Treva Slote has seen more than her share of cruelty in 30 years of animal welfare work. Nonetheless, when police summoned her to a trash bin in Phoenix, she prepared for the worst. And found it.
Buried amid the garbage were two female greyhounds, their bodies emaciated and covered with ticks. One was barely conscious, her skull bashed in with a hammer. The other, a breathing skeleton, cried softly. Humans had done this to them. Yet when she saw the face of her rescuer, one of the dying dogs wagged her tail.
Three years later, Slote, executive director of the Arizona Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, is still haunted by the dog in the trash bin, whose spirit survived what her body could not.
It is the nature of greyhounds, the oldest known breed of dog, to endure overwhelming abuse without any lasting effect on their personalities, to trust abidingly in their human companions.
It is a trust that is often betrayed.
Each year, thousands of greyhounds--as many as 50,000 by some estimates--are killed because they can no longer compete on America's dogtracks. Some are euthanized by veterinarians. Not all die so painlessly.
Some are shot in the head and dumped in landfills, abandoned in the desert or along the highway, or sold to laboratories and medical schools, sometimes legally, sometimes not.
Others starve in their cages, or asphyxiate in poorly ventilated trucks en route to yet another dogtrack. Some die of racing injuries, or of neglect in the aftermath of accidents.
And some are done in by their dinner--often the raw, ground flesh of dead, dying or diseased cattle, a "pathogenic smorgasbord," says Dr. Arthur Strohbehn.
For two years, Strohbehn was track veterinarian at Bluffs Run in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Now, he's part of a nationwide network of advocates, tireless soldiers in the war against greyhound abuse.
They include Sally Allen of Indianapolis, who tells of finding old, toothless females chained to concrete blocks in a filthy Illinois basement, still having puppies at age 9; Judith Donaldson of Chicago, who rescued three greyhounds that had been tied with clothesline and abandoned in a gas station restroom; and Susan Netboy of Woodside, Calif., who's saved dozens of ex-racers illegally sold for research, including 20 bound for bone-breaking experiments at Letterman Army Institute of Research in San Francisco.
They and others scramble to find homes for the dogs. Each year, adoptive owners sensitive to the special needs of adult greyhounds that have never climbed stairs or heard a phone ring, patiently help 9,000 dogs make the transition from racers to pets.
On the track, muzzled and barking and kicking up dirt as they chase mechanical lures at 40 m.p.h., the sleek, muscular dogs are the picture of naked aggression. But up close, they are soft, nuzzling creatures of exquisite gentleness that thrive on human affection, elegant couch potatoes that quickly adapt to new surroundings.
Judith Donaldson, a top breeder of show greyhounds, says such adjustments would be impossible if not for the dogs' loving nature.
But Gary Guccione, spokesman for the National Greyhound Assn., says their success as pets belies claims by Donaldson and others that greyhounds are routinely mistreated.
"Greyhounds are not raised or raced in terror. They're given very good care, good nutrition and attention throughout the time they're raised," says Guccione, secretary-treasurer of the Abilene, Kan.-based NGA, made up of more than 6,000 owners and breeders.
Even dog racing's most fervent opponents acknowledge that some breeders and trainers love their dogs. "They have to, to be willing to provide the care and do the dirty work the business entails," says Ken Johnson, a Humane Society investigator.
Johnson tells of one Florida breeder who, facing foreclosure, found homes for all 75 of his dogs rather than destroy them. "His animals didn't starve, even though he himself went without eating.
"But there are others who can't afford to stay in the business and can't afford to get out. They're barely making enough to feed themselves, and their animals end up mistreated as a result."
Guccione concedes that abuse is a problem. "There are those--as with any business--who shouldn't be in it. The industry is consciously trying to weed them out, get rid of them, throw them out for life, to bar anybody from doing business with them."
In 1987, he says, the industry began a program of random, unannounced inspections of farms where greyhounds are raised. Since then, about two dozen people have been expelled from racing--not enough to satisfy activists.
"The industry continues to try to counter our claims by coming up with slicker promotion ideas and programs, such as greyhound adoption," says Johnson, who investigates cruelty in Florida, home to more greyhound breeding operations and pari-mutuel tracks than any other state.
