I am posting this letter on your opponent’s site, as I am unable to do so on your own pages. An email would also most likely end up in the trash folder, so since it is obvious that you and/or your supporters monitor this site I will post it here.
On February 17, 2012 Grey2KUSA posted several photos taken outside of Tucson Greyhound Park showing several muzzled dogs in the turnout areas. (Was permission given to be on that part of the property?) Numerous negative comments were posted decrying this facility, calling it a dump, likening it to Auschwitz, condemning the use of muzzles on the dogs, and in general wailing about the perceived abuse of these dogs. Having lived for many years in Tucson (and having visited Tucson Greyhound Park on several occasions) I can attest that the desert is very different from the lush greenery of Florida or Massachusetts. I happen to think the sprawling, open, undeveloped desert is quite beautiful, but to others it may appear akin to the surface of Mars. So maybe Tucson Greyhound Park is not the most attractive racing venue, but in any event I posted the following comment under the last photo:
“Seriously????? I see clean carpets, shade, cooled buildings, tails wagging (not tucked), muzzles to project in case of arguments …. Wow.”Within two hours, my post was deleted and I have apparently been blocked from posting on not only the GREY2KUSA Facebook page, but your personal page as well. I do not think my post was in any way
disrespectful. I only pointed out facts. I did not resort to name calling or personal attacks against you or your followers. While I vehemently disagree with your agenda, I can respect an anti-racing viewpoint if it is a legitimate belief based on facts and a personal preference to not support racing. I have personally adopted three beautiful greyhounds from an anti-racing group and consider many in this group to be friends. I have spent the last eight years trying to find more facts about the racing industry. Not until recently, mostly due to Facebook, have I seen the “other side” – owners, breeders, pro-racing adopters – who love their dogs and work countless hours raising, training and caring for dogs which may or may not become successful racers. I have found that even those in the industry readily admit that all is not perfect, but are determined to right any wrongs and weed out the few bad apples.
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| Greg Morse & his "girl", Isabelle |
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| JoJo, courtesy of Greg Morse |
It is unfortunate that you will not allow even a modicum of thoughtful discourse on your site. There are far more heinous instances of animal abuse than greyhound racing that could benefit from the hundreds of thousands of dollars your group spends lining the pockets of politicians.
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| Your source for accurate Greyhound information: All About Greyhounds |
It is sad that people would rather stifle dissent to promote their political agenda rather than working together to find appropriate pet homes for the greyhounds. I find it particularly heinous to compare a racing greyhound kennel to Auschwitz, a notorious Nazi extermination camp, where millions of people: Jews, Poles, Gypsies, and Soviet POW's, were killed.
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| Prisoners in their bunks. It was normal for 3 people in one bunk. |
"...it looks like Auschwitz..."
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| Courtesy of Grieb, Kennel compound |
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| Kevin Campbell & Ike, courtesy Greg Morse |
"...it looks like Auschwitz..."
How would she know? Has she ever been to Auschwitz-Birkenau? Has she seen any photographs from there, back during its hey day? It is hard to imagine a more ridiculous and inappropriate analogy. Greyhound racing kennels are clean and happy places. The dogs are happy. Compare that to the brutality suffered by those in Auschwitz.
It took me a long time to find a photo to display the misery that wasn't too upsetting, too graphic of the horrors suffered there. I truly do not understand how ANYONE can support people like this! It is so disrespectful... so unbelievably insensitive... It's a slam on those whose families were lost in the Holocaust, regardless of ethnicity. It is "Shock Propaganda" made on the graves of 6 million dead.
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| Hungarian women in Auschwitz |
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| Auschwitz funeral after Liberation |
"...it looks like Auschwitz..."
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| Georgia with the Froggy, by Christopher Grieb |
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| Georgia & littermate |
"Middle class educated white people don't go to bet on the dogs."
My mother always told me, you are judged by the company you keep. If a Grey2K Board Member makes comments like this, what are the rest of them like????
Yours in greyhounds.........
Super article Jan, just super!
ReplyDeleteI am DISGUSTED with the way people throw "Nazi" and "Auschwitz" analogies around so flippantly. Auschwitz was a place where people were sent to die. To be exterminated as a race. I realize that Grey2K wants the public to think that a greyhound racetrack is like a death camp. I can't imagine a more disrespectful thing to say.
ReplyDeleteI had a friend who passed away recently. He had to carry the burden of memories of life in a concentration camp from the time he was a teenaged boy. He carried them throughout his adult life, and he carried them to his grave. He could not escape those awful experiences, but he refused to let people pity him. He came to America, he prospered. Sometimes he felt guilty that he survived while millions did not. He always spoke of his experiences with great sorrow, great reverence, great respect for the dead. I heard the stories of his life in Theresienstadt, and I can assure you, NOTHING you will EVER find on a greyhound track can compare IN ANY WAY to the horror, degradation, and filth he encountered there. Three people crammed into a 24" high, feces-encrusted, lice-infested bunk is NOT analogous to a warm, clean kennel where greyhounds are cared for, groomed, fed, loved, played with, and allowed to chase as sighthounds were born to do.
Grey2K, I have lost any molecule of respect or tolerance I may have had for you. You insult the memory of my dear friend by trivializing this hideous part of human history and using it as propaganda, simply to stop a sport you do not like.
G2K has already been exposed in this blog and elsewhere as having quoted a number of dogs seriously injured or euthanized in a year that *exceeded the number of dogs that raced.* This alone tells me that telling the truth is far, far down on their list of priorities, and that shocking the public is right up there at the top. Apparently, it doesn't matter how many lies they tell, how many baseless "facts" they pull out of thin air, or how many people they insult, as long as greyhound racing, along with the dogs, becomes extinct. I could make an analogy here, but I won't. I'll only say this to you, Grey2K: If the shoe fits, go ahead and place it into your mouth -- right there next to your foot.
You know, when they rescued the Fort Worth dogs summer before last, I could have been tempted to use a concentration camp comparison -- because in the case of some places like Amish puppy mills and Bush Racing creeps -- conditions are HELL for the animals.... but normally I refrain from doing that out of respect for the people whose relatives died in the concentration camps of WWII. To throw that garbage around with respect to 99% of NGA track or farm kennels is not just disrespectful it's ludicrous, sick and wildly inaccurate.
ReplyDeleteYes, Sage, that is exactly right. If G2K actually cared for the welfare of the dogs, they would not want the tracks to close. My first greyhound was neglected and abused, and it was not because she was racing on a legal track. She was a coyote hunter, owned by a drug dealer, and left to starve under a collapsed chicken coop with her litter of pups. Two of the five pups were already dead when she was rescued, and another died shortly thereafter. She had no food and only a shallow pan of scummy water to drink. Should the tracks close, this will be the fate of thousands of greyhounds as sighthound sports are forced to go underground where animal cruelty laws cannot be enforced.
DeleteHere is my sweet girl at the time of her rescue: http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c263/Hooversmom/esperanza.jpg
And here she is two months after: http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c263/Hooversmom/sissycouch1.jpg
Seems to me the "gotcha day" photos people post of their newly-adopted greyhounds look a whole lot more like the second photo than the first. That should tell you something!
Great article! I have worked in adoption for more than 10 years and started out believing that racing was bad and adopted because I felt sorry for the dogs. As I went to tracks to pick up retired dogs and met the trainers and saw the care and pride they put into their racers I realized what I had heard was lies.
ReplyDeleteI just got a call yesterday from a trainer just to tell me that one of their favorite new dogs had finally won a race. That is a dog lover! Most of the people in this industry love dogs. That is why most of us pick our profession why would racing be any different. Do most dog groomers love dogs? Do most doggy daycare workers like working with dogs? Why would racing be any different?
I saw happy dogs that loved their job - probably happier than they ever are on a couch as a pet. I saw that they are not forced to race. They choose to race and live to race. I have been dragged down by dogs that just wanted to get into the vehicle that takes them to the race track. It is even harder to hold them when the lure is around.
The trainers were so protective of each racer that they had certain ways of opening a crate door to prevent dogs from jumping up and hitting the door with their back. They weigh the food each dog gets and have more vitamins and supplements in the kennel for the racers than I have in my home. The dogs wear muzzles to prevent injury in the occasional disagreement that breaks out in large groups of dogs. They can drink and even play with toys with them on. I use them with my fosters too and insist that the dogs wear them at the greyhound playgroup I run. The trainers only make money when dogs win and bruised, abused, starved dogs can't possibly win. They do everything they possibly can to prevent injury and to keep healthy fast dogs.
When the dog's racing careers are over they spend a lot of time and energy finding homes for their retired dogs. I know trainers that drive dogs from Florida as far as Canada to find them homes. I have worked in adoption for over 10 years and have yet to personally drive a greyhound that far. They have to hire help in their own kennel to do it and pay for the gas themselves. Most are picky about which groups they send their dogs to and don't just give them to anyone. What I have personally seen over the years is nothing like the lies Grey2K tells. The only people that believe them have to be people that have not gone behind the scenes at a race track to see for themselves.
Irony: Jan Vasquez complains, "It is unfortunate that you will not allow even a modicum of thoughtful discourse on your site." I'm interested to see if you feel the same way about discourse on this site. So far I have not seen either of my previous comments posted. It's another case of you complaining about others following the same policy you yourselves advocate.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to this whole post, do you not see this as offensive? The offending comment has been removed from the Facebook page, but you folks have taken that idea and run with it. You are using Auschwitz to promote your own arguments now, and that is propagandizing. If you were truly offended, you would not maintain this post.
What really scares me more than anything is the way a group can set out on a mission (Grey2K) and use propaganda and outright lies to convince the unsuspecting that their agenda is just. I happen to know greyound racing very well so I see just how hatefull and full of lies Gey2 K is but if I didn't know the truth then maybe I too could be duped. It makes you consider other areas in which you could be mislead. Like the old saying goes "believe nothing you read and only half of what you see".
ReplyDeleteSomeone posted a comment this morning as "ANONYMOUS". I'd like to put up the comment, but as stated in the 2nd blog post, the blogs should have a name of some sort. I will not post comments by 'anonymous'. Please resubmit with a name.
ReplyDeleteThis is the comment that was posted the other day by Anonymous. It says some important things, so I decided to post it as a quote, rather than as a comment by an unknown person.
ReplyDeleteI quote....
"What really scares me more than anything is the way a group can set out on a mission (Grey2K) and use propaganda and outright lies to convince the unsuspecting that their agenda is just. I happen to know greyound racing very well so I see just how hatefull and full of lies Gey2 K is but if I didn't know the truth then maybe I too could be duped. It makes you consider other areas in which you could be mislead. Like the old saying goes "believe nothing you read and only half of what you see""
Grey2k = Liars and thieves. No interest in the dogs but come off to the general public as the "saviors" of the greyhound world. Newsflash: Greyhounds have been running for centuries and racing greyhounds are almost always treated 10x better than most general homes treat their animals. I'd post this on their website but the scumbags (yeah, I'm talking to you too, Eric) delete and moderate anything remotely close to challenging them. I've had a run-in with a couple of the ding-bats in Nevada and can tell you that they put their tails between their legs and ran, when a computer screen wasn't in front of them.
ReplyDelete