Dog Racing. You bet. We die.

It's Post Time

When I decided to write in my own blog, instead of writing on my Papa's blog.  Papa was all excited.  He's very proud of me and wants me to be happy.  He's also very proud of my racing heritage and the fact that I am an athlete who used to be a racer.  He went on and on about how cool it would be to have a blog with a racing theme, and that I should stress my racing heritage.  He did a search for greyhound racing and got all these very cool pictures of digs runing together on the track.  Some very sports-like pictures that make racing look very cool.  They make dogs look like we are champion athletes who have a good life, like human athletes do.  Papa didn't understand.  I told him that racing made me sad and I didn't want to relive any of that stuff.  I told him I was very happy that I was adopted by a good family.  I also told him that I was very lucky.  I told him there were lots of racing digs that never had the chance I had.  I told him that racing wasn't as glamorous as it seemed.  He didn't understand at first, but then he did a little more research on the internet.  He dug just a little bit deeper.  And I saw Papa cry.  He found the truth.  I can't post pictures for you here, they make me too sad.  And I don't want to scare or make anybody else cry.  But you can find them, if you want to see them.  If you need to see them.  I will post the links to stories and pictures. The pictures are on the internet.  You can find them.   I think he understands now.  It made me sad, like when I was racing.  I was lucky.  Many of my fellow athletic racers are not so lucky.

When you seach Google for greyhound racing, you get all these really cool pictures of dogs racing.  They look cool, like I said before.  It might make you feel like dog racing is just such a cool sport.  They look like they're really having fun, just running.  And we do enjoy running.  I love to run.  I do it every chance I get.  But we get very tired when we run.  And when we get tired, we like to stop and rest.  And we have been bred to chase things.  But I don't like chasing a mechanical decoy and being forced to compete against some of my friends.  Remember that racing is a business, and like any other business, the sole purpose is to make money.  The people in charge of the business don't care about us dogs.  Unless we win and make them money.  But what about dogs that lose?  What happens to them?  Did you ever wonder about that?

There are 8 dogs in every race.  And only 3 dogs make money.  Win.  Place.  Show.  Five dogs don't make money.  Slower dogs get only a few changes to race.  And it might even be unfair to call us slower dogs.  Sometimes, we are quite capable of running very fast.  We might even win, if we wanted to.  But some dogs just aren't into the control.  We don't like being forced to do things.  And we certainly don't want to be mean to the other dogs.  Those other dogs are all we have for friends.

We don't have protectors, we have keepers.  We don't have parents who love us, we have owners.  Those owners only love us if we make them money.  If we don't make them money, we are just an added expense for them.  They have to feed us and pay people to take care of us.  If we don't make money, they don't care about what happens to us.  And we can't race throughout our lives. Racing is just for the very young, like with most sports, athletes burn out very young, because of how we are forced to push our bodies to the limits.  So we can't race for more than a season or two.  And then what?  More dogs, younger dogs, are bred to replace us.  So what happens to us?  Even the winning dogs get old and can't win anymore.  Then we all just become a burden on the kennel owners.  They need the space for those younger dogs, and they don't want to take time or energy to feed and care for us.  They just want to get rid of us.  The lucky ones get sent to a shelter for a chance to get adopted.   Some kennels work with adoption groups to help move the dogs from racing to the social world.  Others are more bloodthirsty and are only interested in profits and losses.  Dogs from those kennels are the unlucky ones.  The unlucky ones get killed.  For every dog that gets adopted, there is at least one dog that is killed.  They aren't just put to sleep in a kind and loving way, like an old, sick dog would be.  They are brutally killed.  Butchered. Discarded.  Cheaply.  Without care.  Or responsibility.

Greyhounds that are bred for racing all have tattoos.  One on each ear.  On our left ear is the number that logs our birth.  All my brothers and sisters from that same little have the same number marked on our left ear.  The right ear tattoo contains the date of my birth and what order I was tattooed.  Every dog has a distinct tattoo which is registered and can be traced.  That's good if we're lost.  It's also bad if someone wants to discard us.  So many dogs who are left to starve have their ears cut off, so they can't be traced.    Dogs are often left to starve in cages until they die.  Then they are put out with the trash.  They sometimes cut our ears off then, but sometimes, they just cut off the head.  And leave the headless bodies in the trash.

Now I am sad.  So I can't write anymore.  But I will leave you with these thoughts.

Please don't support the racing of dogs.  Please do everything you can to stop the treatment of animals as money making possessions. Please stop the spread of greed and animal abuse for profit.   Help all dogs have a healthy and happy life.  Help us stop the needless breeding of dogs that will just end up being killed because they are not one of the three out of the eight.

  
Keep your tail up and wagging!

-Katie

Links to Sites on the Web

Greyhound Racing: Misery, Brutality, and Death
http://www.animalcrueltyworldwide.com/Greyhound-Racing/Greyhound-Racing.html

Greyhound Racing-You Bet They Die
Death in the Fast Lane
http://www.vegaplanet.org/?p=476

Greyhounds:  Racing to their Deaths

http://www.animallaw.info/articles/arus32stetlr433.htm

Very Bad Pictures
Don't look at these if you have a weak stomach, please.

http://anydifference.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/greyhound2.47210023_std.jpg

http://www.tonglen.oceandrop.org/images1/barbaricW.jpeg

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:NTcXP6oG3JBVnM:http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e221/brasscatt2/dograce16.jpg&t=1

http://www.gracieland.org/PJ/lab.gif

http://www.animaladvocate.net/legacy/greyhounds_spain.jpg

That's enough.  I think you get the picture.

Out of the Box

It's Post Time

Hi everyone.  I want to welcome you to my new blog.

I had so much fun writing stories for my Papa's blog that I wanted to try this myself.  My family is very supportive of my blogging and always encourage me to do the very best I can.

I think that I will blog about my wonderful life and all that I experience at home.  I am so lucky to be here with a family that loves me and accepts me for who I am.  Papa is going to give me the two stories I wrote on his blog so I can post them here.  So I am sorry that the next two posts will be stuff you might have already read.  But I did want to keep all my stories together.  That's the way I like it.


But I wasn't always this comfortable and this loved.  When I was just a puppy, things were different.   I used to live in a big building with lots of other greyhounds.  There were people there who used to treat us OK, but not great.  We got lots of food and water, whenever we needed it.  But there wasn't much love and tummy rubs.  We were made to race each other.  We had to chase this stuffed rabbit around a track.  Now I love to run, I really do.  It's one of my favorite things to do.  But I didn't like to chase after the rabbit.  It was stupid.  And I didn't like the way the people yelled at us if we didn't win the race.  It seemed a little silly.  I mean there were 8 of us in the race and we were all chasing just one rabbit.  We couldn't even catch the rabbit.  We didn't even have to.  All we had to do was cross the finish line first.  Well that didn't seem like fun to me.  Only 1 out of the 8 could cross the finish line first.  The odds weren't fair.  Plus, we were supposed to push and shove other dogs out of the way.  I didn't think that was such a very good idea.  I mean, have you ever been running very fast, as fast as you could, and tried to push someone out of the way?  It's hard.  Plus, if you don't do it just right, you could fall or trip over one of the other dogs that were running fast, too.  I didn't want to trip and hurt myself or any of the other dogs.  I love to run, but I didn't want to hurt anyone.  So I wouldn't do it.  I just ran fast, but didn't push my way to the front.  


After not even one year, the people decided that I wasn't fast enough to be a racer.  And here is where I got very lucky.  Some people who own racing dogs just do very mean things to their dogs if they don't win races.  They stare them, or beat them, or even worse.  It's very bad.  They do very mean things to these dogs.  But some people give the dogs to other people to try to find them homes.  And that's what happened to me.  That's how I got here.  That's why I was lucky.
Many other dogs, just don't make it. They die because nobody loves them and they can't find anybody to love them.


It's true.  I was very lucky.  I went to two shelters before I met my daddy and papa.  And they took me and loved me.And so here I am, to tell you all about it.  I hope that you'll enjoy reading my stories and that you will leave me comments in the box below. 

I am working on trying to install a gadget that will allow you to give me treats.  But I can't find one.  So you'll have to hold onto the cookies until I find a way for you to get them to me.



Bye for now.
Keep your tail up and wagging!
-Katie

Fill my eyes... with that doggie vision

It's Post Time

This was the second post I did on my Papa's blog. It was about how dogs can see in color, not in black and white as some people think.

From a Dog's Eye View

I just wanted to let everyone know that I can see in color.  I know it was previously believed that dogs only saw in black and white, but research done in the 1990s found rods and cones in the retina of dogs.  They had to cut up doggie eyes to find out, but it was for medical research and those dogs donated their bodies to science after all.  So I guess I am OK with it.

We don't see as much color as our humans do.  Daddy and Papa can see many more colors and much more vibrancy in those colors.  Human eyes have three color receptor cells, called cone cells.  They come in three varieties, red/yellow, green, and blue/violet.  Dogs have only two types of cones, blue and yellow.  My color vision is comparable to a red/green color blind human.  I can't tell the difference between yellows, reds and greens, but do see blues and violets well enough.  Plus, I can distinguish many more shades of gray than humans and I can also see at much lower light levels.  That means I can see much better than my parents at night.  I also have a broader field of view,  90 degrees more than the 180 degree field that my parents have.  So in many ways, my vision is better than that of my human parents.

So anyway, if you thought I might have had a hard time seeing in color, don't worry about it.  It might be hard for me to see some colors, but I can distinguish between some, so my world isn't all grays!
But around the holidays, it isn't as festive for me, with all the red and green decorations, as it is for some people.  But that's OK by me, because I have a very happy home and I can sleep on the couch whenever I want to. 

Well, that's all I wanted to say to everyone.  Oh yeah, Papa told me to wish everyone a Happy Labor Day, while I was here.  So Happy Labor Day, everyone.
What's Labor Day anyway?  Is that some kind of festival for Labrador retrievers?  What's so special about them?

My vision spectrum as compared to the human spectrum

.

As you can see, I can distinguish more variations in the blue/violet end of the spectrum than I can in the red/green end.  Everything over there looks kind of yellow to me.  It's because my retinas only have yellow and blue cone cells to detect colors.

Here are some photographs comparing my vision to yours.  What I see is on the right.  They both look the same to me, but you should see a difference.

In this one, what I see is on the bottom.

Explore to Learn More

Dog Facts
http://www.dogfacts.org/sight-dog-facts.htm

Dog vision on Pawsitive Training
http://www.pawsitive.org/articles/dog_vision.asp

Color Vision: One of Nature's Wonders
http://www.diycalculator.com/sp-cvision.shtml

Color Blindness on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness

Can Dogs see Colors?  from Canine Corner of Psychology Today
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/200810/can-dogs-see-colors

Keep your tail up and wagging!

-Katie

5 on the 5th

It's Post Time

This is a post I orginally did on my Papa's blog on September 5th.

Walking with my family

Hi, I'm Katie and my Papa asked me to find five blue things on my walk today, and take pictures of them.  So I am going to tell you all about our walk and the blue things I found.  I hope that you find my pictures interesting and you like them.  I worked really hard to find things you would like to see and to take good pictures of them.

The very first thing I noticed when we were leaving was that Papa has a blue car.  This is our blue car in the driveway as we left for the walk.

Then we passed a blue butterfly that was so pretty, but I couldn't get the picture in time.  It was too sunny and the butterfly flew away.  We also passed a blue swimming pool and a blue cover over some stuff, but I didn't take the picture because my brother was pulling and Daddy was yelling at him.

Then we passed our friend's house.  She has some smelly red fruits in a blue pot.  I think the pot is pretty.

Then I saw a blue metal thing on the ground.  I don't know what it is, but the humans throw them all over the place.  Yuck!  I chewed one once and it wasn't very tasty.

Then we took the long way and crossed the place where all the cars go by really fast.  Some of them stop for us, but sometimes they don't stop for us.  Papa gets angry because he says they are supposed to stop for people in crosswalks, whatever they are.

After the cars, I saw a small animal that had a ball on its nose.  The ball had all kinds of colors, but I noticed it did have a blue stripe.  This picture was hard to get because the ball was spinning in the wind on the animal's nose.  That looks like fun.  I want to try that.

We walked for a long time before we saw anything blue.  I was starting to get disappointed, but then I noticed that my brother has a blue leash and Daddy has a blue thing around his wrist.

After that we got home and I didn't see any more blue things.  If I didn't notice my brother's leash, I would have been sad that I didn't take a picture of the blue swimming pool.  But it all worked out.

Now, I am going into the house and lay in front of the fan to cool off.

Walking is hard work.

Keep your tail up and wagging!
-Katie