Running Off the Track: 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.