A FUNNY THING HAPPENED on the WAY to NOVEMBER

By Dennis McKeon

Greyhound Nation is becoming woke. The Greyhound world community is slowly but surely turning its focus from discussions of the size, color and shape of their pet’s digestive output, to the state of Florida, and the political machinations of national, extremist animal rights groups, who wish to turn Florida’s estimated 8-10,000 Racing Greyhounds into fuzzy-wuzzy outlaws—in a manner of speaking.

These outside agitators and fund-raising juggernauts, who masquerade as “dog protectors”, have managed to somehow convince a significant portion of Florida’s political class, that a proposed statewide prohibition on state-regulated, pari-mutuel greyhound racing, is a question of Constitutional importance, and should become an amendment to the Constitution of the State of Florida.

So come November, voters will be asked whether or not Rover and Clover’s sanction to race in Florida, yea or nay, belongs up there with broader philosophical and constitutional matters such as:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

And that Rover and Clover’s future should be decided by voters who routinely mistake them for deer, egged on by fanatical, animal rights ideologues and propagandists, whose lack of practical, first-person knowledge or experience with greyhounds and their lives within racing, is exceeded only by their lack of ethics, and lack of veracity in their knee-jerk, talking-point, scripted opposition to Greyhound racing.

But a funny thing happened on the way to November. Something that the multi-million dollar, national animal rights fund-raising juggernauts hadn’t quite anticipated.

Thousands of Florida’s greyhound adopters, greyhound adoption providers, and greyhound adopters all over the USA, and in nearby Canada, began to question and to take exception to the mischaracterization of their loving and beloved, retired Greyhound pets, as abused and traumatized victims of institutional and systemic cruelty.

Social media lit up like a galaxy of tote-boards, with the testimonials of retired greyhound adopters and adoption providers, who realize that their beautifully-tempered, splendidly-behaved, loving and lovable adoptees, could not possibly have re-adapted as pets, and manifested so magnificently, by the hundreds of thousands, had they actually been the “victims” that those who are light years removed from their everyday lives in racing, pretend that they are.

Facebook groups and Political Action Committees were formed, to debunk the propaganda of these outside agitators, and to preserve the safe-space in Florida that Greyhounds have earned, rather than casting their fate to the unknown, by disenfranchising them via Constitutional mandate.

A local Florida artist, who was seeking truth, as artists are inclined to do, began to make real-time videos of Florida’s greyhounds, in their kennels all around the state, and in their moments of preparation, play and repose. He saw nothing but happy, healthy, personable, well-adjusted and well-cared for dogs. He shared these videos on his Greyhound Chronicles and Paint the Trail Facebook pages, so that the public could get a first-person look, behind-the-scenes, at how the greyhounds feel about their lives within racing. The public’s response was overwhelmingly positive. And the fake dog protectors? Not so much.

What is especially remarkable and noteworthy, is that these individuals, grassroots groups, committees and PACs were not sponsored, sanctioned or requested by the “greyhound racing industry”, or the National Greyhound Association, or the Florida Greyhound Association.

They are an entirely organic phenomenon, comprised mainly of retired greyhound adopters, and adoption providers, who have come to understand the crucial role that organized, state-regulated racing plays, not only for having united them with their cherished greyhound pets in the first place, but in preserving the Greyhound’s critical, thousands-of-year-old genetic diversity, athletic heritage, and their current and future well-being.

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copyright, 2018