Over a dozen former racing dogs made the trip from a track in Alabama to Moncton on Sunday with hopes of finding them a permanent home.

“It was a long haul, but … they handle it well," said Deb Levasseaur, president of Maritime Greyhound Adoption Group.

Levasseaur gets a shipment of dogs in need of a home every few months. She says they’ll soon be going to their foster homes.

“Right now they're getting the spa treatment, which means nails, ears and bathing and all that stuff done, so we're getting them all cleaned up and ready,” said Levasseaur.

Kristen Cameron is from Nova Scotia and is fostering one of the dogs. She says the dogs have an amazing personality that isn’t expected.

“You think of them just as a racing dog, but when you get to know them individually they're so much personality and they play and run, they're exactly the same as any other dog just in a big, long body," said Cameron. 

A greyhound’s racing career can last until they're five or six years old.

"Once they are no longer running, some of them just don't have any interest in running at all, the trainers bring them to us at the adoption centre at the Birmingham race course," said Jennifer Boswell, director of the Alabama Rescue and Adoption Centre.

Alabama is one of the few states that still allows greyhound racing. Once the dogs retire, Boswell’s centre takes them in and she travels all over North America to find them homes.

"On this particular trip, we left Birmingham, Ala., on Friday morning at 8:30. We delivered seven greyhounds to New Hampshire, 12 greyhounds to northern Vermont, and everybody else here to New Brunswick."

"Greyhounds have been known to get up to 45 miles per hour, so that's 72 kilometres an hour in about three seconds. They reach top speeds really, really fast," said Levasseaur.

Despite their ability to race, Levasseaur says they're actually quite lazy.

"They sleep a lot,” she said. “People think they need a lot of exercise and they're really hyper, but no, they are really calm and lazy."  

Levasseur says she gets interest from people across the region in the dogs. She also says foster homes typical turn into forever homes.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Ashley Blackford.