The Greyhound crossed the road to grab the empty crisp packet, the biscuit wrapper, the fast food carton or just about any other discarded, pollution causing waste, that he felt might contain a tasty treat.
As an adopted ex-racing Greyhound, unfamiliar with life away from the track, every piece of discarded rubbish became a potential yummy treat that just had to be explored. As soon as he saw discarded packaging (or anything he thought might be!), he would go to it, often at speed, to check out what treat lay in store. He would be totally oblivious to the broken glass around it, or the fact it was covered in some rotten and unidentifiable muck. And at 40kg with a top speed of just under 40mph, if this dog decided he was going for it, chances were, he was going to get it!
Walks became stressful and bleeding paws and stomach upsets became the norm. Everywhere we went: the park, woods, beach or river, there was always at least one piece of litter that would grab his eye (and/or nose).
It got us thinking about how destructive all of this waste was and we mulled over ways in which humans could live a little more in sync with nature. It got us wondering how we might make a meaningful contribution to help reduce our over-reliance on plastic and chemical laden products. We understood that many people lead busy and stressful lives and that for the vast majority of people, a complete shift to sustainable and green lifestyle would be completely unrealistic - so we knew that whatever we did, we needed to make it as simple and achievable as possible to take part.
And it was during these dog walks that we started to form the ideas for what we now call The Green Greyhound - Scotland's Sustainable Store. A place where we make eco-friendly and natural products easy to find so that more people can make small changes toward a more sustainable future.
Alongside our store, we will also blog about Scotland, it's wildlife and it's communities so be sure to keep coming back to see our Scottish travels with our trusty Greyhound companion.
We believe that individual changes, no matter how small, make a collective difference. And when we live somewhere as beautiful as Scotland, we wanted to play an active part in the change toward a sustainable tomorrow.