GD, I realize how hard it is to constantly face the charges of cruelty and other accusations, especially when I know how deeply you love your girl and the breed and seeing them do what they were bred to do, but I still feel blowing up and getting angry won't help people see the other side. I personally learned a lot and thought about it all a lot when Martin (jcsperson) took the time to really give out facts from the other side of the issue and addressed a lot of things directly that organizations like greyhounds.org presents. Until then, I had heard, read, and saw (on television) one side consistently all while I grew up, and I fully admit I was quite biased against the whole thing. There are things I am still against, however it is more specific to those who do things wrong and irresponsibly rather than generalizing and targeting the whole organization.

I guess one of the strongest factors for me is it would break my heart to see the pure line of performance hounds die out, and only leave us with the horribly inbred AKC bred hounds. There are horror stories with anything involving animals and humans. I wouldn't want to see all breeding outlawed because of puppymill breeders, for example. There are people who are campaigning to ban the Iditarod race too, claiming it is inhumane, cruel, that dogs are bred and destroyed if they don't make the cut, etc. But we have mushers here who give us views from the other side too. Just some things to keep in mind.

I think it's unfortunate that this beautiful picture thread was turned into a debate, when it wasn't intended to do so. GD just wanted to share the beauty of the racers.