The race is over. It's time to go home.
What do you do with 900 greyhounds that need homes?
We’ll get to see over the next few weeks as The Woodlands dog track closes down. The closing will put more than 200 people out of work, and leave hundreds of dogs looking for a new home.
Opponents of greyhound racing are happy that the track is closing, but worry that not all the dogs will find their way to new homes happily and safely. They’re right to worry.
The best racers will probably wind up racing at other tracks across the country. Some of them will be sent home to their owners where, honestly, no one can deny that some of them will be put to sleep. The luckiest of the dogs will find their way to greyhound adoption groups that will work like hell to find them families willing to take them.
But it won’t be easy. Greyhound adoption groups across the country already have more dogs than they can place. The Woodlands closing will shove hundreds of dogs into an already clogged system.
When I was talking to one of the greyhound advocates about the track, she asked if I would be interested in taking one of the dogs. I felt like a big wienie when I told her that I already had a dog. I felt more shame when she told me that she had adopted six greyhounds of her own and just spent more than $600 on a vet bill for one of them.
I just kept thinking that I’m probably too lazy to own a greyhound that’s spent a couple of years zooming around a race track. But every adoption person I’ve talked to swears that greyhounds, in reality, are just big couch potatoes. News to me.
Maybe, after all, I have more in common with these leggy beauties than I thought. (The couch potato thing, not the legginess.)
Maybe, for the sake of these dogs, 900 other people will feel the same way, too.
glindagirl