Supporters of flyball in Nottinghamshire have raised more than £12,000 for the RSPCA to try to show the dog sport cares about welfare following a notorious cruelty case.
A group of dog lovers and fans of the sport presented a cheque to staff at the charity’s Radcliffe-on-Trent animal shelter on Sunday (November 26).
Local flyball fans ran fundraising events after Margaret Greaves, who ran teams in the sport, admitted animal welfare offences.
Greaves, then 64, from Newbound Lane in Sutton-in-Ashfield, was caught keeping more than 30 dogs in squalid conditions. She banned from keeping dogs for life after she was convicted at Mansfield Magistrates’ Court in June.
Flyball is the fastest growing dog sport in the country – it involves two teams of four dogs each racing side-by-side over a 51ft (15.6m) course, releasing and catching a ball.
Emma Mason, one of the organisers of the fundraising campaign, said: “It was a horrendous cases (Greaves’s) – their was outcry in flyball.
“We wanted to demonstrate this is not what we’re about and we won’t stand for that.”