Friday Tucson Bashing

Man. When the first line of the article is "[t]he reports splash across my screen like a contagion: injury after injury at Tucson Greyhound Park, most of them due to outright neglect," you know it's going to be a bad day for Tommy "The dogs come first" Taylor.

But the conditions that resulted in no fewer than 68 damaged racing dogs over a two-month period—from broken equipment to shoddy track maintenance—led to nothing more than harsh words from the Arizona Department of Racing.

Oh. Looks like old Tommy gets a pass this week. Probably just as well what with the death threats and all. Now for those of you playing along at home, the Arizona Department of Racing is the body that is supposed to oversee the commercialized animal cruelty industry in the state and make sure everything is on the up and up. The representative responsible for operations at Death Camp for Greyhounds...erm...Tucson Greyhound Park is friend of the blog Rory Goree, who comes to this position drawing on his experience as United Greyhound Racing's Director of Welfare and Advocacy, during which time 140 greyhound disappeared from Tucson Greyhound Park never to be seen again, the cruelty scandal first broke, the track had to shut down for two weeks because of an outbreak of a "mysterious respiratory disease, and eight dogs died from heat stroke while being transported.

So, to recap: If we were greyhounds and we were told Mr. Goree has our backs, that would not be a comforting thought, but let's give the Department a chance and see how they are responding to the latest incidence of "putting the dogs first."

The records are scathing. "Tucson Greyhound Park needs to do a lot better job maintaining their equipment and fix broken equipment immediately," says one ADOR inspector's report, obtained by the Tucson Weekly. "This neglect will not be tolerated."

Yes, well, umm...it's been our experience that when a bureaucrat says "This neglect will not be tolerated" instead of, you know, actually doing something about the aforementioned neglect, that in fact, said neglect will be tolerated.

Perhaps ADOR officials simply didn't want to spotlight their own failings by slapping a high-profile penalty on Tucson Greyhound Park.

Nah. Just look at Mr. Goree's record as Director of Welfare and Advocacy. For him failure isn't a bug, it's a feature, right Bones?

Luyendyke Bones is a very sweet, friendly and outgoing boy. He gets along very well with the other Greyhounds in the foster home. Bones is learning to go up and down the stairs. He loves to play with toys. Bones is not cat safe so no kitties in the home please. He has not been around small dogs yet, nor has he met any children, but he would probably be OK with well mannered ones. Bones would do well in a home with a single owner or a family. He would be fine as the only dog in the household. 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.