Friday Hound Blogging

We're coming to you today from the Dogs Get The Best Of Care Department here in the marbled halls of IM Central. the DGtBoC Department is a division of the Don't Listen To What We Say, Watch What We Do Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of You Can Tell We're Lying Because Our Lips Are Moving, Inc.

On an almost weekly basis over the last 10 years we have brought stories to you of the disconnect between what the overlords say they do for their dogs and what they actually do. The overlords, for their part, have mostly muttered and sputtered about how we were using the activities of a few bad apples to malign the character of those upstanding citizen sportsmen and women who take pleasure in commodifying  innocent living creatures and causing them unnecessary pain and suffering up to and including death, in the fruitless pursuit of (no) profit. All of which begs the questions, if your industry has provided enough bad apples for this sucky blog to spill its pixels over for 10 years, how many bad apples does it take before you have a whole bushel of bad apples? Before all your apples are bad?

Let us answer that for you. You don't have any good apples. Even overlords who might truly care for their dogs care for them, not as you or we do, but as car enthusiasts might care for their cars. It's a great piece of machinery and they may be proud of it, but if the transmission blows out, or a sexier model comes along, they have no qualms about selling it and moving on, just as even the most caring overlord has no qualms about dumping a slow dog that is otherwise perfectly normal.

Well, we take you on this little trip through history as a way of getting to our point, which is this will be the last Friday Hound Blogging there will be. In fact this will be the last Ironicus Maximus there will be. We've done this for 10 years now and it's time to grow up...erm...we mean move on. To all those overlords out there who occasionally wandered into their public libraries and had a seventh grader show them ow to log onto the interoobz so they could have someone read this blog to them, if we insulted you over the years, good. It's the least you deserve for the harm you've done. If we believed in an afterlife we are sure you would spend eternity as a pimple on Satan's butt. And that's still less than you deserve.

To the rest of you, if we've been able to give you a moment or two of jocularity and a fleeting break from the soul crushing evil that you battle every day as a voice for those who cannot speak for themselves, we are glad. Being able to laugh in the face of tragedy is what gives us strength to go on. We were told a long time ago by a animal rights wacko much wiser than we that if you're going to get into this business you can expect to have your heart broken on a regular basis. No only broken, but crushed under the weight of the enormous cruelty you must confront each time you enter the fray, and it is only your sense of humor that will save you, only your ability to step back occasionally and laugh at the incredible absurdity of it all. If we have provided a few of those moments for you, we are glad and it's been worth it.

So we'll leave you with three more examples of that absurdity; three more examples of the overlords doing what they do best at the expense of helpless greyhounds trapped in their barbaric industry. First Alan Harrell who "cares" for his dogs by drugging them. Then there are the stewards of greyhound tracks in NSW Australia who "care" for their dogs by running a cover-up of the deaths of 135 otherwise healthy dogs because they knew it would "upset the greenies." And finally, Alexander Verhagen, who "cares" for his "unneeded" dogs by driving them 250 miles so they could be killed for free, even though he knew that was a violation of racing regulations. Bad Apples? Bad crop if you ask us. Time to plow it under.

Millie, you never met Wabash Petie. He was the first refugee greyhound we featured on this blog. You will be the last. Good home and long life girl.

Millie is a one year old female who can live with cats or small dogs, and she can be 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 and here.

Friday Hound Blogging

Frequent reader(s) of this blog will remember the soft kiss of youthful innocence now become the cold slap of collapsing dreams, leaving only the sharp pain of lost hope...erm...we mean will remember that we have spent a considerable amount of pixels regaling you with the imaginative stylings of the overlords in Iowa as they set out on their admittedly Quixotic quest to bring the heartless commodification, inflicting meaningless injury and death on innocent living creatures in the futile pursuit of (no) profit out of the black underworld of cruelty and into the mainstream.

Now, in the interest of being fair and balanced (which we are really not interested in) we thought we would return to the Hawkeye state now that the most current season of greyhound abuse has ended and see what the results are, and by results we mean how much dough did the overlords take in, not how many greyhounds were needlessly injured and killed because you know, the safety of the dogs is the highest concern and they receive only the finest care so we won't even bother to tell you that at Bluffs Run Greyhound Park and Dubuque Greyhound Park in Iowa, there were 797 greyhound injuries reported between January 2008 through May 2015. During the same period, 96 dogs died or were euthanized because you know, it's not relevant. Besides the overlords are now operating the track on their own dime. Well, technically it's the money the casinos gave them to go away, but let's not quibble about the details. So what's the bottom line Iowa Greyhound Park Racing Director Brian Carpenter sir?

Despite a 33 percent decline in total wagering for the year, Carpenter said he believes the park's first year under new ownership was a success.

Excuse us a minute there overlord Carpenter, but it seems calling the loss of a third of your business in a year a success is setting the bar kind of low, don't you think?

"There were a lot of people who thought we wouldn't open up at all, and once we did, there were a lot of people who thought we wouldn't make it through the year," Carpenter said of the first year in which racing at the former Dubuque Greyhound Park was run by the Iowa Greyhound Association.

Oh. Well, if those are your criteria, umm, congratulations on uh, mmm, surviving the year?

Carpenter noted that the average per-session handle, or amount wagered, for 2015 was nearly 16 percent higher than the previous year. According to figures he provided, an average of $35,771 was wagered per racing session in 2015, compared to $30,896 in 2014.

OK wait a minute. You have a full day of racing and you take in a little less that $36k for that, then you have to pay all your bills, plus give out the winnings? Man, making it through the year was a success.

Iowa Greyhound Park offered fewer racing sessions per week this year than previous years, leading to the sharp drop in total wagering activity.

You mean you only took in around $36k per session and you had less sessions which means you didn't even bring in as much money as you would have if you'd had a full schedule? OK we're beginning to see why you think surviving the year was a success.

Mystique Casino officials were equally pleased with the first year of the new arrangement, saying cutting ties with greyhound racing has helped bolster the casino's bottom line. "Am I happy with the arrangement? I can definitely say yes because it gave (Iowa Greyhound Association) a chance to continue to race and it gives us some financial respite from the purse supplements," said Mystique CEO Jesus Aviles. "I think it was a win-win."

Hey come on there Mr. Aviles, that's a little harsh don't you think? Sure it was a win for you to dump that cash sucking part of your business, but we'd hardly call it a win for the overlords. We mean, $36k? They probably got more than that from you before lunch back in the day, don't you think?

"I can tell you that the efficiencies we have gained (through the elimination of greyhound racing) have helped us keep our employees and avoid taking any austerity measures," Aviles said.

Whoa. Hang on there Mr. Aviles. Please don't use the words "elimination" and "greyhound racing" in the same sentence. At least not when the overlords can hear you, right Bunko?

I am a very gentle and calm boy. I bark at my reflection when I see it in the window because I am so silly I don’t realize it’s just me. My foster parents think it’s funny and cute. I love to get attention. I am a little shy at first but not overly so and I get over it quickly. I am housebroken. I know how to go up and down the stairs. I get along great with dogs my own size. I have not seen any small dogs or cats yet. My foster mom is taking me to meet her friend’s kitties this week to see how I do so I will keep everybody posted. 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 and here.