Kibble and Biscuits - Greyhounds Queensland

Kibble brand is in the Top DrawA QUIET achiever, but a big mover,among the ever-increasing world of drydog food providers is Top PetInternational.And Australia’s largest greyhoundbreeder Paul Wheeler has recently comeon board as a major user of the company’sproducts.Top Draw is the low fat (4%) and highprotein (17%) kibble produced by Top Pet,while the company has a new productcalled Rice Right which is Top Draw witha higher protein and higher fat content andenriched with rice.Wheeler uses both products at his NSWproperty.Doug Parsons is Top Pets manager andsays the company has been producingfrom its Mulgrave (NSW) factory for thepast 12 years.“We keep our costs down and thus keepdown our prices,” said Doug. “But weproduce a quality product which thegreyhound world is embracing.”Big Dog Pet Foods at Lawnton havebeen distributing throughout Queenslandthe Top Pet products, including TopKennel, Top Draw and now Rice Right, forthe past 18 months.“We have never advertised ourproducts, depending on word of mouth todo that for us and the fact there are a lotof big name trainers and breeders comingon board is testament to the quality of ourproduct,” said Doug.These include Banner Park, VIPKennels, Merle Clark at Gilgandra, GaryStarr and of course Wheeler.“Our products are sold in a number ofcountry’s overseas and we areinvestigating sales into India and China atthe moment,” said Doug.Rice Right was developed in cooperationwith a number of trainers andthe feedback they provided.“We were told by a number of trainersthey wanted a dry food for theirgreyhounds that was higher in protein,”said Doug.“We went with a rice based product,added garlic and kelp to the originalproduct and came up with Rice Right.“Top Draw is really taking off inQueensland and NSW.”Chris Essex (pictured) , chief at Big DogPet Foods, said he had seen a marked risein the use of the Top Pet lines in recentmonths. “As Doug says, word of mouth isgetting around that they produce excellentdry foods,” he said.On Time Daddy winsat Ipswich.RIGHT: Owner PeterRobertson and his dog.A COUPLE of years ago, PeterRobertson thought it would be a great idea toget another greyhound.Peter, who immigrated from England toQueensland in 1989, had raced a greyhoundor two around the flapping tracks in his homecountry and never really lost the thrill of thechase.Originally in real estate and now infinancial planning, Peter now in his 40s,happened to be listening to racing radio acouple of years back when he heard aninterview with the owner of a top classthoroughbred.“He mentioned that he also had somegreyhounds,” said Peter. “I was interested andout of the blue decided to buy one myself.“I contacted the horse owner and he putme onto Emin Aydemir (of Superman fame).”Eydemir had Sound The Alarm about towhelp to Big Daddy Cool so Peter put in anorder.“I left it entirely up to Emin,” said Peter.“He picked out a brindle dog pup and had itreared to about nine or 10 months of age.”Peter had already contacted Tony Brett totrain the dog.When the pup arrived in Queensland,Brett organised for the rest of its rearing andits early education.“He broke in well at Postman’s Ridge, hada spell and Tony took him back for a trial therewhen he first put him into work.”That’s when the rot set in.“I went up to Postman’s Ridge to see thetrial,” said Peter. When the trial ended, thepup grabbed the arm which flipped him overbreaking his elbow. It was a rare injury andone that Richard Eaton-Wells at Qld VetSpecialists was concerned about.Xrays show the extent of the elbowinjury to On Time Daddy.“Tony rang me and said the news was notgood,” said Peter. The obvious option was toput the pup down.“But my wife Wendy would have none ofthat. We are real pet lovers, so the decisionwas made for the injury to be repaired. It was90 to 10 against him ever racing.”The road to recovery was to be long, ayear long in fact, and paved with bumps alongthe way.The injury had to have a metal plate andsix screws inserted, as well as a figure of eightwire.The Brett network swung into operation.After a few months of recovery from theoperation and with the cast removed, the pupwas sent initially to Simon Adams for threemonths of walking exercise.Simon is a regular at Albion Park catchingprimarily for the Tony Zammit kennel, butfor anyone who needs help. He already had acouple of retired greyhounds so the BigDaddy Cool pup fitted right in.Timely victorycame after a yearof setbacksAfter those three months, the dog was thensent to George Zammits for several monthsof galloping in paddocks to get him using theelbow again.Brett got him back and now beautifullynamed as On Time Daddy (Big Daddy Cool-Sound The Alarm) he headed toward aracetrack debut.But, as we said, it was never going to beeasy.“The first trial Tony gave him back atPostman’s Ridge he ran 18.17 which wasexactly the time he ran in the trial when heflipped over and broke his elbow,” said Peter.He ran 25.50 over 431m at Ipswich butdropped a pin muscle.Back he work, he dropped the other pinmuscle.Back in work again, he was galloping upthe straight one morning. “He hit his tail onthe fence and chopped part of his tail off,”said Peter.While they were all minor hiccups, by thetime On Time Daddy made his race debut itwas a year almost to the day after he hadbroken his elbow.And at his second race start he won a431m Maiden at Ipswich.“Given everything that has happened, I’mjust happy to have won a race with him,” saidPeter. “Obviously we are keeping our fingerscrossed from week to week that he stays soundand continues to race.”Peter was there when On Time Daddy wonat Ipswich and the gleam on his face hid thedisaster of the previous year.Now Peter is contemplating the futurewith his dog. Maybe even a win at AlbionPark. A year ago none of that would have beenthought possible.Greyhound DataGreyhound breeders should be aware ofthe value of the fantastic websiteproduced by Gunnar von Boehn inStuttgart, Germany.The site can be accessed viawww.greyhound-data.comIt's well worth a look for theinformation available.The best of its kind.The (September, 2007) Journal Page 5