Walking The Beat........

Today I want to tell you a little about a friend of mine who, along with her family, does the most wonderful work to help retired and rescued greyhounds and lurchers.

Sue & a pile of hounds!

Many of you will know Suzy Taylor from her blog Suzy's Sanctury or from Facebook. We have known her for nearly as long as we have been blogging and we think that the help that she gives to hounds in need is wonderful.

Some of the hounds who landed on their paws at Sue & Eric's!

Sue and her husband Eric have been involved with Greyhound Gap for over 10 years and throughout that time have fostered and adopted more hounds than I can count ( I can't get past 16 as I only have that many toes....) First Mac, then Alfie Bear, then Ranger, then Gangley, then Mojo, then Ruby, then Elmo, then Orin, then Twizzle, then little Belle with her broken leg,... and so it goes on. Greyhound gap call and Sue answers!

This doesn't look a bad place to stay does it chaps?!

 Over the years as she has become more experienced, GG tend to send her hounds that have either physical or physiological problems meaning they will be long stay fosters, which in turn means that by the time they are deemed fit to rehome it’s too late and they can’t bear to part with them, so her pack just keeps on growing!

Mac gets a comfy sofa to recover on.

 This year she has had two greyhounds arrive; one via GG and one privately from a chap in deep trouble; both have stayed! I think I am right in saying, the pack currently consists of 8 hounds.... You see what I mean, when I call her our Houndie Hero?!

This lot think their Mum is pretty special too!

GG is a small independent charity that takes in and rehomes Greyhounds and Lurchers that find themselves in PTS situations in UK pounds. Most of their hounds are either in holding kennels or foster care; they don't have kennels of their own. If they did, it would make a massive difference to the amount of hounds they could help.

Sometimes Sue's sofa is full to bursting point!

 When one of Sue's hounds, Sandy, sadly passed away from the dreadful Osteosarcoma, her son Marc, a serving Police Officer, decided he wanted to do something in her name to help  the GG kennel fund. It was decided that he and some of his colleagues would attempt the four coast to coast walks of England, Scotland, Ireland & Wales........and so the idea of Walking The Beat began.....

Marc with his beloved Sandy - the inspiration behind it all.

The first two walks in England & Scotland raised £6000 and by the time the final walk is completed next year the boys hope to have raised over £10,000 and will have walked 1000 miles. This year's walk (Wales) begins on 1st September. The boys will begin at “Offa’s Dyke” walking the coast of Wales from South to North. The walk commences on the River Severn at the Sedbury Cliffs (a mile south of Chepstow) and finishing on the North Wales coast at Prestatyn beach. They will pass through no less than eight different counties and cross the English and Welsh border over twenty times.The walk will cover 180 miles over 7.5 days with an average of 24 miles walked a day! Impressive isn't it?!

The other hero's in this story.....!

So.....what I am really doing here is asking if you are able to help out? I appreciate most people don't have that much spare cash these days and there are many worthy causes out there. I hope some of you will want to help the "little guys" who don't get any funding, rely totally on donations but do such fantastic work. So please, anything you can spare, just £1.00 would be deeply, deeply appreciated. 

You can donate to Walkingthebeat 2013 at their JustGiving page by clicking HERE or the link in my sidebar. 

Thank you very much in anticipation of your help.

Just in case you've forgotten how handsome I am.......!