I have my PVR set to record this so I haven’t seen it yet, but I thought I’d post that Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (on HBO) is doing a story about Greyhound Racing.
Despite the lack of a widespread fan base, and in the face of constant protests by animal rights groups, greyhound racing is a healthy industry in the U.S., with millions of dollars wagered each year at tracks in 15 states. Breeders in search of champion-caliber dogs produce thousands of greyhounds each year, a small percentage of which are deemed worthy of high-stakes races. When a dog is no longer profitable, there are few options for its future. Some find a home through adoption, but those who go unclaimed are destroyed. With the supply of dogs being bred far outweighing the demand, an alarming numbers of dogs are put down each year. Correspondent Bernard Goldberg, in collaboration with Sports Illustrated, takes a probing look at the world of greyhound racing.
Being someone who adopted a Greyhound that wasn’t cut for the track, I can kind of go both ways on the whole issue. I got a great dog for a very nominal fee to a non-profit organization which is fully registered with the AKC as well as the National Greyhound Association as a purebred. On the flip side they kill almost 20,000 Greyhounds a year which are unfit to race for whatever reason, and even the ones you adopt have been abused. Luckily Audrey only has a couple of abuse type ticks, and I think they are more related to her being picked on by bigger dogs (she’s a runt) rather than humans abusing her.
On a somewhat related note, my tent crate from JB Pet came in today, and it’s amazing! I’m taking Audrey with me on a 5-6 hour trip to my parents place with me tomorrow, and I needed a kennel to take with me that was not a pain in the ass to deal with. This this is great– I could carry it with one finger if I wanted to, it folds up into something very small, and the assembly takes maybe a minute to basically support it with 4 rods. Greyhounds are kennel trained, and they are a needed part of keeping them happy and out of trouble. After lugging her 60-70 lb pound kennel around the last time I went out of town (and I tore up some shit in my old car in the process), this thing is just amazing!
Hi there. Just came across your blog looking for greyhound info and I just want to clarify a few things you have mentioned. I’m an adoption rep for a greyhound rescue group and work closely with tracks, owners & trainers in placing their dogs. While the HBO show was not far off in showing what can happen to those dogs that are just too slow there there are also many track, owners & trainers who do not want to see that happen and work hard to prevent it. The 20k number you quoted is a bit high and even the GPL only estimates about 15k, while the pro-racing groups claim about 4k. No one knows the numbers for sure because there is no accurate accounting, so really its all a guessing game. In regard to ‘abuse type ticks’ many of those marks and scars just come from being a puppy on a breeding farm, marks from other muzzles in the turnouts or even racing scars from muzzles, feet or even the railing. Yeah there are some evil people in the business that do abuse the dogs but that is definately not the norm. Unfortunately the business is very cut throat and reporting someone like that could get you black balled. Although I see the bad people getting reported more and more as time goes on.
Well I could talk greyhounds for hours, but I’ll stop here before I use up all your bandwidth. LOL
But I do have to say that Audrey is one cute pupper!
Do you still have this recording of the piece on Greyhound racing?