Daybreaks Trust

Rob and I adopted our first greyhound, Tara, from Birmingham Dogs Home in January 2001. Through mutual friends, we got to know Pam and Duncan Dewar who also had greyhounds.

In March 2003, Pam had heard from a long time friend and trainer at Perry Barr that they were trying to re-home greyhounds and needed help to do more.

Pam and I were amongst a small group of greyhound friends to go to a meeting at Perry Barr track in March 2003 and this is how the Trust was formed.

A trainer at Perry Barr had kennels in Wolverhampton and this became the re-homing centre for our Trust.

I set to work to generate various fundraising and sponsor schemes including the Greyhound Grapevine newsletter to generate interest. Rob's arm was twisted to write a website (having never done one before!) and Pam started to organise visits to garden centres and other locations and this was the start of our roadshows! Re-homing was going really well!

However, In 2005 after over two years of successful re-homings, we were informed that the kennels in Wolverhampton were no longer able to take Perry Barr dogs and we were left without a re-homing centre. We were all in shock.

We had to find an alternative and quick! We started re-homing from a trainer's kennels in Worcester and also rented 5 kennels locally. Frustration was setting in with all of us as our homing figures dropped massively - one month only homing five greys . I felt I needed to do more.

I was put in contact with a man who ran Conifer Racing Kennels by Birmingham airport who told me that his premises had just been vacated by a trainer. Rob and I went to look at them. The place was only small but had room for 24 greys. I was excited! After a meeting with an accountant to see if i could make it work financially by giving up my job, getting approval from Perry Barr committee and the Retired Greyhound Trust Director, it was all agreed - they thought I could look after the dogs. I promptly handed in my notice and left my well paid job as a medical secretary. What had I done?!

I renamed Conifer Racing Kennels to Daybreaks. Daybreaks Beauty was the racing name of our very first grey, Tara - after all, she started my love for greyhounds.

Daybreaks was born on Saturday 1st July 2006.

From the moment we opened the gates, our homing figures increased and suddenly we were homing up to 30 greys a month..... fantastic..... The happiness however was turned to devastation when we received a letter from the council the following month. As the kennels were no longer being used to just house racing greyhounds but retired racers and re-homing them, this was classed of a change of use. There had also been a complaint from the neighbours and we then started the fight to stay open. August was also the month, Tara (Daybreaks Beauty) was diagnosed with bone cancer. I felt everything was going wrong.

Our precious Tara lost her battle with bone cancer 10 months later on 27th May 2007. My world fell apart.

After a year and a half of hell with council meetings, on 29th November 2007 the council finally allowed the kennels to stay open as a re-homing centre but dropped the number allowed on site from 24 to 16. I was elated. I had to continue helping greys even more now I had lost Tara. Her name had to live on.

With the drop in dogs allowed at Daybreaks, the income obviously dropped for me to run the kennels. At this time the Trust paid me £4 per dog per day on site and from this I met all the running costs such as rent, rates, food, disinfectants, waste disposal etc. This income was now not covering my outgoings and with repairs and maintenance to the kennels, I was out of pocket.

Therefore I decided that I need a way to generate money and therefore I have just set up a new charity called Daybreaks Trust. The money generated from this Trust goes directly to helping Daybreaks improve and continue especially with essential maintenance. We now feed the greys on a healthy Burns diet to give them the best possible nutrition financially available.

Daybreaks Trust is working hand in hand with Perry Barr Trust and we are committed to working towards a centre of excellence for our greys.