You may know, if you’ve read our ‘About’ page, that we are the proud guardians of two beautiful whippets. I use “guardian” in the loosest of terms as we consider them family. They however, consider us to be their servants.
Miah and Nova are mother and daughter. Miah is the granddaughter of one of my mother’s cherished whippets, Lucy, who had one litter. Miah is the daughter of Kez, one of the pups from that litter. When we heard Kez was having a litter I asked the breeder if I could be considered for a bitch pup if there was one as I really wanted to be able to have a whippet with that family connection. I’m not going to debate the ethics of breeding vs rescue here. If you’d like to know more about my decision to breed from Miah you can read my personal blog about Nova here.
In the image here, Nova is on the left and Miah on the right.
Over the years, as I have become more involved in the whippet community I have come to know a lot of good people. Whether it be showing, lure coursing or racing, one thing that very much unites all whippet owners is a genuine love of the breed and concern for their wellbeing. Sporting whippets do not engage in profit driven activities. There is no gambling, and the dogs live indoors as part of the family. Quite often the most pampered member of the family!
I also seem to have become somewhat of a defacto ‘whippet web person’, currently the designer/maintainer of several organisations including The Whippet Club, The Whippet Breed Council, West Somerset Whippet Racing Club and East Anglian Whippet Club. And of course, JR Whippet Rescue.
It’s being part of this that led to me becoming the designer of the new Friends of JR Whippet Rescue Newsletter.
Friends of JR Whippet Rescue
Friends of JR Whippet Rescue is a subscription based way of supporting the rescue via a small minimum fee, with the option to create an extra one-off donation or a higher value yearly subscription at the discretion of the subscriber. ‘Friends’ can set up their subscription via the online form I implemented on the JR Whippet Rescue website. The newsletter is sent out twice a year for Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter in both digital and print form.
The newsletter has undergone a significant update from Autumn/Winter 2024, and working closely with Kate Bent (Chair of Trustees) and George Sell (journalist and whippet devotee) we have wrestled the content into a magazine format that has received great feedback from subscribers.
The newsletter incorporates content sent in by subscribers and adopters, those close to or working with the rescue and people who have raised funds for the charity, amongst others.
With George on board there is now a main article spanning several pages which is a real treat to read. In the Autumn/Winter edition there was “Whippets in Art”, which featured renowned artist Sally Muir and of course an article about whippets in art would never be complete without Lucien Freud. For the latest edition, George interviewed Philip Mould; art collector, gallery owner and co-presenter of BBC’s Fake or Fortune. Philip Mould is also the new JR Whippet Rescue Ambassador.
The newsletter is produced in Adobe Indesign, with the content proofed and planned before I receive it. We had so much content for the Spring/Summer edition last month that we’ve had to keep some back for the next issue, which is brilliant. Content is King, and it’s fantastic to have so many people willing to contribute.
You can read more about JR Whippet Rescue, including round-ups about happily homed whippets on their website. There is also an online shop which sells all manner of houndy items.
