After professionally racing for four years, Stripe has now retired to a life of leisure as Kiama Downs’ newest resident.
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With the transition of the NSW greyhound racing industry to its closure next year, Lynley Coles adopted Stripe from the Greyhounds As Pets (GAP) program in February.
Ms Coles said Stripe has made a great addition to her family.
“One of the girls at the Kiama vet was talking about [greyhounds] and was saying how fantastic and wonderful they were,” she said.
“[As] we have a son who has ADHD who was asking for a dog, we just needed [one] that was really calm.
“I looked into it and found GAP online, and they are part of Greyhound Racing Australia. We rang them up and told them what we were looking for, and we went and saw them at their kennels.
“We got introduced to a couple of dogs, and [Stripe] just came out and gave us a cuddle straight away and laid at our feet. I said ‘well, I guess we are taking her’.”
Despite the belief greyhounds are high energy, Ms Coles said Stripe spends the majority of her day sleeping.
“She sleeps about 20 hours out of 24,” she said.
“She gets up in the morning and does ‘zoomies’, and bolts around for about four minutes, then walks up the stairs like she is about 100 years old and goes back to bed for the day.
“They’re very quite lazy. I think they’re called the ‘45 mile-an-hour couch potato’.”
Ms Coles said that before adopting Stripe, all retired greyhounds undergo training to be reintegrated into society as pets.
“When you adopt them as pets you have to put them through training, so that means you have to run them through to make sure they are good with kids, and little animals and teach them how to walk and play because they have never really been taught in society,” she said.
“Once you have put them through their eight-week program, you take them back to GAP for assessment and if they pass, you get to take them back permanently, so until they have passed their greyhound collar you are only fostering to adopt.
“Stripe is such a beautiful, friendly, calm dog, who has fitted into our family so well.”
For more information on Greyhounds As Pets, please visit the gapnsw.com.au website.