Zwart wants public to know: Greyhounds are ‘greyt’

Written by Nancy Doniger
Thursday, 25 August 2011 15:33

Penny Zwart would like to leave this world with the satisfaction of having rescued 100,000 greyhounds.

She acknowledges it might be an unreachable goal in the context of the changing world of greyhound racing.

Adoptions have become much costlier and difficult since her previous employer, the Shoreline Star, closed its greyhound park in 2004.

Greyhound racing has become too expensive to sustain in the Tri-state area. No tracks remain in business throughout New England.

Still, at 40, Zwart expects to stick around for a good long while. She has already been involved in 13,000 adoptions.

And she can dream.

These days the remaining tracks are in West Virginia, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Alabama and Iowa, although many rescue groups are based in the Northeast.

It can cost $15,000 to $30,000 to raise and train a single racer for the track, Zwart said. The cost is a large part of the reason why the industry overall is in decline.

Between 300-500 dogs desperately need homes at the moment, and Zwart will do everything in her power to match them with good homes.

She ran the Pups Without Partners greyhound adoption center when she worked for Shoreline the track’s support. It was a thriving venture.

When it closed it greyhound track, Zwart got a job at the Port Jefferson Ferry. She is also an emergency medical technician in Stratford.

But she couldn’t give up greyhound rescue. With the help of a loyal band of volunteers she was able to reestablish Pups Without Partners as a nonprofit, but it no longer has a permanent base.

Now she and her volunteers must raise funds to haul the retired racers to Connecticut, place them in foster homes until they are adopted and cover the cost of their care.

Adoption groups have to pay $100 just to get a license to adopt the dogs, and dogs have to be checked by a veterinarian, neutered or fixed before they can be adopted, which can cost as much as $250 per dog.

Not all states have no kills like Connecticut. In some cases, dogs are euthanized when their racing days are over. And as in other walks of life, there are some bad people in the industry, she said.

Zwart’s living room has been converted into a kennel full of dogs needing to be adopted. Her daughter, Crystal, who grew up with greyhounds, is now a breeder in Florida.

“I won’t let money get in the way of our program helping greyhounds,” Zwart said. “I can’t know that a dog will be in danger. The dog comes first. I’ll worry about the money afterwards.”

Handlers retire dogs when they are too slow or get injured. They must retire them by age 6, but most dogs are retired by age 4 or 5.

“A 4-or 5-year-old dog has so much intelligence and plenty of life left,” she said. “They’re not old.”

She has more trouble adopting black dogs than other colors, such as “blue,” which is really gray; white or brindle. Many people prefer females, but males are just as friendly, according to Zwart.

Griffin, 4, a black male, has been in foster care for almost a year and badly needs a home as does Percy, 3, a black female. Many more dogs will be arriving in Connecticut in September.

Pups Without Partners carefully matches dogs to people’s homes and lifestyles. They test dogs to determine if they are cat friendly and according to dog’s and people’s temperaments. The group has a 97% success rate and a goal of bringing it to 100%.

Pups without Partners is one of about 700 greyhound rescue groups in the United States and Canada. Zwart respects and works with many of them.