Saving the Dogs and Our Souls

According to The Committee to Protect Dogs, with over 45,000 signatures collected, it looks like Massachusetts voters will have the opportunity to save greyhounds from cruelty. The good thing about a measure such as this is it appeals to all people - that's why it was one of the closest ballot initiatives ever, last time it was on the ballot. Democrats and Republicans own dogs: no one who owns a dog wants to see them trapped in a cage so small that they can barely move, for more than 20 hours a day. What kind of life is that? It's no wonder that so many get hurt, killed and euthanized due to injuries that occur because of the cruelty with which they're treated.

The Globe attached a picture to their article about the ballot initiative, which I linked to above. It's of the dogs racing at a track, free from being trapped all day. It would be better to show pictures of all the dogs that are killed. I saw a documentary, years ago, of dog after dog being thrown into a giant trash receptacle, no doubt to be picked up before they started decaying. Or the Paper of Record could have shown a picture of the dogs with missing ears, limbs or scars so hideous that even people without a pet could grasp what's truly going on - and want to do something about it. We just don't want to see those pictures, because they make us sick. But that doesn't mean the Globe shouldn't show them.

Greyhounds in their kennel. They're kept in there almost all day long. I'll spare everyone from the far more gruesome pictures you can find using Google Image, searching for "greyhound cruelty."

Race Tracks aren't fun for dogs; they shouldn't be fun for people. People bet and dogs die. How entertaining. Imagine if the people who bet on dogs were the ones who had to take care of them. Suddenly, these people would realize it's less an industry as it is a legalized version of the movie Hostel, just this time for canines. Would people still get their kicks and thrills? I doubt it.

The good news is we can have our cake and eat it too. These Race Tracks are large lots of land. We need lose no jobs, because something more lucrative could be built with just a little ingenuity. Race tracks are already a dying enterprise, we're just making it happen a few years sooner, saving who knows how many dogs in the process. The good news is that whatever replaces the dog tracks will probably be better, both for profits and dogs. It's tough to think of a more horrendous way to make money than dog tracks, so lets decide as citizens of the Commonwealth to demand better.