Digga's Happily Homed Hound Story

Digga (Grafton Whitepaw) retired from racing in August 2023. He had only ever known his owner, family and staff who bred, reared and raced him. When he retired, they were reluctant to see him leave but put his name on a couple of homing centre lists. He continued to have a lovely life in his familiar surroundings but ultimately deserved his forever sofa, as all greyhounds do. Time passed and no homing centre place had become available until November 2024 when Home Run Hounds in Wombourne said they had space for him. The day he left was a sad one for his owner/trainer. She knew he was going off to the life he had earned but equally she had held him moments after his birth and loved him for four and a half years. 

The journey to the homing kennel was eventful; the fact he had only ever travelled to a track five minutes away hadn’t really been factored in, so he arrived at the homing centre pretty stressed after a two-hour journey and was bewildered finding himself in a strange new environment. It took him a week to start eating, while frantic messages went backwards and forward between the amazing people at the homing centre and his former mum. 

Despite taking a while to settle, Digga only took seconds to win everyone’s heart. He was calm and cuddly so it was obvious he wouldn’t take long to find his forever family. He went on a short-term Christmas foster so he didn’t have to spend the festive period in kennels. He covered himself with glory there and his foster carers found out lots more about him for potential adopters. 

Very early in January the great news came that he had been reserved and he began his two-week foster-to-adopt period that weekend. A couple, John and Ruth, local to the kennels and who have had many greyhounds in the past had sadly lost their boy Teddy recently. They always have two greyhounds at a time and found that their little girl, Jess, just wasn’t coping without him. So step up Digga!! Jess had been to the kennels to meet him and all seemed promising, but the foster-to-adopt period would be a good chance to see if they bonded at home. Just four days later Claire at the homing centre got the call to say that Digga had fitted in perfectly, Jess loves him to bits and he wasn’t going anywhere! He’d found his forever home and was officially adopted the next weekend. 

Claire from Home Run Hounds said “He’s such a poppet, he deserves this and I’m over the moon for him. He was obviously so ready for pet life. It’s been an absolute pleasure to work with him and it’s so much easier when they come from a loving trainer. We can always tell the difference, he was obviously very loved”