How do you turn a racing machine into a pet?
Greyhounds are the fastest dogs on the planet. With a small head and a lithe body as well as strong paws and a proportionately bigger heart than that of any other dog breed, greyhounds can run at speeds of up to 45 mph. They’ve been bred for speed, intelligence and agility since ancient times, first for hunting and later for sport racing.
Racing greyhounds usually retire between the ages of 2 and 5. Some that race in Tijuana are lucky enough to have a shot at a second type of life, to abandon the very thing they’ve been trained to do.
It takes just a week or so in the care of devoted volunteers for the dogs to become loving pets. It’s an astonishing transformation, considering these former racers have never lived with a family; seen children, cats, or other breeds of dogs; or been inside a house.
“How do you turn a racing machine into a pet?” asks Cathy Kiburtz, president of GreySave, a California greyhound adoption group. “It starts right now.”
Kiburtz and 35 volunteers wait outside a ranch-style house in Chino, California, at 9:30 a.m. on a recent Saturday. A white van pulls up. In the back are eight greyhounds from the Agua Caliente Racetrack in Tijuana.
Before retiring, these dogs raced two or three times a week, resting alone in their crates and exercising as a group between competitions.
Volunteers leash the dogs, gently unload them from the van and pair each with a designated handler. The handlers lead their charges on a walk through the neighborhood. “We introduce the dogs to sidewalks, lawns and traffic noise — things they’ve never experienced — and hope to get a fecal sample to test for hookworm,” Kiburtz says. “It’s step one in what we call their homecoming day.”
GreySave is one of more than 100 nonprofit greyhound adoption organizations in the U.S. “Together, they find homes for more than a thousand retired racing greyhounds a year,” says Jim Gartland, executive director of the National Greyhound Association, the official registry of the breed. “That’s a big step from the old days of greyhound racing.”
In the 1980s and early 1990s, reports of euthanizing retired racing dogs and other bad press led to the establishment of greyhound adoption groups. “Once the public realized that retired racers make great pets, they couldn’t get enough of them,” Gartland says.
A noble lineage
Admiration for greyhounds goes back centuries. Art and coins from ancient Greece depict short-haired hounds resembling modern greyhounds. Mummified greyhounds have been found in the tombs of Egyptian kings.
The Romans used greyhound ancestors for sport, sending dogs chasing after a live hare. When the Romans conquered Britain, they brought greyhounds and the sport of “coursing” with them.
British coursing evolved into track racing during the 19th century. Around the same time, large numbers of greyhounds were exported to the U.S., not to course or race, but to combat an infestation of crop-eating jackrabbits on Midwestern farms.
After the invention of the mechanical lure in 1912, the first U.S. greyhound racetrack opened in Emeryville, California, seven years later. Soon the sport of greyhound racing spread throughout the country.
By 1992, greyhound racing was one of the most popular American spectator sports, with 50-plus racetracks drawing 3.5 million fans who wagered nearly $3.5 billion. The sport has steadily declined in the U.S. since then.
Pressure from animal-rights groups led many states to outlaw greyhound racing. In addition, its popularity became overshadowed by other forms of gambling, such as casinos on tribal lands, riverboat gambling and state-run lotteries.
Today, there are only four greyhound racetracks left in the U.S. after Florida outlawed the sport and shut down all its tracks at the end of 2020.
The Tijuana racetrack still races greyhounds 365 days a year and has no plan to stop. GreySave is one of only two adoption groups approved by the greyhound association to bring retired dogs from Mexico to the U.S. and put them up for adoption.
GreySave had to develop a relationship with the track and a transportation process. “Our problem was getting the greyhounds across the border,” Kiburtz says. “At first, we transported them in crates in a windowless van like a UPS truck, but border guards would get suspicious. Now we use an 11-passenger van with the seats taken out. The guards see a bunch of needle-nosed dogs staring out the windows at them, wagging their tails, and can’t help but smile.”
Retraining with love
In Chino, volunteers staff a variety of check-in stations. At one, dogs are weighed, inspected for ticks and verified by IDs tattooed inside their ears.
At another, dogs get their first warm bath. Once they’re clean, dogs take turns settling onto a soft doggy bed in what Kiburtz calls the “spa tent.” Here, a volunteer clips the dog’s nails while another cleans their ears and a third massages their body. “These dogs have worked hard in their lives,” she says. “They deserve to be pampered.”
A team of six, including a doctor, staff the medical station. They draw dogs’ blood, check them for injuries, update their inoculations and insert ID microchips under their skin in case they get lost and end up in a shelter.
After lunch, it’s time to assign the dogs to foster or foster-to-adopt homes. First, each must pass a test. “Greyhounds are sight hounds as opposed to scent hounds, like beagles,” Kiburtz says. “They’re bred to chase a lure that is often a fluffy stuffed animal . ... We need to verify that if they see a small dog or a cat, they won’t make a lunge for it.”
A handler slips a muzzle on Vicky, the youngest greyhound retiree in the pack. He walks her over to a grizzled Chihuahua-terrier mix named Audie, a star in the “small dog test” performed at every homecoming. Vicky excitedly sniffs Audie all over, her tail waving like the world’s fastest metronome.
With a rumbling growl you’d never expect from a dog that little, Audie persuades Vicky to back off.
By 3 p.m. at the homecoming house, the pens have been folded up, the backyard cleared and the bathtub stored away for the next greyhound homecoming in a month or so. Those taking dogs bring along a greyhound blanket and coat and assorted doggy toys. “You won’t believe how fast a former racing dog can turn into a couch potato,” says Kiburtz.
With so many tracks closing and breeders therefore closing kennels, Kiburtz foresees a time when it will become harder to find retired racing greyhounds to adopt in the U.S. “With our connection to the Tijuana racetrack, we may be one of the only adoption groups to get dogs,” she says. “It’s too bad because retired racing greyhounds make great pets.
There’s almost something magical about them. We call them ‘Velcro dogs.’ Once they come home with you, they stick to your side.”
‘‘ You won’t believe how fast a former racing dog can turn into a couch potato. — Cathy Kiburtz