The sad loss of our littlest volunteer

We were very saddened to hear of the passing of our littlest volunteer, Jess. 

Jess and her mum Caro have helped countless hounds into their forever homes over the years as they were dedicated volunteers for small dog assessments. Jess took over the reins from Moby, Caro’s other terrier when he retired; now, this gorgeous pair are reunited at Rainbow Bridge.

Due to their backgrounds, all of our dogs need to be assessed around small dogs, specifically before we can responsibly place them into homes. Most of our ex-racers in particular have never met a small dog before coming into our care – many of these dogs initially show a predatory, fearful or over-excited response when they first encounter a dog who doesn’t look anything like a greyhound! These dogs need extra help learning about small dogs in order to keep everyone safe and help them to cope with walks out in the real world. This is where our small dog volunteers, like Jess and Moby come in, they are absolutely vital to the work we do. 

It takes a very special type of dog to help these hounds, which means our small dog volunteers are few and far between! Just like her predecessor Moby, Jess was definitely worth her weight in gold (or probably more than her weight, since she wasn’t very big!) Caro and Jess were always ready to help out, travelling to our Somerset and Devon locations to carry out “Jess-essments” as we liked to call them!

Little Jess was a real pro in her role – confident and self-assured, but always happy to make friends with the hounds when they were ready. She was a master at reading and communicating with the hounds, and usually had each new dog sussed before we did!

So many of our happily homed hounds would have struggled to find their new families without Jess and prior to her, Moby. Both dogs really were true heroes for our hounds, and their mum hopes their legacy will live on through them inspiring other small dogs to help our dogs into homes going forward.

If Jess and Moby have inspired you, and you think your dog would be able to follow in Jess’s pawprints and be able to help our dogs into homes, please click here to send an email for more information.