Wrong way Greyhound

This is for those people who are always picketing at the dog track, because they think the dogs are being abused. They are so wrong. In every facet of life there will be some cruel people who abuse animals and even other people, but from my experience I have never seen any abuse in my many years of working or playing at the dog track.

I had so many experiences that were unique, I hope sharing them will give you some insight into the life of the track people and , so, maybe you see that stupid people like Michael Vick who abuse dogs are certainly out there, but they are not hiding at greyhound parks.

People are always asking how greyhounds learn to chase the mechanical rabbit. Believe it or not, the natural curiosity of these beautiful animals and their desire to run makes what they do very natural. There are many ways to train them but letting them see other dogs chasing something is about as complicated as it gets.

The noise of the mechanical device peaks their interest, and the bouncing, moving rabbit seems to be enough. They just have to relate the sound, so that after you have held them, and let them go as it goes by, then the next step is the box. The box has two doors, one to put them in, and one that pops open as the rabbits passes. Sometimes the dogs get confused and face the wrong door in the box. This generally costs you a few dollars on your wager, because they come out late, and sometimes run into the box operator, who runs accross in front to see if all dogs exited before he closes it and resets it.  It's funny to see and no one is harmed in the practice,  except the dignity of the box operator.

This story is about a grading session for new dogs. When dogs are new to racing, before the season starts, the track will run what we call schooling (or grading races), to see where they want to classify the dogs for their maiden races. On these days there will be twenty or so kennels, each with their dozen or so new dogs, waiting their turns for the races, which run quickly every few minutes. Dogs are loaded, based on a planned order, and run, then removed and the next ones are loaded.

As I said there were twenty or so kennels with at least twenty 'kennel helps', my job, standing with a dozen or more dogs on leads waiting our turn. The dogs know the sound of the mechanical rabbit and get very excited as the rabbit moves around the track. On this day, one dog slipped his collar as the rabbit started to come around the track. He jumped the fence and started running 'up' the stretch toward the sound. Unfortunately, he was going the wrong way on a one way track. The rabbit is on a long arm, extended out to about the middle of the track, no more that twelve to eighteen inches above the ground. The dog was running toward it when he realized at the last second that he was in trouble. He ducked down and the rabbit passed directly over him. Trouble averted...for a few seconds, for as he raised up, he was met by eight dogs in hot pursuit of the rabbit. There was a huge pile up with dogs tumbling everywhere. The rabbit operator, immediately realized what was happening and stopped the mechanical rabbit. All the dogs caught the rabbit that day, but did not know what to do with it when they did.

It was pandemonium, and a lot of excited owners and kennel people, but no injuries just lots of belly laughs as the story was told and retold.