Halfway Home Greyhound Adoption was built on the dream of a wonderful “greyhound” lady named Paula Scott who pioneered posting pictures of farm dogs on the internet.  Most race tracks had incorporated adoption programs on premises for the dogs that graded off and weren’t going to another track or returning to the farm for breeding.  But the dogs that didn’t go to a track had no ready avenue to his/her own sofa.  Many of the farms did limited placements but others had ceased to do so after having bad experiences with “pet people”.  Teddy Palmer, the founder of HHGA, listened to Paula talk about her dream and decided to make it her own.  Thus HHGA was born.

Teddy worked tirelessly to earn the trust of the close-knit greyhound industry in Oklahoma.  She and her small group of hard-working volunteers know that the cooperation of the owners and trainers of these dogs is paramount to the goal of finding a home for each and every greyhound.  And in working side by side with the farms we have seen first-hand how much these people love their dogs and to what lengths they will go to place them in a loving home.

In little more than four years of operation HHGA has moved 1552 dogs into adoption.  We take care to work solely with neutral or pro-racing groups to accomplish this task.  We take pride in hearing from farms and owners that have received a note or pictures from someone who has adopted one of their dogs.

In 2005 HHGA became one of the adoption organizations that received sponsorship from “Race for Adoption”.  We were ecstatic upon learning that our efforts had drawn such notice.  The additional funds have been a tremendous boon to our efforts to move more dogs and words cannot express our appreciation.  We were able to move 429 dogs into adoption in 2005 and we owe a lot of the credit to Larry Birnbaum who donated earnings from his dogs to HHGA.  As a direct result we have been able to finance more hauls to move dogs to adoption groups that don’t have access to track retirees.

Recently, the D Q Williams family in Oklahoma stepped up to share earnings from one of their dogs with HHGA through the Race for Adoption program.   It is so rewarding to know that our efforts to move dogs to their next phase of life have been recognized and supported in this way.

In addition to the Oklahoma, Kansas and Florida dogs that we try to help regularly we have been actively cooperating with the NGA and AGC to assist dogs that are found to be at risk due to extenuating circumstances such as kennel and farm closings.

We have seen great strides made in greyhound adoption by owners during the last four years.  This has only been achieved through cooperation between the racing community and adoption organizations.  In the process we have become allies in quest of a common goal that each adoptable hound will find his forever home.

Teddy Palmer