How it all began...

In 1991, Jerry and I moved to Humboldt County (pop. 115,000) in Northern California after more than 20 years of life in the fast lane of San Diego County. That was a drastic change in itself, but after adopting "No! Dave", our first retired racer, in 1993, we became hooked on a cause that would become the focal point of our lives happily ever after.

In the beginning, we gathered the few local greyhound owners together and began promoting adoption in parades and at a local veterinarian's store (Petco didn't arrive until July of 2004.) We referred adopters to the two closest adoption groups: one 8 hours south, the other 8 hours north - in Oregon. My first little Mac SE, a college cast-off of my younger son's, connected us to a whole new world of greyhounds through the fledgling Greyhound-L and the AOL chat room.

In an area of such minimal human population, we hadn't enough volunteers among local greyhound owners to expand Northcoast Greyhounds' promotional efforts, so I had a jeweler create our logo dog, Dave, as a sterling silver pendant and sold them online to raise funds to help greyhounds in need. For the first several years of our existence, the extent of our contributions was to send $20 a month to sponsor a dog in the GPA/CA kennels.

In 1994, a local builder was unable to get permits to develop his 19 acres of natural wetlands (what was he thinking?!) located a mile from Central McKinleyville and a mile from our home. He happily unloaded this "distressed property" of trailed meadows, forests, and stream upon our greytful family. We installed sprinklers and a lawn in the picnic area, and "The Swamp" was transformed into a Greyhound Playground where the Brockhoff hounds walk, unleashed, twice daily. The pedestrian gate at The Swamp is always open to all local greyhound owners.

How times have changed since we began! We now have several Northern CA groups to whom we can refer prospective adopters. Jerry and I have only three greyhounds of our own now, but when most folks our age were considering down-sizing, we added to the square footage of our home to accommodate our greyt family: as many as eleven seniors at one time.

Northcoast Greyhounds' product line has expanded to the ever-changing assortment of greytstuff you'll see on these pages, and has allowed us to contribute over $430,000 to greyt causes in 13 years time - all thanks to our customers, many of whom have become fast friends in the 18 years since Davie changed our lives! We hope you'll bookmark this website and come back for guilt-free shopping when you need a gift or deserve a reward of your own. "If you don't spend it with us, we can't give it away!"

Greytfully,
Cara and Jerry Brockhoff and the Northcoast Greyhounds,
Lexi & Hottie (10 years), and Sammie, 12.
In Tribute to Our Greyhounds at Rainbow Bridge