Friday Hound Blogging

OK look. You green tea drinking, Prius driving, tie dyed, peace and love, macrame making animal rights wackos have been on the overlords since forever about how they treat the units...er...dogs. Well, enough is enough. It's time for the overlords to step up and show their true colors. It's time to put all this "we don't care about the inventory...er...dogs" to bed once and for all.

Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack officials plan to invest more than $250,000 to completely renovate its greyhound race course.

Eh? How you like us now puppy huggers? Let's see you put that in your organic compost maker and smoke it. Two Hundred and fifty THOUSAND dollars. That's like...well...a lot of money. You know how many trailer payments we could make with that? How much dental work that would buy? Well never mind because it's all for the product...er...dogs. So, now that you see how much we loves us our meal ticket...er...dogs, why don't you go bother the Japanese about whale hunting or something? Nothing more to see here.

Greyhound injuries at Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack remained high in October, despite a large-scale construction project aimed at improving safety for the dogs. In fact, records filed with the West Virginia Racing Commission show injuries actually increased in the weeks immediately following the track renovations.

See? It's like we told you. State of the art stuff. Nothing is too good for...umm...what?

Records at the time showed that the average number of injuries jumped from 19 per month in 2009 to more than 27 per month during the first seven months of this year.

 Crap. Knew we shouldn't have let the contract to Uncle Cletus just because he was the only one who knew how to drive a bulldozer. Wait a minute. Wait just a gul darn minute. We know what you're doing. You're counting little bumps and bruises as injuries ain't you? You're trying to fake us out with some a that fancy pants statistical calculatory mumbo jumbo ain't you? You think we don't know math and stuff, don't you? We see your little trick.

From Sept. 18 through the end of October, there were 41 reported injuries, according to the records. At least 22 of those injuries involved broken legs, the records show. Four dogs had injuries so severe that they had to be euthanized. Sixteen injuries occurred in the last two weeks of September. The other 25 occurred in October.

 Oh sure, it sounds bad when you say it like that, but we just bet you never tried to contact Jim Simms, president and general manager of the track for his side of the story did you? Huh?

Repeated phone calls to Simms' office were not returned.

Ha! We thought so. Wait...um...well Mr. Simms is a busy man. You think organizing and managing animal exploitation is easy? Erm...we mean overseeing the exciting sport of greyhound racing. Besides, you should probably talk to  the track's manager of gaming operations or marketing director. They're going to be more familiar with day to day stock losses...um...we mean track conditions.

Phone calls to the track's manager of gaming operations and marketing director also were not returned.

 OK, somebody find out if the phone bill got paid this month. Wait. We know. Let's talk to the track Vet. Now there's someone who really knows what's going on.

Lori Bohenko is the state veterinarian at the Wheeling track. She said the uptick in injuries in October and late September was expected, but that the figures for November show promise that injuries are now on the decline. Bohenko, who has extensive experience treating both greyhounds and racing horses, said the dogs faced a "period of adaptation," after the new track was installed.

Well, there you go then. See, it's all the dogs' fault. Case closed.

Yeah. If only the dogs would be more careful. Hey Tipsy. Be more careful, will you?

Tipsy is laid back and easy going. He also likes to play and has a lot of energy for a senior dog. He is friendly and affectionate. He will approach to have his ears scratched. He smiles when it is supper time. Tipsy would do well in a working family home with older, well-mannered children, 10 and up. He is good with other dogs of all sizes 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.

Eds Note: The story linked to in the first paragraph listed the cost of renovations at $250,000, but the story about the increase in injuries listed the cost at $400,000 proving once again that math is not the overlords' friend. We went with the $250,000 because that came from the story we linked to, and really, because it was probably only $37.50 anyway.