum and dad's bedroom, going on walks, chasing Quincy around the backyard, sleeping on the bed (even though I'm not suppose to!), stretching, being cheeky and stealing all of the attention. Willow Dislikes… Being cold or wet, the vacuum cleaner, the car and not getting any attention.

Peggy July 2014 (Age 2)

Bruno 12th September 2014 (Age 2)

Loves… The company of my family, working, walking, eating (anything at all and I quite enjoy grass) and sleeping Dislikes… Being alone and noises in the night.

Harry’s Web Corner – A

mouse is but a click

away As you can see by my photo I have

recently seen my dog doctor, who removed a little lump from my right leg and appears to have now swapped my leg with a blue stump (albeit temporarily, until they take the splint off). This splint has taken me a few days to get used to (considering I have a dodgy back left leg too) and the doctor said that I was “fortunate” to have good working diagonal legs!! i.e. my front left and back right are keeping me upright. It has even taken me over a day to work out how to do a number 2 without falling over! So least to say, I am not allowed to run or do anything boisterous for the next 10 days - like that will stop me, I just stomp around the garden, like an alien from Dr Who, whilst my family try and catch me :) .

So now I am resting I have had more chance to research the Internet. Our

Facebook membership has received nearly 300 likes which is great – Our

Facebook page is kept up to date and usually has the latest pictures from our

walks and other useful info – please go and check it out.

GGTSA Web Site Quick Stats – 1st Apr 2016 to 30th June

2016 **

1. Number of visitors = 600+

2. Here are some graphs that highlight the age groups and sex of

people who are visiting our website. Surprisingly we have more

youngsters looking at the website and slightly more males.

3. People are visiting us from around the world still (from 47 countries),

with the top 5 locations (after Australia) being UK (14% visitors), US

(5%), Canada (2%), China (1.5%) and Brazil (1%). Locally, after SA,

they are visiting us from Victoria (15% of the Australian visitors), NSW

(11%) and QLD & WA (Both 2.5%)

4. Most popular web pages on our site ….

a. Meet the members = 136 visits

b. Upcoming Events = 111

c. Myths & Facts = 93

d. Recipes = 91

e. Buy and Sell = 62

** All web stats and data graphics courtesy of Google Analytics We’re not alone - Here are some of the other Greyhound Walking Groups around the world…

http://calgarygreyhoundwalkingclub.ca/ - Calgary, Canada http://www.greatglobalgreyhoundwalk.co.uk/home/walking-

groups/ - UK

Locally (Australia that is!)

http://gap.grv.org.au/events/greyhound-walks-playgroups/ -

Various in Victoria

PAGE 13 EMPLOYEE NEWSLETTER

and what’s new on YouTube regarding greyhounds?

1. For Fun – “Plenty of room for me” (0:50 minutes) – Some of you may have had similar experiences to the woman in this short clip…. https://youtu.be/_NlIF8DsMns

2. Factual – Crufts (UK 2015) – “Display by Retired Greyhound Trust” (11:35) – an interesting Greyhound retirement special held at world famous Crufts Show in Birmingham, UK

https://youtu.be/yg66qqJZ0XU

3. Fun & Factual – “20 Things I Love about my greyhound” [4:34 minutes) – Someone has gone through their top 20 reasons they love their greyhound – how many do you agree with??

https://youtu.be/q5CVLF534cs

LEVI THE NEWSHOUND

talks to KAREN ROYAL

Our newshound Levi went out on the trail of new Committee member Karen Royal, and tracked her down at the Henley Beach Veterinary Clinic, where she works as the Senior Vet Nurse. Levi: Hi Karen. Can I begin our chat by asking how long you’ve been involved with greyhounds? Karen: It would be about four years now. My partner Gary came home one day and said he’d bought a half share in a greyhound pup. My first reaction was to think, “Well at least he isn’t buying racehorses”, because I’d previously been very involved with the thoroughbred racing industry. Then I met Jacquie when I was working with a veterinary eye specialist – she came in with Jayden – so I was introduced to Greyhound Get-Togethers, and it all snowballed from there. Levi: Let’s go back to the start of your career in racing then, when you were involved with the horses. Tell us about that. Karen: I’d grown up on a farm and always had horses around me. Mum bred Connemara ponies and Thoroughbred/Connemara crosses and I was involved in eventing for some time, but I really wanted to work in racing. We were living near Angaston and I was determined to get a job at Lindsay Park, even if it was only as a gardener!

As it happened, I was working in a newsagency at Angaston and someone from Lindsay Park came in and asked if I knew anyone who could ride, as they desperately wanted some trackwork riders. YESSSS!! I went there when I was 17 and was involved with some top horses. One of my regular rides was a horse called Primacy, a really big winner, and I also looked after the stallion Blevic, who was a top sire for many years. From Lindsay Park I moved to David Smedley in NSW for a while – that was a bit of an eye-opener after a place like Lindsay Park because some of his horses were only just broken in and could be a bit rough to ride, to say the least. From there I continued travelling and went to Queensland to Bruce McLaughlin for about 18 months, then to Ararat and owner/trainer Tony Laidlaw, and then back to SA and rode for trainers Joe Hall, Mike Moroney and John Hawkes. Levi: Wow, that’s certainly a ton of experience. Then from there to greyhounds - I suppose was a matter of “Once in racing, always in racing”? Karen: Yes I suppose so. And then I settled down into the veterinary side of animal work. Levi: Tell us about your veterinary work. Karen: I started at the veterinary specialist referral centre out at Norwood. I was there for about seven years and did all my training on the job – general training and working closely with the eye specialist, and I’ve been here at Henley Beach for about 2 ½ years as Senior Veterinary Nurse. Levi: Do you see many greyhounds in this practice? Karen: No, only one or two. We mostly have smaller dogs (I know – those white fluffies: Levi) and cats. It’s interesting to see how many more people are becoming aware of greyhounds as pets, although there are still an enormous number of misconceptions out there – you know, that Greys need a lot of exercise, have to wear muzzles etc., so there’s still quite a bit of work to be done to let people know the facts. Levi: So now you have racing Greys as well as pets?. Karen: Yes, we did have Badger in training, but she was such a tiny little thing and was getting knocked around in the races so she’s now retired and has gone to a superb home with other dogs, kids, everyone she could possibly want to play with. Our current racing dog is Jenny (racing name Venetian Mask). She’s a gorgeous little girl and is really part pet, part racing dog, but she takes the racing side really seriously and has won about seven races so far (plus one more since I did this interview: Levi). She lives with our trainer Maurice Kiley and has a great time skipping around in his back yard when she’s not actually racing. I suspect Gary will always have one eye out for a young dog to race, but we’ll probably just have one at a time. Jacquie has already put in a claim for Jenny when she retires from the track! At home we have our old ex-racing boy Bart, plus Hank, a Staffy, and our Australian Bulldog, Monnie. .

PAGE 15 EMPLOYEE NEWSLETTER

Bart has settled down into retirement really well and has become a therapy dog. He was assessed by the Caring Canines people and he makes regular calls to two aged care facilities where he’s a great favourite. The people there always look forward to his visits and it’s so funny to watch him – he’s a natural at the job and he really works the room, lapping up all the attention. Levi: And now you’re on the GGT Committee? Karen: Yes. I’m not quite sure how that happened but I started by offering to make the tea and coffee at the end of each walk and then, by default, I seemed to become part of the Committee (that’s the way it works!: Levi). Hey, I’m not complaining – I love every minute of it. Levi: Being the refreshments supervisor makes you the most important person on each walk! Good on you Karen, and many thanks – we’ll look out for you every month.

Well, that’s it for another quarter of news! Keep emailing us your stories and pictures to mail@ggtsa.org and keep the conversation going on

Facebook! We always look forward to hearing from you!

Do you have a picture for our calendar? The picture must be a good resolution and landscape orientation, so it looks fantastic on the page!

Send you pictures to mail@ggtsa.org