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Our Rehoming Process

All applicants will receive personalised support and guidance throughout the process to ensure every hound, and their future family, have the best chance at a happy and harmonious life together.

Please read our process carefully:

Research And Reading

Adopting any pet is a big decision, so we encourage you to take the time to reflect on the reasons you want to add a melodramatic noodle horse to your household, and how your lifestyle may change as a result of the addition.  Sighthounds, and greyhounds inparticular, are loving, laid-back companions, but like all dogs, they come with their quirks and requirements so you want to make sure you are quizzed up and ready for everything hound ownership will throw at you. 

 

Be sure to explore our resources, extensive articles available on our social media and reach out if you have any questions.

 

​​Not sure if a sighthound is the right fit for your lifestyle? Book a no-obligation phone or Zoom call with one of our friendly team.  We’ll chat about your circumstances, answer your questions and concerns, and help you decide if one of these amazing dogs could be your perfect companion.

Register Your Interest

Ready to take the next step?  You can complete our online registration form to officially express your interest in adopting a greyhound.

Once your form has been reviewed, we will contact you to book a phone or Zoom call to go through your answers.  ​This form, and call, helps us understand more about you, your family, your home environment and routine, and gain a much more intimite idea of what you are looking for in a hound and how you want them to fit into your life, family and home.​​​

 

We pride ourselves on being a responsible rehoming centre and go to great lengths to ensure each hound finds their perfect forever home based on their needs and personality.

Home Check

We believe in taking a personal approach in homing our hounds, which is why we arrange an in-person home check wherever possible.  This ensures that the home environment is as described, is safe, welcoming and set up for the new arrival.  In taking this additional step, we can better get to know you as much as possible to best match adopters with their new hound!

 

While we are based in the East Midlands,  we do happily rehome nationally.  Home checks are either carried out directly by our wonderful network of Zoomie volunteers or by one of the amazing volunteers who work for the charity-support-charity, The A-Team!​

 

Applicants will be notified of which volunteer will be carrying out their home check, who will contact directly to arrange a day and time.  Volunteers will have a Zoomie Zone or A-Team ID which will be presented on arrival.  We do ask that applicants also present proof of identity at this time.​

 

Only once the home check has been passed will be start the matching process, and arrange for you to travel to Chesterfield to meet your potential hound!We take rehoming very seriously, so that we rarely offer same-day adoptions, as we believe a thoughtful and thorough process is key to long-term success. 

 

Depending on the hounds temperment and behaviour, you may need to meet your hound at lesat twice prior to adoption. Please bear in mind these additional travel requirements prior to applying.

Matching Process

Traditionally in rehoming, you peruse the various pets online, choose the one you like the look of and submit an application.  If you’re lucky, out of all the applicants, you will be contacted, and the rest is as you expect.

 

We aren’t a traditional, if you hadn’t already guessed by this point.  While we will take into consideration an applicants’ specific interest in a particular dog, we will choose the hound we think is most suitable for you based on the information you have provided to us in the previous steps.  The reason for this is that while we can write expansive descriptions of each dog for people to read, they will never know them as well as we do.

 

Regardless of which walk of life the hound in our care have come from, we take the time to get to know them, their personality, sociability and how they cope in different situations before we allow them to go up on the website.

 

In gathering this information, we can then match each hound to the home that best fulfils their needs.

Matching the right hound to each home is of the highest importance for us, because we want to ensure that they go on to live long, happy lives with their families, and not be returned to us because things haven’t worked out.

 

So, if we believe we have a good match for you, we will book in to have a call with you to discuss them, their personality, behaviour, diet, sociability, walking routine, general habits and quirks, and their history to give you a thorough overview of the hound and provide the opportunity to ask any questions.

 

If you are happy to proceed, we will invite you to come and meet them!  

Meeting & Reserving Your Hound

As a foster-based organisation, it is crucial that any appointments to meet a dog are met as our foster carers may have travelled some distance to bring their foster hound to us for it’s viewing. 

We appreciate that there are situations that are out of anyone’s control, but we ask that you give us (ideally) a minimum of 2 hours’ notice that you will be unable to attend the viewing. 

If you are going to be late due to traffic, please keep us updated.

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At your appointment, you will have the opportunity to spend time with them:

  • Indoors

  • In an enclosed garden

  • On walk with a member of our team. 

 

We do ask that if there are any existing dogs in the home, that they are brought to the appointment.

 

While we’d like to think we tend to get the matching process right first time, it may be that, for whatever reason, you just do not make that connection during that first meet.  Should this be the case, we may be able to discuss other options but due to foster availability may not be able to let you meet them that day and alternative arrangements will need to be made.

 

But all going to plan, you do fall in love, and we put a provisional reservation in place!  This is a verbal agreement, no deposit needed, in which your chosen hound cannot be viewed by any other applicants for 7 days to give you the opportunity to think things through, be confident in your decision and prepare to take them home.

 

You can contact us at any point in those 7 days, all that we ask is that you at least sleep on it and do not make hasty decisions.  Once you contact us to confirm you would like to move forward, we finalise the reservation and book in a date for adoption.

 

Depending on the hound, their personality and behaviour, we may ask that you book in additional meets prior to the adoption to build up the relationship and ensure a successful transition into the home.

 

At any point, should you change your mind, you are free to withdraw your application.  Should this be the case, please notify us as soon as possible so that other applicants can be contacted.

Adoption Day!

Adoption day is always a very exciting, if nerve-wracking day!  But we are here to support you every step of the way.  We’ll give you a run down on how best to introduce your hound into the home and what to expect in the initial days and weeks.

 

Your hound will be neutered, vaccinated, be up to date on their flea and worming treatment and will also be freshly groomed ready for their big day! 

They will come with:

  • A collar, lead and muzzle set

  • Microchip transfer to your name

  • 5 weeks free insurance through Agria Pet Insurance

  • Lifetime support from our team

 

We ask for a minimum donation of £200 for each adoption which helps toward the costs and care involved during their stay with us.

 

What you need to bring on the day:

  • An appropriate harness

  • Dog seatbelt

  • An ID tag

 

At any time post-adoption, you are welcome to contact us for any advice and support.  We will contact you one week, and one month, post adoption to see how things are progressing.

We do also appreciate photo updates that we can forward to your hounds foster carer so they can see they are doing well!

 

Of course, if for any reason the adoption is not successful or for any reason you are unable to keep your hound, we will always accept them back into our care.  You can read our full returns policy here.

HAVE A QUESTION?

We're here to help! 

Thanks for submitting your questions! We will be in touch as soon as possible!

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