my personal experiences with greyhound racing
sorry, this is long, but worth it. id really appreciate it if you read it all.
ive been involved with greyhoudns for about 4 years now. ive worked with several adoption gourps, been to the annual greyhound gathering (4000 hounds!) a couple of times, visited several tracks and kennels, worked with dogs straight from the track, worked at a greyhound kennel for a day, read everything that each side has to say, become close friends with people who devote their lives to greyhound adoption (both pro racing groups and anti racing groups) ran several websites for greyhounds, etc.
i am NOT an expert, but i AM someone who has seen a lot of things.
i do not see racing as the horrible thing i once did. it is better than it used to be, however, there are still things that are very wrong.
when i first got online, i was rabidly AR (anti-racing) and believed the old number of 20k greyhounds killed every year. then pro-racing people on greytalk posted how racing was a good thing and had all these reason they gave that seemed like they made sense. and i started to even like racing.
but then i started getting involved more with greyhound adoption. on one hand i was reading about how racing was great, but then on the other hand i was seeing dogs stright from the track that had deep muzzle sores and scars on their muzzle from past sores, covreed in ticks and fleas, full of worms, etc. i also had many other experiences (nothign i read, things i experienced myself) that made me pause to reconsider believing all these happy things i had heard form pro racing people.
ao i still have many many problems with racing.
-i know some people crate their dogs while they are at work, but to me there is a difference between 8 hours and 18+ hours at the track
-i know that there are many working dogs otu there, agility and show dogs too, but to me a big difference is that the majoritiy of those live in a home as a pet, not at a kennel
-it bothers me that i see dogs infested with fleas and ticks from the track. it bothers me that so many have to be wormed before they can go into a home. its sad so many of the dogs have parasites.
-im saddened that someone (who works her butt off for the dogs btw) down at a track in florida said that just recently they got up to only 50% adoption. white light to the other half.
-all the euthenization records from 2003 and 2004 that i have flipped thru from a southern track make me sad as well
-hearing a track kennel owner point to a few dogs and tell me that their owners wanted them put to sleep after they broke their legs makes me hurt inside
-the recent case in iowa where a man neglected 33 dogs til they had no food and water and were full of parasites makes me sad (thank god they did suspend the guy. too bad it got this far http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2...4700502798.txt)
-the stench that i have smelled at a new england track kennel that made my friend almost puke was nto a good thing. i have been to other kennels that did not have this problem, but this one did, so it can happen)
-yes greyhounds are bred to run, and i love watching my girl run when she pleases and where she pelases at the park. however, when ive watched the races, teh dogs run for 30 seconds in a prescribed path. while the dogs liek this as well, to me it pales in comparasion to watchign my dog run after the ball that i have thrown, her picking it up and taking a victory lap around the park with it in her mouth, prancing and playing with the other dogs. and there are MANY days we go to the park where she decides she doesnt want to run. i want it to alwyas be up to her, when she runs, how long she runs, and where she runs.
-there have been several tracks that i have visited that have had no pamphlets, no posters, no nothing but a quick reference in the program to greyhound adoption. at two tracks i went ot the info coutner to ask aboutadoption and they had no info to give me. each place someone looked up in a book and wrote down the number on a scrap of paper, yet they had information and flyers at the booths for lunch specials and betting events. there was one track that did have an amazing adoption program that was very well promoted. i wish all tracks were like that. these other tracks tho, had posters for other things and none for greyhound adoption.
-the number of track websites that i have been to that have almost no information or info that is pushed to the side as an afterthought about greyhound adoption is pretty large. this saddens me in that having an extra web page and a big link to it on the track site would cost them not a single extra penny. i did an evaluation several months ago on all the track web sites if anyone would like to see it.
-whenever i see an adoption group having a raffle or auction or begging for donations reminds me that the people who are making money off the dogs (tracks, the state, kennel owerns, racing dog owners) are NOT covering all the costs of adoption. that doesnt mean that no one ever gives any money towards adoption of course, but the vast majority of dogs are vetted and palced by non profit adoption groups that have to work their behinds off to raise funds.
-its sad when i hear from people who work in the trenches of adoption who tell me that there have been dogs they have told kennel owners they would take, but were put down anyway. it doesnt make any kind of sense i know, but it has happened neumurous times
-personally i think its sad now that they do surgical insemination so taht bitches have larger litters than they naturally would. i didnt learn about that from AR people, rather from industry sites. also, wehn i look at a greyhound on greyhound-data.com and see that a bitch had litter after litter, pretty close together. it makes me sad.
-i know someone who has seen a trainer hit their dogs on the head with metal bowls. (dont tell me to report it, this person either has or hasnt, but that is their business, not mine, since i didnt witness it)
-i see and know of so many dogs with broken legs. generally the same leg. it happens over and over. i know that pets can break limbs, but it feels so wrong when you see the same injury happening all the time.
-i hear from different industry people that i know (and wont name for this reason) that they see people being cast out of the racing society for whistleblowing.
things are getting better, but dogs are still put down, dogs are still mistreated, i still see dogs in poor condition. and how can i support an industry while i still see that?
when there is 100% adoption and 100% financial responsibility by the industry, then i will no longer have to fight for the welfare of the dogs.
(im sure i have left plenty of things out, i will post them when i remember them)
My personal experience in greyhound racing
After Desert Storm I decided to leave the Navy after 13 years to live a life of normalcy after one six-month cruise after another. In my first three years of marriage I saw my wife 15 months. In our letters where we discussed our life post-military, we came to the common conclusion that we wanted a dog to share our home.
We saw the National Geographic special on greyhound racing that depicted some horrible stories and we decided to rescue a greyhound. A few months later, in October 1993, we got JC (hence jcsperson), a red brindle male. We were told that 60,000 greyhounds were killed. Well, we saved 1. It was a start. We were also told that his kennel had gone out of business and the owner just closed the door and left the dogs to die in their crates. When a kennel worker with a guilty conscience finally called, the dogs had been there several days in their own feces and urine.
I was so angered I threw myself into fundraising and newsletter writing. My wife and I, a journalism major and and English major, wrote and published our group's newsletter, stuffed hundreds of envelopes, did Meet & Greets and repeated the stories our group leaders told us.
One day, when I was driving home to Ohio to visit my relations, I decided to visit Tri-State Greyhound Park in Charleston, WV. I expected a rat's nest, but the facade was quite nice. I went inside and was actually impressed with the grounds. I didn't buy anything so as not to contribute to the profit of the track, but waited to see the races not really knowing what to expect.
When the first race started I had positioned myself right on the fence at the end of the front straight. When the dogs went by I could physically feel my jaw drop and tears well up in my eyes. "My JC did this?" Race after race these magnificent dogs flew by me in such a display of athleticism that I just stood there enthralled and dumbfounded. It just wasn't possible I kept thinking over and over.
That was the Spring of 1994. Nothing changed except that my respect for JC as an athlete grew a hundred-fold. It was around that time that I realized I wanted to know more about him. I bought two books on greyhound pedigrees and researched his ancestors. I marveled at all the famous dogs in his pedigree and the care with which the bloodlines were preserved and nurtured by breeders over the years.
Still, 60,000 killed? It sickened me. In order to try to find more dirt on greyhound racing I took out a subscription to Greyhound Review. Right in first few pages there was a list of breedings and registrations for the past several years. I was surprised to find out that 34,746 greyhounds had been registered in 1994. I did a double take. I'm an English major---never was good at math---but how can you kill 60,000 a year if less than 35,000 are alive? Curious.
Shortly thereafter we became internet capable. Soon we were e-mailing a wide variety of greyhound people and actually met a couple who operated a kennel at the aforementioned Tri-State. We got a tour of the kennel and the farm. The kennel was far nicer than I expected. There was a whirlpool. It was immaculately clean. The dogs were sleek and well-groomed. Thre wasn't a speck of dirt, let alone a parasite to be found on any of their dogs. This was nothing like we were told to expect. A trip out to their small farm confirmed everything we had seen at the kennel.
Later I visited Wheeling. Interestingly, there was a kennel operating at there called Gulf & Bay Kennel. This was the kennel JC raced for at Melbourne. Not only were they not out of business, but they were thriving with bookings at two of the toughest, highest-paying tracks in the country. A phone call confirmed that they had, indeed, left Melbourne, but months after JC was on our couch. Very curious.
By this time I had seen literally hundreds of greyhounds, a great number right off the truck. Some looked tired and a little bewildered by their long journey, some had fleas and a tick or two, but for the most part they were clean and healthy and well groomed. The worst two or three dogs I ever saw were turn-backs from adoptive homes. One, Robby, we adopted at age 11 and had to have the majority of his teeth pulled. We didn't have much time with him, just 18 months.
Somewhere along the way, maybe around 2000, I realized I was no longer anti-racing. I still harbored a number of doubts, but I had seen myth after myth disproved right in front of my eyes---lies told by my AR adoption group straight to my gullible face. That especially bothered me because I went around angry about how my dog JC had been abused. It hurt at a viceral level. When I found out he had merely had a routine career for one of the better kennels in the country I was greatly relieved. My only anger was for those who had put me through that---who had played the pity angle so well I bought their message completely.
Around 2001 I heard about a dog named Talentedmrripley who was tearing up St. Pete. I started watching him on Rosnet. I found out that a dog closely related to one of my pets was a star at Jacksonville. I avidly followed his every race. When we found out a cousin of his was retired we adopted him. I got to know the breeder well---she's the same breeder of Greyhoundaddy's Sequoia. She patiently answered every question I had about our new adoptee and his great uncle whom she had also raised. Soon I met more breeders, kennel owners, trainers and dog owners---salt of the earth people.
I joined Global Greyhounds in 2002 and the NGA later that year. I purchased a puppy who will go on to race. I visit him often at the farm where he is being raised just two hours from here. It's clean. It's more well equipped than you can imagine with 50' x 50' puppy pens and a two acre sprint field. I could spend an hour describing it, but suffice it to say I trust my breeder to raise my puppy correctly. He is in good hands with her. I have purchased a female racer as a brood and as soon as her career is over she will be going to the farm and will have beautiful puppies. She raced AA, top grade, at Wheeling Downs, the best track in the country. Her aunt is an All American and her brother won a $50,000 stake. Her bloodlines are among the most successful in America. Four major sires have emerged from her damline.
I won't be making more puppies than there would already have been because she would have been bred by whoever was lucky enough to buy her. It happened to be me. She is the perfect example to perpetuate the breed.
Pardon my bias, but greyhounds are the most carefully bred, best documented breed on earth. My interest in pedigrees has led me to being invited on the staff of Greyhound-data.com, the world's largest breed database with 1,000,000 greyhounds dating back to the 1700s. Hip dysplasia is unknown in greyhounds. The gene pool is vast and undiluted by mediocrity. There are no back-yard breeders. By breeding to a purpose rather than breeding to a standard, greyhounds have remained viable while many others can no longer function at the tasks for which they were originally intended.
It costs $3500 to $5000 to raise just one greyhound to the track-ready age of 18 months. No one has yet to explain to me how a world-class athlete can be brought to that standard and maintained in peak condition while being abused and neglected. One has to suspend every sliver of common sense they have to believe it.
I am fully aware that everything isn't perfect in greyhound racing, but I see it getting better every year. I don't wear blinders, but I also don't see evil in everything and everyone as some ARs do. They are still citing impossible numbers and clinging to long disproved myths like puppy-culling and the dangers of 4D meat. Speaking as one who has had lies about my own dog told right to my face, I know that exaggration and distortion are a daily fact with them. Most have little or no experience in greyhounds and extrapolate isolated incidents into the "industry standard." Some raise tremendous amounts of money from gullible people, as I once was, to wage political war on the industry. In the case of some extremist groups, not one penny goes to adoption. It all goes to propaganda campaigns and legal bills.
Re: my personal experiences with greyhound racing
Quote:
Originally posted by true
-it bothers me that i see dogs infested with fleas and ticks from the track. it bothers me that so many have to be wormed before they can go into a home. its sad so many of the dogs have parasites.
I have seen literally hundreds of dogs come right off the truck when I volunteered for my adoption group. My experience is that dogs in the condition you describe are the exception. If they come straight from the track they were immaculate. If they were kept temporarily at a farm and then shipped, there was a greater likelihood of ticks and fleas. We rarely encountered a wormy dog.
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-im saddened that someone (who works her butt off for the dogs btw) down at a track in florida said that just recently they got up to only 50% adoption. white light to the other half.
-all the euthenization records from 2003 and 2004 that i have flipped thru from a southern track make me sad as well[
Even if the 50% figure were true it would not be typical. 95% of the problems in greyhound racing are concentrated in a handful of low-end tracks. These are precisely the tracks that are being targeted by RaceForAdoption.com.
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-hearing a track kennel owner point to a few dogs and tell me that their owners wanted them put to sleep after they broke their legs makes me hurt inside[
I know this happens, but again, this is not typical.
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-the recent case in iowa where a man neglected 33 dogs til they had no food and water and were full of parasites makes me sad (thank god they did suspend the guy. too bad it got this far
I called the NGA and this farm was inspected twice in 2003 and once early in 2004. The state of Iowa inspected it annually for a total of three per year and this year was the first year a problem was noted. The farm passed every inspection it ever had until this last one. I don't know the details yet, but whatever changed this man's way of operating must have been dire. A previous article suggests he was very ill.
The system worked. A substandard farm was shut down and his license to breed greyhounds suspended. It looks like he will lose his racing license as well.
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-the stench that i have smelled at a new england track kennel that made my friend almost puke was nto a good thing. i have been to other kennels that did not have this problem, but this one did, so it can happen)
We've been through this one on GT. This is not typical, either. I have been to several turnout pens and a number of farms and never encountered a similar smell. If you ever come across this again, SAY SOMETHING. It is not the norm and is unnecessary.
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-there have been several tracks that i have visited that have had no pamphlets, no posters, no nothing but a quick reference in the program to greyhound adoption. at two tracks i went ot the info coutner to ask aboutadoption and they had no info to give me. each place someone looked up in a book and wrote down the number on a scrap of paper, yet they had information and flyers at the booths for lunch specials and betting events. there was one track that did have an amazing adoption program that was very well promoted. i wish all tracks were like that. these other tracks tho, had posters for other things and none for greyhound adoption.
-the number of track websites that i have been to that have almost no information or info that is pushed to the side as an afterthought about greyhound adoption is pretty large. this saddens me in that having an extra web page and a big link to it on the track site would cost them not a single extra penny. i did an evaluation several months ago on all the track web sites if anyone would like to see it.
True and I have been through this one on GT, too. At least one of those tracks, Lincoln, already has 100% adoption. Further promotion would not improve their numbers.
Several tracks run adoption fairs and special events. Recently Southland, Shoreline, Wonderland and Raynham, just to name a few, had big, festive events featuring greyhound adoption.
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-whenever i see an adoption group having a raffle or auction or begging for donations reminds me that the people who are making money off the dogs (tracks, the state, kennel owerns, racing dog owners) are NOT covering all the costs of adoption. that doesnt mean that no one ever gives any money towards adoption of course, but the vast majority of dogs are vetted and palced by non profit adoption groups that have to work their behinds off to raise funds.
This often has a great deal to do with politics. I know that most racing owners would rather give their dogs and a donation to a pro-racing adoption group than give them to an AR group for free. There are some cheap bastards who want to save some money and give them to anybody who will take them, but won't give a nickel to a group who is against racing. Imagine that.
Additionally, profit margins in racing have dropped substantially over the years. Part of it is because greedy politicians have taxed the gambling industry so heavily that bettors have a hard time making any money. Another part is the fact that ARA groups have slandered racing so badly that sponsors, TV and media shy away from it altogether because they fear the deluge of negative mail drummed up by those groups. This has hurt business, reduced profits, and ultimately worked against the dogs.
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-personally i think its sad now that they do surgical insemination so taht bitches have larger litters than they naturally would. i didnt learn about that from AR people, rather from industry sites. also, wehn i look at a greyhound on greyhound-data.com and see that a bitch had litter after litter, pretty close together. it makes me sad.
This is a misinterpretation. The female releases only so many eggs per season. Regardless of what insemination process is used only so many puppies can be whelped. A sire with strong semen will impregnate as many eggs as surgical implants. Surgical techniques increase the likelihood of insemination and increase the number of eggs fertilized where a sire's semen is not necessarily strong or when the draw has been split a number of ways. When semen is frozen it is often split five ways so one ejaculate can impregnate five bitches. The "larger litter size" is meant where a sire's semen isn't strong or the ejaculate has been split a number of times.
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-i know someone who has seen a trainer hit their dogs on the head with metal bowls. (dont tell me to report it, this person either has or hasnt, but that is their business, not mine, since i didnt witness it).
Hearsay. I'm not disputing that it happened, just that one could hardly say that one incident is typical of everything. The problem with relating a story like this is that it suggests that this sort of thing is typical. It's not.
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-i see and know of so many dogs with broken legs. generally the same leg. it happens over and over. i know that pets can break limbs, but it feels so wrong when you see the same injury happening all the time. .
The right rear leg is the one that takes the most stress in racing. I think some breeders have made a mistake breeding dogs who have had this injury to bitches who also have. I prefer sires and dams with long, healthy careers to make for solid pups.
AGTOA has spent millions on research for a safer, more forgiving surface. Based on recent returns it looks like that is paying off.
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-i hear from different industry people that i know (and wont name for this reason) that they see people being cast out of the racing society for whistleblowing.
It would be interesting to hear an instance of this. I have not heard of it and my guess is I know dozens more foiks in racing than True.
Quote:
-things are getting better, but dogs are still put down, dogs are still mistreated, i still see dogs in poor condition. and how can i support an industry while i still see that?
when there is 100% adoption and 100% financial responsibility by the industry, then i will no longer have to fight for the welfare of the dogs.
They are much better. It looks very possible that full adoption could be achieved by 2007. If that happens then there will be no major breed of dog that can make that claim. I think the outlook for the breed, adoption, and even racing is bright.
