Thanks for taking the time to visit the JustGiving page for Wimbledon Greyhound Welfare's Christmas Appeal.

This is a story about three greyhounds searching for "Room at the Inn" this Christmas.

On Monday 8th December, an appeal was forwarded on to us via Facebook.  It was an urgent appeal about three  greyhound bitches living on an allotment in the north east. They were losing their home and had nowhere to go; they had to be out by the Friday. Without a rescue place for them we were informed that they would be put to sleep or let loose as their owner had nowhere for them. 

As the responses trickled in it became obvious that placing these three girls was not going to be easy and time was not on their side.

Whilst our kennels are always full with greyhound boys, we do at times have room for greyhound bitches and at this time of the year our boys definitely do need a girl to cuddle up to at night. So the decision was made to offer these three unfortunate girls room at our "Inn". That was the easy part – typing “we’ll take them” required no effort at all.  However, getting the girls down to us from the north east would prove more challenging.

Being very aware that time was ticking by and that we only had until Friday to get these girls out, we contacted our very good friend Deb at Tia Rescue in Yorkshire.  Her reply “You know where I am if you need me” gave us the break and the time we needed to get these girls to safety and arrangements were made for her to collect our ‘Cabbage Patch Dogs’ on Friday. We have no internet access at the kennels so you can imagine our delight when we opened the email on Friday evening  and read “Hi Denise, the girls are here with me.”  We were all very relieved to know that the first part of our girls’ journey had gone according to plan.  Deb tells us they are nice girls, in good condition, though their teeth will need looking at and they will all need to be spayed.

Having got this first part of the journey arranged we then turned our attention to the small matter of getting our girls from Yorkshire down to our kennels in Surrey. Deb already has her work cut out caring for her own rescue greyhounds and trying to make room for those waiting to come in, so we decided that it was really important that we move our "Cabbage Patch Dogs" as quickly as possible – so as not to put any of hers at risk.  We decided that the quickest and safest way to move our girls would be using a greyhound transporter and arranging for them to do the collection for us. Expensive, yes but considering other options by far the best way.

So Christmas will come early for these three little girls and we will change their lives forever.  They are due to arrive with us on Tuesday.

Thanks to your continued support we were able to make a quick decision when there was no time to hesitate. But, ever aware of our commitment to the greyhounds already in our care and our duty to them, we are launching a Christmas Appeal. Our aim is to raise £1000 – the estimated cost of typing those three words “We’ll take them” and doing what everyone should do every now and then – let their hearts rule their head.