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.