Yesterday morning, the local TV station played a segment about the Albuquerque Animal shelter. Once again, they are nearly at capacity and it can only get worse as spring arrives and more puppies are born. (Spay/neuter your animals, dammit!)
The same day, I came across this threat from the Iowa Greyhound Association, the Midwest’s favorite purveyor of brainless entertainment at the expense of greyhounds’ blood and bones. It’s a sad ploy that attempts to generate a sense of entitlement in greyhound aficionados; the false notion that not only are you entitled to a purebred dog, you should get it cheap.
Look at your pet. Now look ahead to the future and your current pet is gone. You want another greyhound. But all there are to choose from are AKC registered greyhounds and they are like $2,000 for a puppy! They still have some racing in Ireland and Australia, but whoa … JetPets is expensive.
If you aren’t hauling your jaw off the ground, then let me explain why that should be your reaction.
First, the author of this dire warning must have flunked high school economics (and apparently English as well, given the number of punctuation errors in his scree).
Despite the glut of homeless pets available, many people are still willingly to shell out a small fortune for a purebred animal. Two thousand is serious cash to some, but others won’t bat an eye at the price. When my greyhound attends the local rescue reunion, he arrives in a ten-year-old Korean econo-box with faulty electronics. But many of the other attendees ride in style in expensive SUVs; many live in the posher parts of Albuquerque. Certainly a percentage of those people, having fallen in love with the breed, would happily pony up the scratch for a purebred puppy.
If anything, the greyhound racing industry’s attempt at good PR–the adopting out of retired racers–is what will fuel the demand. The side effect of putting ex-racers into homes was that those outside the industry realized that greyhounds aren’t mindless running machines, but rather, gentle, loving family pets. (Day-to-day interaction with a greyhound also makes it abundantly clear that the breed, despite its appearance, is too fragile for the rigors of racing.)
In the absence of retired racing greyhounds, fans of the breed can and will go elsewhere, and existing breeders of racing greyhounds will be all too happy to churn out puppies for the pet trade. This is not a good thing, but nonetheless an inevitable result of demand creating a supply. Or in this case, the supplier “retooling” their product for a different market. Like all purebreds, a certain percentage of those pet puppies will end up in shelters or with rescue groups, so the need for greyhound rescue won’t go away either.
The writer then ineptly tries to appeal to his audience’s need for tribe, the need to belong to Team Greyhound.
You also loved to buy your heart hound collars for the holidays, a nice bed and a comfy coat. You loved buying all things greyhound.
Adopters who are racing apologists may be too dim to notice, but the funny thing is that this pitiful plea is dripping with condescension. The writer’s contempt for adopters oozes between the lines– “You idiots with your cutesy greyhound crap.” Here’s the deal, kiddies. The folks in the greyhound racing industry aren’t your friends. You’re just useful tools in their money-making machine.
I love greyhounds and four have graced my life. There’s also a very soft squishy spot in my heart for dachshunds, pugs, and golden retrievers. But my life has also been enriched by a motley parade of mutts, most notably my little angel, a nine pound mixed-breed terrier.
For more than seventeen years, my little angel was the sum and total of my universe, a being of light and joy who loved everyone and everything she met. She taught three greyhounds how to be “just dogs.” Tasked with trying to teach me a lessons in compassion and love, this wonderful little mutt was my best friend, my constant companion, and my surrogate child. I can’t write this without crying.
My mother describes her best: “She tread lightly on the world.”
My point? A great dog isn’t a function of her breed. A real dog lover knows that love comes in all canine shapes and sizes. (Sometimes it’s even shaped like a cat, or a ferret, or….) An ugly mutt with a scarred face and a missing ear will love you just as much as an elegant greyhound.
You CANNOT call yourself a dog lover while supporting a cruel industry like greyhound racing just so you can get a “cheap” purebred. You CANNOT call yourself an animal lover while supporting an industry that unnecessarily adds to the huge surplus of unwanted animals. (Well, you can call yourself the Queen of Persia, but that won’t make it so.)
On some sad day in the future, my greyhound will go to the rainbow bridge to meet my angel and the other greyhounds that have filled my home with love. I will not disgrace his memory or those who went before him by demanding that more greyhounds suffer so that I can have a “replacement.”
No one is entitled to a cheap purebred dog.
The industry’s argument only makes sense if you view the greyhound as only valuable while racing and earning a profit. The claim that greyhounds will no longer be bred without racing proves that perspective. If people in the industry truly valued these great animals, they would continue to breed them, continue to monitor the bloodlines, etc. What they mean to say is, “If we can’t race them, we don’t see any value in the greyhound.” Nauseating.
Repeated for truth.
The sad fact is that there’s probably much more money in the pet trade than racing anyway, but these morons are too shortsighted to see it. (Not that I condone breeding. There are already too many animals filling shelters.)