What Has Life Been Like For the Retired Racing Greyhound?
Racing greyhounds have spent their lives in the company of other dogs. When born, the average litter is about nine pups. Generally, young greyhounds are touched and hugged as much as possible. As they near their first birthday, they begin their racing training. They are taught how to chase a lure using a variety of systems, all geared to maximizing their natural abilities of vision and speed. Eventually they progress to a race track such as the one from which your dog came. Kennel life at the track is very routine. Feeding in the morning, several daily turnouts in the exercise pen, and the rest of the time spent in the crate. That is, unless the dog is racing that day or is new and needs to be schooled – taught how to run around that particular track. Most dogs are raced every three days; most racing kennels have about 60 active dogs, and amazingly, most trainers have a special story about each and every dog with whom they work. As you may infer, the ex-racer has seen very little of wh
