Greyhound Racing has been around for a while, so who knew that it would end so soon?The first recognized racetrack in the world was built in 1919 in Emeryville, California by Owen Patrick Smith and the Blue Star Amusement company. The track was in the shape of an oval and featured a mechanical lure. It was thought to offer a more humane alternative to the traditional greyhound field course…… but it wasn’t.  It started to get more and more popular until it reached its peak in the 1980’s. Since then, there have been an increased amount of concerns towards animal cruelty along with a threatening increase of gambling options that have nearly killed the sport. A racing association had previously found that betting on greyhounds had taken a downturn from $3.5 billion in 1991 to about $500 million in 2014.  This sport has declined about 70% since 1990. Before this happened, there were, according to abcnews.go, “more than 50 tracks across 19 states,”which is a lot considering most people have never heard of Greyhound Racing.

For some animal welfare groups such as the group GREY2K, they feel that the industry’s decline in cumulation and animal mistreatment is a good thing and adds a sense of accomplishment to their “Greyhounds Deserve Freedom” organization. They say that they are happy that the sport’s end seems within grasp. GREY2K is an organization that has long argued with other organizations that greyhound racing was cruel, a mistreatment, and unacceptable. Some serious owners had also killed the dogs that weren’t deemed top racers, using performance enhancement drugs, working them for hours risking injury on the racetrack and after their long day of work, shoving them into kennels that are so small that they can’t even stand up and turn around, overbreeding them, living in confinement (3 x 3 cages with no climate control), suffering life threatening injuries, being raced to death and the worst thing about it is all of the greyhounds die purely for human satisfaction. It has also been so tragic to these dogs because at least 5 greyhounds die on the race tracks per week in Australia. In total, there have been 11,722 Greyhound injuries, states the ASPCA. Some other organizations include: USA Defenders of Greyhounds (www.adopt-a-greyhound.org/node/1174), Friends of Retired Greyhounds (www.friendsofretiredgreyhounds.org) and the National Greyhound Adoption Program (NGAP.org).

As of January 2020, greyhound racing is legal in nine U.S states and only active in 5 states. Those states include Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Texas and West Virginia. Greyhound racing has been banned in the majority of U.S states including most recently in Florida and Arizona. Some other countries that allow greyhound racing are Australia, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, the UK, and Vietnam. 

An anonymous 7th grader here at Rio Norte says, “Greyhoud racing is a very bad thing, those poor little dogs are getting tortured, and some are even killed on the racetrack?! That is too much for people’s enjoyment. I am so glad it is ending.”

Greyhound Racing is slowly becoming extinct because of all the abuse going towards them, let’s hope that it becomes fully illegal all across the world soon! If you want to help these poor creatures, you can donate at https://www.grey2kusa.org/give/donate.php.