Top Ten Reasons to Adopt a Retired Racing Greyhound

10. They truly know the meaning of retirement.
9. People will stare at your dog instead of at you.
8. They can curl up to the size of a ball if they need to.
7. They can expand to the size of the whole bed if they want to.
6. They don’t bark, keeping your neighborhood safe for burglars.
5. You can play their ribs like an air guitar.
4. They are the only dogs that know how to really smile.
3. You can dress them up as a reindeer for Christmas.
2. They are never confused with poodles.
1. A Greyhound in flight is the most amazing sight you’ll ever hope to see in your own back yard.

From the Adopt-A-Greyhound.Org website.

One of the first things anyone who meets me ever finds out is that I have three retired racing greyhounds. That I belong to local and international rescue groups, and am the US bank account holder for a group in the UK. That I will never own another breed, with the exception of maybe an afghan or pharoah hound… but even that’s less likely than my having all retired racers.

I’ve actually had four… we lost Trinity in April ‘05 to a large tumor on his spleen that burst during the very surgery that was supposed to remove it. I miss him more every day, and he was one of those animals I just felt a true soul-to-soul connection with. I’m typically like that with animals in general, but contrary to popular belief, I have met a dog or two I wasn’t so fond of… LOL!

Greyhounds are very special animals. They spend their early lives training to race… that’s all they know, really. Some are treated very well by their trainers and kennel owners, yet others are not treated so well. Some are fed very healthy diets, others are fed from blue barrels labled “SHF” which stands for “Slaughter House Floor”. Some have roomy crates, others are small and stacked two-high. While it’d be nice to think that the former of these sentences is the norm, sad to say it’s actually the latter.

I’ve known dogs to be left for dead by kennel owners who walk off the job. I’ve known dogs who come to us with puncture wounds from being hit with sticks with nails in them. I’ve known dogs that won’t eat if you’re standing within 10 feet of them out of fear that you’re going to steal the food away.

How anyone in the world can look at any animal and abuse it is beyond me… but moreso - how anyone can meet a greyhound and not fall in love just doesn’t make sense.

Popularity: 3% [?]