Written in 2018.
In 1987 I attended an obedience class in Vermont with my afghan, Jezebel. A white van pulled up and as doors popped open, two stunning creature peered their needle noses out. I ran over, touched and my love affair with all things greyhounds started.
I adopted my first greyhound a month later. You Always Remember Your First is my story about Eliminator. He taught me how loving, forgiving and soulful greyhounds are.
When learning about the beauty of the hounds, I also learned about the brutality they suffered. Deaths of thousands of greyhounds at the hands of their breeders and trainers who would bring them to a vet to be killed, or put bullets to their heads, or sell them to research institutes, or donate them to vet schools for terminal surgeries. My love for Eliminator and then, Slim, had me in 1993, leaving my lucrative corporate job, and starting a non-profit – Greyhound Gang – to personally rescue and adopt out greyhounds, while educating the populace about how wonderful they were as pets.
In 1995, there were 47 tracks with over 50,000 greyhounds being bred yearly, and an unknown number in the tens of thousands of greyhounds dying yearly. Dying because they were disposable and not earning money for the people who bred them. The Pro-Greyhound essay I wrote in 1999 was to implore the racing industry to treat their greyhounds as living, thinking beings who deserved more than death after earning or not earning money for their creators. I got to see kennels in Arizona where dogs were kept in crates with torn newspapers upwards of 23 hours a day, with muzzles still on. I saw turnouts, in 20 x 20 dirt wired spaces, where their joy of being out for 20 minutes was evidenced in their wiggling bodies, and leans and jumps on me. I saw dogs with flea dermatitis, ravaged ears, limping legs and shyness to break your heart. Their eyes bored into my soul.
In 1998 I was at a teaching vet school for spinal surgery on Slim. I spent a week there, and learned about the use of hundreds upon hundreds of hounds for terminal surgeries by vet students. From one day to one week students ‘owned’ a hound. They practiced all kinds of surgeries on the hound, and when that day or week was over they euthanized ‘their’ hound. I met an older brindle female, obviously had been bred, who put her paw through a crate door just asking me to touch her. She had a yellow card on her cage. I was told she was going to be used and killed that day. This dog had raced and won, then bred and produced countless number of pups, and was now going to be killed because she was no longer wanted. I was told about a warehouse where hundreds of greyhounds were kept to be used to practice dentals on, and for terminal surgeries. These disposable greyhounds were ‘donated’ to the university by racing people.
What does that say about us as a society and as individuals?
You are no longer producing something – money, puppies – so you are disposed of. In any way we like. We don’t look into your eyes and know you have a thinking, caring soul, who only wants to please, and doesn’t understand why a life lived trying to please results in death. What gives us the right to do this to any living creature? These dogs were born into a life, and then not given the opportunity to live that life to its fullest. Decisions about the ending of their lives are made from greed, not love.
What does it say about the people who are now saying, “but if we close all the tracks down, we won’t have our beloved greyhounds”. What selfishness is that to worry about OUR need for a greyhound on a couch, when some are still disposed of when no longer racing if an adoption group is not notified. So would you keep the current culture of greyhound racing (breed and dispose) alive, so some of the hounds make it to your home to be loved and others still die?
If the culture of the people who breed and train and race doesn’t change to pro-greyhound, then yes, greyhound racing needs to go away. If that culture would change to care for the LIFE of a hound bred, as I wrote in 1999 – a new paradigm where breeders took responsibility for their lives, racing or not, at any age –Which – FIRST AND FOREMOST – must be the key from my view of the universe.
Let’s make America the first country to ban the use of greyhounds for our greed.
To address directly some of the statements being made by those who favor keeping Florida’s tracks open:
- “Won’t thousands of greyhounds die if tracks close?”
Greyhounds will only die if their breeders/owners kill them. They have the legal right, as property owners, to kill their greyhounds, as they have been doing to greyhounds since they were imported to America for farmers and ranchers to keep down their ‘varmint’ population in the late 1800’s.
There are now hundreds of sight hound adoption groups in the country who are willing, as they always have been, to take in every age and condition of all hounds, raise the funds needed to care for them and get them medical care and more prior to adoption, without ANY monetary assistance given from racing industry breeders.
Greyhounds will only die if the people who breed them and profess to love them don’t care for them in their retirement from racing. Very few breeders ever make provisions to care for greyhounds when they are no longer producing for them. Greyhound racing depends on adoption groups, but most have never supported them. By support, I mean money to transport greyhounds from their kennels to adoption groups. Money to do any portion of the medical work done by adoption groups. Money to help greyhounds have a life after racing. This has never factored into most greyhound breeders perception of their universe.
These volunteer groups have to raise the funds to even get the dogs transported to them (around $125 a dog) , much less find the funds for their care prior to adoption into a loving forever home (from $500 – $5000). The racing industry does not and never has cared about their greyhounds lives after racing enough to plan for it. Part of the truth is that adoption groups enable the racing industry to keep breeding. If adoption groups didn’t take the hounds, they would be killed because the racing industry and individual breeders and owners only had one provision for caring for dogs they no longer wanted – to kill them. What kind of choice is that? Enable the industry to keep breeding more greyhounds, and not save the ones no longer wanted? No choice at all.
No greyhound need die if the tracks close. Greyhound breeders who profess to love their hounds, and who for years should have also cared about their ‘retirement’ but didn’t, should house them until adoption groups can take them in. Adoption groups are there to find them homes, and incur all the money and time and effort it will take, which will be extensive. The people who have bred these dogs and own them can sell them elsewhere, can abandon them, can kill them. All those options belong with the breeders and owners of these hounds who profess to love their dogs. The only option for those who ‘love’ their dogs is to house them until an adoption group can take them.
- “But won’t many lose their livelihood?”
Yes, greyhound racing as a culture and living will go away in the US. That means greyhounds will no longer be used to make money for their breeders, and then discarded (killed, sold to others, used in medical research). Many people will need to get career counseling, and find other jobs. Changing jobs, losing jobs is all part of life’s journey. People all over the United States lose their jobs every day and find others.
- But won’t Greyhounds as a breed disappear?
Greyhounds have been around for centuries – mentioned in the Bible, Greeks and Romans depicted them in art, Chaucer wrote of them – way before racing (started in the early 1900’s), and will continue to be around well after all our lifetimes. They will not disappear.
- Greyhounds are loved
What is not to love about a greyhound? There is no doubt we all love the hounds which grace our lives. But with the racing industry that love only goes so far. They breed them, they give them shelter (crates) and food, and use them without regard to their full lives. If they are not viable for racing, i.e. not earning money, then now a days the lucky hounds go off to adoption groups (when not 10 -20 years ago it was off to get a bullet in the head, or go to a research facility, or to be sold) who will raise the funds to do the transport, medical and behavioral work needed, and then market the dog to find him or her a forever home.
Love. Perceptions, variations – so many ways to love. I love you, but I can’t take care of you anymore because you aren’t making money for me. I love you, but you are going to live in a crate the majority of your life in a warehouse setting because I have over 100 dogs to care for. I will handle you when you come out of your cage for a few minutes, but I have so many to care for. I love you, but I don’t have time to spend with you, unless you are racing and winning me money?
The racing people who claim to love them breed them for only one thing – their money making ability. When there is no money making ability, then (in this day and age) greyhounds are ‘given’ to adoption groups to deal with. These volunteer adoption groups then raise the money and make the time it takes to get a hound ready for a home.
So who loves the hounds? What is your definition of love?
Adoption groups do this gladly and selfishly because of their love of greyhounds – whether young, old, broken or shy. They believe greyhounds should have a long life, not just one as a racing dog.
If you are in the racing industry you have put down your dogs at one time or another. They are your property, it is your right. But don’t claim to love these soulful, incredible athletes when you are not stepping up to provide for their care when they transition from racer to pet.
- Greyhounds aren’t killed anymore. That was the past.
1920 – 2010 – In that recent past, most greyhounds were killed. In horrid, inexpensive, painful ways – ears cut off to hide tattoos, shot in the head, buried alive, left in deserts to fend for themselves, ‘donated’ for terminal surgeries at vet schools, used for meat. For the racing industry to deny this, is a travesty. They have NEVER owned up to these facts. Over 50,000 pups born yearly, continually, to fill the demand of racing cards during racing’s heyday. Greyhounds are property to dispose of as owners’ consciences see fit. Yes, less greyhounds are killed now, not because the racing industry has taken responsibility, but because there are only 17 tracks (vs 47 in the past) and about 300 volunteer adoption groups – so there are plenty of groups – who use their own money and time – to take in greyhounds.
Supply and demand, that simple. When adoption groups didn’t exist, and the disposal of greyhounds was not public knowledge, these property owners could do what they wanted to their property – which was to kill it (him and her) – and usually in the easiest way possible – a bullet to the head.
- We have adoption groups who support us
ALL volunteer adoption groups have always enabled the racing industry, and that is support. Without adoption groups, the industry disposed of their dogs. Evidence:
– Greyhound carcasses found in deserts
– Greyhound carcasses found in a 2-acre mass grave in Alabama shot in the head for $10 each – NewTimes article. NY Times article.
– Greyhounds warehoused in vet schools around the country
– Vets who routinely euthanized greyhounds at the behest of their owners
– Greyhounds sold to farmers and ranchers for coyote hunting
Groups have always been caught between a rock and a hard place. If they didn’t keep their mouths shut about the condition of the dogs they were receiving, the dogs would die. If they didn’t take the dogs, dogs would die.
Is every owner/breeder an individual? Absolutely. Each one treated his dogs as his conscience, upbringing and economic ability dictated. In my over 20 years of rescue through Greyhound Gang, I did not meet an owner who paid a penny to an adoption group who took dogs. I did hear of a few who gave $25 with each dog, from other groups. I never heard of owners who even paid for transport from their kennels to adoption groups, but instead pocketed the transport fees adoption groups paid at $80 – $125 a dog. Greyhound Gang, since 1995, has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars so some greyhounds’ transport could be paid, their medical work done and more so they could find loving homes.
I am angry as I write this. Angry for the justifications for the killing of so many beautiful beings throughout this century and the one before. Angry for the greyhounds who were born to please and do the best they can, and then disposed of when no longer wanted. Angry for that brindle brood who gave me her paw and looked straight into my eyes before being used for terminal surgery. Angry for the greyhounds sold to tracks in other countries, whose lives were and still are forfeit to the meat trade, or other ignominious places.
And I am sad. Sad for a society that subjugates others to do their bidding. A society that sees beings – with two legs or four – as disposable. A society who doesn’t see the whole and connectiveness of the world around them. I am sad for an industry who could have done the right thing, but never did.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. Gandhi.
Let us be judged. Vote YES on Amendment 13.
Articles:
Miami Herald
Sun Sentinel
Dogington Post
ABC News
Tampa Bay Times