Adopting a greyhound in Manchester: rescues, costs and health

The number under the short answer updates itself: it counts every greyhound we list within about 25 miles of Manchester, and our Manchester greyhound page sends you to each dog's rescue. When we checked on 20 October 2026, greyhounds were the breed listed most often near the city, and plenty of others were already reserved, so new arrivals can go quickly.

Racing is the main reason. About 8,000 greyhounds leave racing every year, by its homepage's figure, and the Greyhound Trust homes around half; it gives the usual retirement age as three to five. Makants, for one, takes retired racers from all over the country.

Most of the greyhounds at Makants, it says, have lived in kennels all their lives, so ordinary house life is new to them. The rescue gives each one time in its home-from-home room first, but Makants says house training will still take time and patience.

Adopting near Manchester costs from £175 at the rescues that publish a figure, and the vet work is already done. Makants neuters, vaccinates and chips its dogs and adds four weeks' free Petplan insurance. At Manchester & Cheshire Dogs' Home, the £200 covers a full health check, neutering, a first vaccination, a microchip, a collar and ID tag and four weeks' Pet Plan insurance.

Buying puts those bills on you. A breeder must microchip a puppy by 8 weeks under UK law, so the chip comes with it, but PDSA counts vaccinations and neutering among a large dog's £560 set-up cost, on top of a puppy price that Blue Cross puts at £400 to £3,000. Then budget at least £116 a month, PDSA's floor for a large dog.

Ask about teeth before anything else. Dental disease affected 39.0 per cent of the 5,419 pet greyhounds in a Royal Veterinary College VetCompass study of 2016 vet records, more than any other problem, and the paper suggests ex-racers may have had little dental care while racing. Then ask about:

• Legs and paws. Overgrown nails, injuries and arthritis also showed up often in that study; watch the dog walk and ask about any track injury.
• Other conditions. PDSA's greyhound page names bloat, an emergency where the stomach twists, a slow loss of sight called progressive retinal atrophy, bone cancer, and von Willebrand's disease, which stops blood clotting properly.
• Nerves. Breeders are asked by The Royal Kennel Club to DNA test for greyhound neuropathy, a nerve disease.

Check the rules before you fall for a dog. Makants needs a garden fenced to at least 5 feet all the way round with a lockable gate, and can't consider homes with shared communal gardens, so a flat with a shared garden won't do. It prefers children in the home to be over 5, asks that a greyhound is never left alone for more than 4 hours unless a dog walker comes in, and says its ex-racers wouldn't be suitable to live with cats. It also asks that its greyhounds are never walked on a retractable lead.

Home Run Hounds North West suggests a muzzle for at least the first few weeks, until you know how your dog reacts to new places and to scraps on the pavement. It warns about sleep startle, a startled snap when a deeply asleep greyhound is woken suddenly, so let the dog wake to its name. For a run off the lead, it points to a hired, enclosed field. Manchester winters are hard on a fine coat: PDSA says greyhounds need a warm coat on winter walks.

No rescue sells a greyhound. Each rescue reads your application, picks a dog to suit your home and takes a fee or homing donation. Every greyhound on our Manchester greyhound page comes through a rescue that way, and almost all are adults, so a puppy is the wrong thing to wait for here.

Set on a puppy? Search The Royal Kennel Club's "Find a puppy" listings, and book what Dogs Trust's breed guides call a pre-purchase consultation with a vet to hear the likely health problems and rough costs first. Report a suspected scam advert to Report Fraud (formerly Action Fraud).