Closed Tracks Displace Greyhounds

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‘45-mph couch potatoes’ need homes

Lisa Wogan | January 16, 2010

Rustic Sunshine is one of the many beautiful, calm, gentle and loving Greyhounds looking for a couch to call home.

There’s good news for Greyhounds. The number of dog tracks in the U.S. has dropped from 50 in the 1990s to 23 in eight states today—thanks the economic pressures and the public’s increasing awareness of the inhumane treatment of racing Greyhounds. But the decrease in Greyhound racing has created a short-term challenge: a surge in the number of homeless dogs. Greyhound Friends of New Jersey recently mounted a major effort to find homes for a large influx of ex-racing dogs, in this case, displaced by Massachusetts’s 2008 ban on live-dog racing and two track closures. To learn about adoption and fostering opportunities or to support these efforts, visit www.greyhoundfriendsnj.org.

Elsewhere efforts to shut down racing continue, spearheaded, since 2001, by GREY2K USA. Recently, Humane Society Legislative Fund’s president, Michael Markarian, highlighted GREY2K’s work on this all-too-often low-priority issue, citing steps forward in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and backward in Rhode Island.

Are you living in a state that just doesn’t get it? States with active dog racing tracks include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Texas and West Virginia. Might be time to tell your representatives how you feel about this cruel “sport.”

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Photo courtesy of Greyhound Friends of New Jersey.

Comments

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Submitted by Anonymous on January 31, 2010.

Rustic sunshine? Really?

Submitted by RW on January 26, 2010.

Yes, what is AR stance? Appreciating the beauty of dogs and our relationship cannot happen without having an opinion about humane treatment of animals. Oh, maybe animal racing? Hmmm. Is there a type of animal racing that's responsible?

Submitted by Carolyn on January 25, 2010.

@ Anonymous - I guess I don't know what an "AR stance" is. So I don't know how this post reflects an "AR stance." Personally, I found this an informative newsworthy post.

Submitted by Anonymous on January 25, 2010.

Dear Anonymous,
Please define what you mean by "sheer love of dogs"--it seems to me that for most people in the US, to have respect for the well-being of dogs is a "sheer love of dogs". That means, we don't keep dogs to make money. When the profit motive is involved, animal welfare is ALWAYS compromised at human convenience. Besides, BARK Mag is only responding to the predominant view on these things these days. The Mag also argues against puppy mills, no? Haven't we come along far enough in history that we don't have to rely on caged animals to make a living? Humans are better than that.
- ex Racer

Submitted by Anonymous on January 24, 2010.

I had had a subscription to your magazine for years and ended it when you began to take this kind of AR stance and lost your focus on the sheer love of dogs. It has been sad to see you swallow this kind to propaganda whole.