Message From Our President – May 2024

What does bringing eight Australian greyhounds to Tucson entail? Well, a lot to be honest. Bringing in Aussie hounds is very calculated as opposed to bringing in Tijuana dogs, which is generally an urgent request.
What determines when we bring in dogs from Australia? First and foremost — weather, fosters and adopters. The number of dogs, either four or eight, are requested based upon the availability of fosters and the potential of forever homes. Once the Board agrees we have enough of these valuable assets we decide the number of dogs and request that number from Derarca at Racing 2 Rehome. Derarca then assesses what dogs would be most successful in making the trip and arranges travel via Qantas Airlines into Los Angeles. This can take two to three weeks to get the approval from Qantas that they have space available for the dogs. I mentioned weather as we generally will not move dogs from L.A. to Tucson unless time and temperatures are conducive. We would not move dogs through the desert in July unless it was a potential nighttime move and had enough vehicles to compensate if we ran into an issue.
When that is approved, Derarca starts lining up the medical processing for the selected dogs to ensure they are in good health, have all the current and necessary vaccinations for entrance into the United States and then sends us approved APHIS forms, which are the Live Dog Import Health and Rabies Certificates certified by R2R veterinarians. These forms give us all the immediate information regarding the racing name, date of birth, color, tattoos, microchip, behavioral assessments and all the vaccine brands, dates administered and expiration. Once we get those forms, Nancy Lynberg or I apply for an import permit via the United States Department of Agriculture. In that application, we list why we are importing, provide all the information on the dogs that were presented on the APHIS form and state who is the responsible party that will be accepting the dogs once they arrive in LA. Generally, that will be Nancy or myself and that is why one of us is always present when the dogs arrive, unless we have given authority to Pet Express. (Details about Pet Express below.)
Once completed, we load the hound information to our database and website. We match fosters based on the dog’s behavioral assessment. From there, vet appointments are scheduled and coordinated with the fosters.
Previous to this group, we hired a broker who works closely with Customs and the airlines to get the dogs processed into the U.S. and released to SA Greys in a timely manner. For R2R dogs, which come from Victoria, they leave Australia in the morning and arrive in L.A. on Friday evening around 6. Generally, they have been cleared through Customs within one to two hours. For this most recent group, we actually teamed up with R2R’s partner Pet Express, which was given authority by SA Greys to pick up the dogs at Qantas, take to their facility and give them time to potty and play and then do what hounds do best, sleep until the SA Greys team arrived at 8 a.m. on Saturday, May 4 to load up and head back to Tucson.
The nice thing about using Pet Express is they actually take the dogs, while still in crates, to their facility about a mile away, and release them into a double gated, secure pet exercise area. Hounds receive a thorough once over to be sure they are in good shape and then burn off some energy before making the trip to Lazy Grey Ranch for further chill time and observation.
How do we get them back to Tucson? A couple of different ways: We have flown to L.A., rented vans and drove back; we have driven our personal vehicles, spent a day in L.A. and then driven back. For our May haul, two of us rented vans in Tucson, picked up an SA Greys volunteer and headed to Phoenix and picked up Nancy. Then we headed over the day before the hounds arrived. We arrived at Pet Express at 8 a.m., verified microchips, harnessed and attached their tracker collars and then loaded the dogs and drove back to Arizona. Generally, our pit stop is at Terrible’s in Quartzite, Ariz., which has both a good pet and people potty break areas.
I have made this trip a few times and can say, and I think others would agree, there is nothing like seeing these hounds and knowing they are on the way to their forever lives! Some will try to help us drive, others will take up residency in the middle of the van but generally, they are good passengers. If you are interested in making the trip with us, we would love for you to experience this amazing event.
Jeanne Gacke is President of Southern Arizona Greyhound Adoption and can be reached at president@sagreys.org.