Greyhound Racing in Massachusetts

I'm really excited that voting day is just a few weeks away, not because of the presidential race, but because of a question that has finally- after years of initiatives and public outcry- gotten onto our Massachusetts ballot. I'm talking about Question 3 which is the vote to forever ban Greyhound Dog Racing in this state. Needless to say, my vote will be to end this horrible "sport" once and for all.

It isn't the actual racing part which is the problem as I would think that greyhounds, who can and do love to run fast, especially while chasing small game, would truly enjoy a fast lap around the track chasing the "rabbit." No, it's everything else associated with the dog racing industry that sucks: the abuse of those dogs who don't perform adequately and eventually of even those who have been big winners, the neglect of injuries sustained when the dogs are worked to exhaustion and never properly vetted, and the dumping or abandonment of unwanted and emotionally and physically broken dogs once they are no longer able to win, win, win no matter what. The fact that these dogs are so horribly treated and spend their miserable lives, twenty hours a day in filthy cages that aren't even big enough to stand up in, is simply deplorable. And the fact that dogs who have died and have been confiscated by the state and autopsied have been found to be riddled with cocaine among other performance enhancing drugs and stimulants is also reprehensible.

Here in Massachusetts, we have listened to those in the industry whine endlessly for the last five or six years while various animal rights groups have attempted to get this question on the ballot about how banning dog racing will end their livelihood, will take millions of dollars in revenue from the state and leave thousands without employment. And to this I say: tough shit. Find a career that doesn't exploit and abuse animals, go to the casinos in Connecticut if you insist on gambling away your cash and get a job in another industry that allows you to maintain some semblance of integrity, if you even had any to begin with. And to those racing dog owners who say all these dogs are well-cared for, clearly you have never been to the greyhound shelters where your offal is being rehabilitated and hopefully eventually adopted into loving homes. Well-cared for dogs neither look nor act like your poor greyhounds do that are now living in these shelters. Have you never seen terror or pain in an animal's eyes? Can you not see a grossly misshapen limb that was never set properly after a break? Have you ever even looked at the dogs you race? You are all liars desperate to keep this industry alive and you deserve to suffer too and since money is clearly more important to you than the dogs in your kennels, I would think that no longer being able to profit from them in any way is the perfect form of suffering. And may all the inhuman humans who benefited in any way from this industry, from the folks who knowingly bred these dogs solely to race them until they were unable to run another step, and the folks who did the actual training and racing of them and then beat them when they didn't live up to expectations and then abandoned them with heart conditions and broken legs and left them to suffer and die, and those folks who took home a paycheck from working at a track and watched all this happen while doing nothing to put a stop to it, and lastly even those people who bet on these poor dogs and thus perpetuated this heinous industry, may you all burn in hell. Or better still, may you all be forced to endure what these dogs have endured for nearly a century here without hope and when you are no longer useful to those who would exploit you, may you die a lonely, cold and painful death with no one to love, nurture and heal you after you have been beaten down to nothing. Harsh words, maybe, but no harsher than the behavior of so many in this state throughout the years.

I hope to god that the people of this state are smart enough to see the dog racing industry for what it is: a monstrous and terrifying money-making machine that glorifies the "sport" of dog racing while it is in fact little more than a business that consistently and relentlessly tortures one of the most beautiful and graceful dogs on this planet. It is right up there with dog fighting and must be forever banned. Now.

VOTE YES ON QUESTION 3. The dogs need you to end their suffering.


And a big thanks to dooziedog.com for the use of their lovely photo of greyhounds running very fast. I very much appreciate it.