New Shropshire greyhound rescue charity already 'inundated'

Hayley Bradley said she has received five calls in the last week with reports of abandoned dogs

She said the A5 is a particular dumping ground for dogs as it is on the corridor from Holyhead, where many retired racing dogs come in from Ireland, and the West Midlands.

Miss Bradley has set up the rescue centre in Oswestry, serving the north of the county.

She said: "A lot of retired greyhounds are given away from racing and if they suffered injury they're getting abandoned, and if they don't sell they get dumped as well.

"The people who have them find a nice stretch of A5 and they dump them out. We're here to mop up the pieces."

Miss Bradley has been volunteering with other greyhound rescue centres since 2002, but decided to set up a local rescue group earlier this year.

She spent hours researching what was needed and travelling to dog pounds in Ireland and the UK before setting up Hector's Greyhound Rescue – named after the first dog she rescued.

"Hector had really been through the wars. He had a broken tail, was a bag of bones, and scared of his own shadow," she said. "He lived with me until his last days and it was lovely to see the change in him once he'd been nursed back to health."

The charity is run by volunteers who help collect the dogs, provide foster homes, arrange visits to the vet and check potential new owners.

Miss Bradley said: "All of our greyhounds are profiled by the foster carers who look after them when they come in to rescue and this means that we are able to work with people who are looking for a pet to find the right dog for them.

"You take a traumatised dog in and turn his life around."