Friday Hound Blogging

A while back, as a public service--and yes we are permitted to use that phrase as a descriptor for this blog without violating any local, state or federal statutes despite what you might have heard--as a public service we brought you a handy dandy overlordspeak decoder guide because admitting that you kill and injure innocent animals for fun and profit  trailer payments is not a position that is likely to endear you to people in full possession of all their faculties and thus greyhound racing aficionados losers have to couch their cruelty sport in terms more acceptable to those of us with souls.

Well, while an ovrlordspeak decoder guide may be helpful for day-to-day overlord obfuscation there are times when the best translator of overlordspeak in one of the overlords themselves. For example, when overlord A says:

Greyhound racing is popular all over the world.

We consult our decoder guide and find it is not generally advisable to take him at face value and in fact we may even assume he is...how to say this politely...perhaps  putting a bit of a positive spin on the situation as it were. However when overlord B says:

Our attendances have been absolutely hammered. Twenty years ago there were 4 million race goers attending our tracks. This changed very little up until year 2000 and now you can see [points to slide show] over the last 3 years as the recession has started to take a chunk out of everything, in the high street, and retail, our attendances have plummeted quite dramatically – between 2008 and 2009 a 13% decline in attendances. The business itself has changed considerably when the promoters try and bring people in through the gates they have been offering more and more cut-throat packages, cut-throat prices, virtually giving it away, so not only are there fewer tracks there are a lot fewer people coming through the turnstiles."

 Whoa. Just Whoa. Here's an overlord who's cold bringing it. Dude's name is Gordon Bissett and we'll just let him translate for you. Hey Mr. Bissett, what do you say when you hear this:

Persons who own a racing or breeding greyhound must register with the NGA. They must agree to accept full responsibility for their greyhound's welfare at all times, or face severe consequences, including possible expulsion from the association. Such expulsion effectively means permanent banishment from participation in greyhound racing throughout the U.S.

"Accept full responsibility for their greyhound's welfare at all times," Mr. Bissett. Not too many ways to spin that, huh?

"Our concern was that the number of tracks declined, that means the numbers of breeding declined. So far, in the UK that isn’t the case. What has happened is that greyhounds have become a lot cheaper – you’ve heard of ‘buy one get one free’, well we have that with the dogs"

"Buy one get one free." Ha Ha. That's funny. More catchy than "Accept full responsibility for their greyhound's welfare at all times" we have to say. More accurate too, but what about oversight Mr. Bissett? Here's what one of your fellow overlords says:

In a strictly regulated, state-run gaming enterprise like greyhound racing, it is simply unreasonable to think that the same people who spend hundreds of thousands, and even millions of dollars on the breeding, raising and acquisition of Racing Greyhounds, would deliberately or ignorantly subject them to the mythological abuses, or risks, such as those alleged in the literature and in the press releases of politically motivated hate-groups like Grey2K.

See? Regulation keeps everything on the up and up, right Mr. Bissett?

One of the most concerning aspects of Mr Bissett’s ‘Viewpoint’ is that of animal welfare laws. Laws he says are "daft..." Mr Bissett’s indifference to animal welfare laws doesn’t stop there and he continues to say "The bigger issue for us is the Welfare of Racing Greyhound regulations that comes into effect on April 6th this year and we trialled, and trialled the information of about ten pages of daft legislation. Things like ‘you have to be able to observe the greyhound when it’s in a racing kennel’. The integrity of the kennel has been destroyed as a result of that. There are a whole load of things. You know – the vet room has to have about 20 different conditions attached to it!!

Yeesh, Mr. Bissett, now we're all confused. We got one story the overlords are telling the public and then you come along and say pretty much the opposite of what they're telling us. Which shall we believe?

"So, in summary, we’ve got a similar industry to yourselves, a falling number of greyhound tracks, we have falling attendance, we have a rapidly declining tote turnover...We have a problem with our media, we have a problem with our PR, we have a problem with our image...

Yeah. Well, being heartless liars will do that to an image, huh Zero?

Zero is very curious and likes to explore his surroundings. He follows his foster family around the house and loves to follow his canine siblings as well. He is very energetic, happy, puppy-like and playful. He can be a bit vocal when left alone which the foster family is working on. He goes for short daily walks to build up strength in his legs and to learn how to behave on leash. When he gets excited he may ‘chitter’ with his teeth. He loves to be brushed and loved on. Zero would do well with a family home more often but still may transition to be fine while alone. Older well-mannered children would be best since he can be a bit clumsy and knock over smaller children. He is good with other dogs and would probably be fine as an only dog. For more information about this dog, and other rescued racing greyhounds looking for homes, go here. If you don't know about the plight of racing greyhounds go here.