About Us

Lakeland Trailhound Welfare

Lakeland Trailhound Welfare became an unregistered charity with a formal trust deed in 2015. We have trustees to oversee the running and accountability of the charity. LTW has no paid staff and is run by a team of volunteers who are passionate about trailhounds.

History

In 1997, Peter Wilson started Lakeland Trailhound Trust from his home in Bewaldeth to promote trailhounds as pets and assist their owners to find homes for them when they retired from racing in the Lake District. With a very small team of helpers. we went on to develop contacts throughout the country with reputable animal welfare charities who took hounds in on behalf of LTT, as there were more hounds needing homes than we, as a small organisation, could adopt out. We also privately homed hounds in carefully selected homes. We developed a website and began attending fundraising events to promote trailhounds as pets.

In 2007, Peter retired and the decision was made to change the name to Lakeland Trailhound Welfare. In March 2015, Eileen Robinson retired due to ill health. Eileen had a passion for rehoming trailhounds and will be sorely missed. LTW continues to operate with a team of unpaid, dedicated volunteers who help with all aspects of promoting and rehoming hounds. Check our  Contact Us page so that you will be able to meet more of the team.

LTW works very closely with members of the Hound Trailing community to help them to find good retirement homes for their hounds. We home many youngsters who do not take to racing, as well as older retired hounds. Since we started in 1997 we have homed well over 1500 hounds that have retired from trailing. We home around 50 hounds a year. Some hounds are found places in reputable rehoming centres which neuter, vaccinate, microchip and worm dogs before rehoming them. We feel this is the responsible way to rehome a hound. We are very lucky and grateful to a number of reputable homing centres that help us to find homes all over the country. We also privately rehome hounds in carefully selected homes. We promote trailhounds at dog shows during the summer and organise fund raising events throughout the year to help cover transport costs, kennelling and vet bills. We are the only organisation in the country solely dedicated to homing trailhounds.

Ways that you can help Lakeland Trailhound Welfare

Most people have never heard of a trailhound! We hope to change that by finding more ways of promoting them as pets. We have free information packs to send out to people. Do you know of a venue where you could put up a small temporary display about trailhounds as pets? It could be a vet surgery, your dog training class, a dog show, at work etc.

Can you display one of our postcards in your local vet surgery or shop? If so, please email us and we will pop some in the post to you.

Perhaps you might like to do a fundraising event (free information packs can be sent to you to help with the event). All money we raise goes directly to helping trailhounds into retirement homes. Or perhaps you might like to fundraise for your local Dogs Trust branch who help so much with the homing of hounds. We are always in need of bric-a-brac for car boot sales. If you can help in any way with fundraising, please email info@trailhoundwelfare.org.uk or call 01697 478383 or 07773 252350

Making a donation

Cheques and postal orders should be made out to Lakeland Trailhound Welfare. Please email us at info@trailhoundwelfare.org.uk for full postal address to send donation to.

Make an online donation or bank transfer to: Lakeland Trailhound Welfare at Barclays Bank.      Sort code: 20 66 97    Account number: 43450007

Make a PAYPAL donation to trailhoundwelfare@gmail.com

Please note that a bank transfer is our favoured way of receiving a donation as Paypal takes a percentage of donation.

Eileen Robinson

Eileen started to help Peter with rehoming trailhounds in 1998. Her husband had racing hounds so Eileen was well known at the trails among the trailing community. She became the coordinator for rehoming and placing hounds in reputable welfare centres around the country. Eileen has an incredible empathy and understanding, and spent many hours a day on the telephone talking hounds! So many people have said that, although they have never met her, that they felt that she is a very good friend because of her warm, humorous and caring manner. Eileen became a Reiki healer and used her skills to help animals and people. In January 2015, she became ill and retired from LTW. Eileen can never be fully ‘replaced’. She had intuition, determination and total passion for helping hounds to find fantastic retirement homes. She has helped to inspire many other people to become involved with homing trailhounds and we continue with a dedicated team of volunteers.

Very sadly, our good friend Eileen passed away on 25th February 2022. So very many people have wonderful fond memories of her and the help she gave them with their hounds.

Peter Wilson

Lakeland Trailhound Welfare was originally set up as the Trailhound Trust by Peter Wilson in 1997. Peter worked tirelessly taking in hounds until he retired in 2007. Peter has helped to raise awareness that trailhounds make great pets by showing them all over the country, including at Crufts In 2002 Peter went to Crufts after one of his hounds won PRO Dogs Pet of the Year. In 2005 Mandy was nominated for Hero of the Year award at Crufts after she raised the alarm when a fire broke out in the house. Lady, a resident at the Trailhound Trust kennels for many years, won the Grand Final for bitches in the Companion Dog Club competition at London’s top Canine Event, Discover Dogs in 2006. Lady has been a PAT dog for many years, as have a number of Peter’s dogs.