Fourteen years ago today I adopted my first Greyhound, John. Since \nthat day, Greyhounds--and then Borzoi and Galgos and the other \nSighthound breeds--have become an inextricable part of my life. For \nthose of us who love Sighthounds, it is a love that winds its way \nthrough every corner of our hearts. It is a love that binds us to them, \nand to each other. The Greyhound community in particular and the greater\n Sighthound community in general is extraordinary for the closeness of \nour ties throughout North America and the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\n passage of legislation in Florida this past November to end racing by \nthe end of next year has accelerated the decline of Greyhound racing in \nthis country. Initially the adoption community prepared for a large wave\n of retirees. Here at SHUG we geared up to assist in vetting dogs both \nfor our own adoption program and for other groups as well. That wave has\n not materialized. There are not thousands--or hundreds, or even \ndozens--of Greyhounds in need. There are many, many groups ready to take\n dogs--and those dogs are not yet ready to retire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\n men and women who make up the racing community in this country have \nwatched the repeated efforts to shut down racing in Florida for decades.\n Every year fewer and fewer puppies have been born. Yes, there are fewer\n tracks running today than there were a year ago. There are also fewer \ndogs racing. If anything, the number of dogs has fallen faster than the \nnumber of slots for them to race. In some places tracks are running with\n fewer dogs in every race. Soon the average age of active racers may \nstart to go up. We saw this at the track in Macau as well. Training \npuppies is a long, expensive process. When your track's days are \nnumbered, it makes far more sense economically to keep dogs on the track\n than it does to train puppies to run. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Right\n now, the Greyhounds we're seeing coming into rescue are primarily those\n who cannot race--retired broods, untrained pups, and the injured. And \nthe numbers of the first two groups are being depleted quickly. Our wave\n has turned into a trickle. The reality right now is that there are \nlimited Greyhounds available for adoption and many groups have waiting \nlists. The industry has regulated itself and this is our new normal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\n 2018 only 20 of the 109 dogs SHUG placed were retired racing \nGreyhounds. In December we were expecting that number to skyrocket for \n2019. Now it looks like that will not be the case. Since tracks began \nclosing we have only received 5 racing Greyhounds. Next week we're \nscheduled to receive 10. Our partners at the tracks and kennels and \nfarms where Greyhounds are raised know that we, and many other adoption \ngroups across the country, are here and prepared to assist any dogs who \nare ready for their retirement. We will always make room for a Greyhound\n in need. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the meantime, SHUG is gearing\n up to take on two flights of Spaniards in the upcoming weeks. 6 dogs \nmissed their January flight because of transportation issues in Spain \nand they will be arriving soon, along with some of their friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What\n we do is not easy. There are challenges and those challenges change and\n evolve. We will change and evolve with them. No matter what, we will \nnot give up. When there are no Greyhounds who need our help, we will \nhelp Galgos. We will help Borzoi and lurchers and Salukis. We have a \ncommitment to Sighthounds, no matter where they're from or whether their\n ears are pointy or silky or fuzzy. We are united in our commitment to \nsee every Sighthound on a couch of their own. That commitment is the \nbasis of our union. And the state of our union is strong. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fourteen years ago today I adopted my first Greyhound, John. Since that day, Greyhounds--and then Borzoi and Galgos and the other Sighthound breeds--have become an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[35,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-the-director","category-greyhounds"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sighthoundunderground.com\/http\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/john1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p52ryM-1TX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sighthoundunderground.com\/http\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7313"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sighthoundunderground.com\/http\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sighthoundunderground.com\/http\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sighthoundunderground.com\/http\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sighthoundunderground.com\/http\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sighthoundunderground.com\/http\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7315,"href":"https:\/\/sighthoundunderground.com\/http\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7313\/revisions\/7315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sighthoundunderground.com\/http\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sighthoundunderground.com\/http\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sighthoundunderground.com\/http\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sighthoundunderground.com\/http\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}