I had the incredible opportunity to speak with the founders of GREY2K USA Worldwide, a non-profit organization that has been a major force in the fight against commercial greyhound racing. Beginning as a modest grassroots effort, these passionate activists have made remarkable strides in bringing an end to most greyhound racing in the United States.
We discuss their life long commitment to ending this cruel sport and their new book Brooklyn Goes Home a story of how one greyhound sparked a movement to close the worst dog track in the world.
Useful Links:
https://www.grey2kusa.org/index.php
Brooklyn Goes Home - https://amzn.to/41qusYx
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Well, I'm thrilled to have you on to share your
mission and your story with mylisteners.
You are the co-founders of Grey2K, which is a global nonprofit
effort to end commercialGreyhound Racing globally, and
you have been very successful inalmost eradicating it in the
United States.
So that is.
(00:21):
Your work is incredible, and Iwant to say that I know that
Greyhound Racing has existed forquite some time, but it's not
something that really has beenon my radar as an animal welfare
issue that I've been focused on.
So I really appreciate youjumping on and educating me and
(00:44):
educating my listeners and alsosharing the inspiration behind
your book Brooklyn goes home.
So I'd love to just talk alittle bit about your
backgrounds and the personaljourney that kind of led you to
really making this a passion.
Sure.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, we're both grateful to be on and really
appreciate you taking the timeto think about this issue and
hear our story.
Christine and I formed ournonprofit organization nearly a
quarter century ago and sincethen we have been very blessed
to work with a large grassrootscoalition and other
(01:28):
organizations and lawmakers toboth reform Greyhound Racing but
also to end it completely, andwe have been relatively pretty
successful.
At its peak, there were nearly70 operational dog tracks
nationwide.
There were well over 50,000Greyhounds being bred a year and
(01:50):
disposed of a year.
There were about $3 billion beton Greyhound Racing.
It was the sixth largestspectator sport in America and
it was also very powerfulpolitically.
I mean, there were many stateswhere literally Greyhound Racing
interests were the mostpowerful force in the political
process and, by contrast, todaythere are only two dog tracks
(02:14):
left, both in the state of WestVirginia.
The company that owns thatfinal two tracks once out of
Greyhound Racing and said sopublicly.
There's a grassroots movementthat is working to help these
dogs and end Greyhound Racingall over the world.
So this is something that hasspread and really become a
global movement and we areliving through the end of this
(02:41):
animal abuse industry, which iscertainly good news for everyone
who cares about dogs.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Absolutely, and do you.
Is it forgive me, but is itjust the financial aspect of it
that keeps people so invested inthis sport?
I don't know how it works.
Is it just purely greed?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Well, the interesting thing about Greyhound Racing or
one of them is that it startedas an illegal enterprise.
There were scores of illegaldog tracks set up all across the
United States the mobsters weknow of from lore, bugsy, malone
, all associated with dog racingbecause it was a great way to
(03:27):
move money.
And eventually these let's saygangsters convinced one state to
legalize their activity, andthat was the state of Florida.
And the state of Florida saidokay, we're going to let you
have dog tracks or we're goingto let you keep your dog tracks,
as a matter of fact, but youhave to give us a cut.
(03:49):
So certainly, the legalizationof dog racing came about because
there was money needed bystates during the Depression and
this was a new source ofrevenue.
Unfortunately, what wasn'tcalculated and couldn't be known
at that time was that tens ofthousands of Greyhounds,
(04:09):
hundreds of thousands ofGreyhounds, would suffer the
consequences.
A dog that slows down or agesout is a worthless dog.
And they were simply disposedof.
It wasn't until the late 1980sthat someone started saying wait
a minute, these are dogs, whyaren't we adopting them?
And the industry resisted, butthen they realized it would be a
(04:31):
good public relations move tosupport adoption.
So the adoption movement didblossom, starting in the early
1990s, as these Greyhoundsreally came to be family friends
just like any other dog.
But the issue was that moneycould be made off of these dogs
and that's what ignited dogracing.
(04:54):
And when we came along in theyear 2000, 2001, a lot of folks
doubted that we could make anykind of dent in this
multi-million dollar industrywhere the track owners had a lot
of political clout.
But we set about to do it andthe reason that we wanted to
write our book was to inspireothers to take on hard problems
(05:17):
and try to make a difference.
We continue to operate out of aone room office.
We are fighting tracks aroundthe world from this one room
office with five desks that arecircle, and if we can do it, I
think others can make adifference in the causes that
they care about.
And our book is dedicated toBrooklyn because he's the dog
(05:40):
that we rescued from a horribledog track, a horrible Chinese
dog track.
He had no hope but we rescuedhim and closed down that track
and he really has inspired us tokeep fighting since the time
that we took him in and expandour mission so that we can
(06:01):
hopefully end dog racingworldwide.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
That's fantastic.
The work that you're doing isphenomenal.
Where was the inspirationoriginally for Greyhound to save
all these Greyhounds?
Where was it in you?
What did you have Greyhoundsgrowing up?
What was it that was?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
really the.
I know it's a different storyfor Christine and I have
different paths on this, whichis the case in so many ways.
Writing book with Christine waswonderful, but it was also
challenging, because if I seesomething as up, she'll see it
as down, and similarly ourbackgrounds are very different.
(06:42):
I was born into a family thathad a lot of problems and
challenges a lot of substanceabuse, a lot of generational
poverty and other issues and Ihad a mother who was very
passionate about animal welfareissues and ran a local animal
(07:07):
rights group in Portland, oregon, and so I was exposed to, as a
teenager, a lot of these animalissues of our time and I came to
view them as an urgent justiceissue and I ended up being
essentially recruited to be thespokesperson, for I was 22 years
(07:29):
old for what turned out to bethe very first serious challenge
that animal movement had evermade to the Greyhound racing
industry.
There were really fantasticgrassroots efforts to help
Greyhounds and combat Greyhoundracing in the 80s and 90s, but
they just couldn't quite.
(07:50):
They never became a realpolitical movement and in the
state of Massachusetts around1999, a group of particularly
hardy activists, includingChristine, really made the
switch and decided to try tocompletely outlaw Greyhound
(08:10):
racing in their own community,which, again, had never been
seriously tried before.
So in Massachusetts there'ssomething called a ballot
initiative process where, if yougo out and collect a lot of
signatures this is In the realmof animal advocacy.
This is like Mount Everest.
This is the most difficultthing you can do or one of them,
certainly and you have to goout and collect hundreds of
(08:31):
thousands of signatures in avery short period of time
registered signatures of voters,not like an online petition,
and if you do that, you canplace a question before all the
voters that says do you want tomake this law or not?
Most states don't have this,but some states across the
country do have this process.
So they went out and collectedthe signatures for a complete
(08:53):
ban on Greyhound racing and Iwas brought in as the campaign
spokesperson.
It was a very tough, nastycampaign, quite frankly, that
the Greyhound racers foughtagainst us.
We was true grassroots effortand most of the established
(09:15):
animal protection groups, infact, including the national
groups, were not enthusiasticabout helping and we, sort of
MacGyver style, pulled togethera campaign and pulled together
enough resources to at least getour message out to voters a
little bit and the dog tracksspent millions against us.
They had this ad campaign.
The first ad was a policeofficer standing in front of his
(09:40):
cruiser and he said I worked atthe dog track for 20, 25 years
and I never saw any animal touse.
And we said, well, that's agood ad, it's very effective.
The second ad was a Catholicpriest with the white collar and
a greyhound and he said thesepeople are lying, vote no.
We said that's a really good ad.
The third ad was a singlemother with her children and
(10:00):
Greyhound's in an open fieldbehind her and she said if you
pass this ballot question, wewon't be able to feed my
children.
And the fourth ad was to pureattack ad, where they called us
animal rights extremists,radicals and everything under
the sunwires.
And on the Friday for theelection, christine and I and
two other people were sued byone of the track owners for $10
(10:23):
million for defamation ofcharacters.
So it truly you know.
You know taco being thrown intothe fire.
You were 22 this time.
Despite all that I was 22 at thetime, yeah.
And despite all of that, onelection day, you know, we could
(10:44):
all tell it was going to beclose, and had the election
happened on a Monday instead ofa Wednesday, or a Monday or
Wednesday instead of thatTuesday, we may well have won.
But on election day on thatTuesday, we lost 5149 in one of
the closest ballot questions inthe history of the state, and
(11:04):
that was a crushing defeat, oneof the darkest days of my life.
But over time, as the painsubsided and it was painful
because we knew that because wehad failed, dogs are going to
suffer and die, dogs are goingto continue to live in cages,
right.
Dogs are going to continue tobe drugged because we had failed
(11:26):
, and to live with that pain is.
But over time we also began torealize that we had stood up to
this incredibly powerfulindustry and taken its best shot
and almost won for the dogs,and so that that was very
empowering and that became themotivation to form a national
(11:50):
nonprofit and continue fightingfor these Greyhounds.
In the years since then I didmake master level in chess, so
I'm a strategy oriented person.
Amazing, thank you.
I'm very ambitious.
I care very deeply about thesedogs, and so I think that's what
I brought to the table.
But, like I said, you know whatChristine brought and her story
(12:13):
is.
It's much better than mine,quite frankly, but it's also
quite different.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Well, carrie's fur from the West Coast.
I'm from the East Coast, I'm aJersey girl and I'm very frank
and direct and I don't wastetime.
So when I see a problem I wantto solve it.
So what brought me into thisfight?
From being an animal rightsactivist generally, I was active
(12:42):
on so many different campaignspersonally, against fur, against
vivisection.
I was out there with my sign,writing letters and that was my
whole life.
But then I found out about dogracing and in dog racing I saw
many of the problems I wasfighting all in one place in so
(13:04):
many ways.
For instance, theoverpopulation problem.
All the Greyhounds being bredand overbred for racing were
contributing to the homelessanimal population.
The dogs were fedslaughterhouse scraps.
So these slaughterhouses weremaking money off of the 4D meat
that they couldn't sell forhuman consumption and selling it
(13:24):
in big plastic bags to dogracing kennels.
There were just over and overvivisection.
These unwanted Greyhounds weresent to experimentation On and
on.
I said, wow, this is a bigproblem.
Why isn't somebody doingsomething about this?
And luckily a friend of minesaid well, there is something we
can do.
(13:44):
We're going to hold protestsoutside the track every weekend.
Are you in?
So I said, sure, I'm in.
I did not realize that thatwasn't necessarily going to move
the needle and help and dogracing.
It wasn't until we were doingthis for quite a while that
somebody came along and said youneed to change the law, and
(14:05):
that just made so much sense tome.
And then I found out about theballot process, which I didn't
know about, being from NewJersey.
We don't have it.
So I said, oh, I'm in, let'scollect the signatures and
outlaw dog racing.
I thought it was you know, youdo this, you do that, you win.
Well, we didn't know much aboutpolitics and we had to really
(14:27):
learn as we went and learn byour mistakes, and sometimes the
worst losses became the mostbeautiful victories.
And for me, my personal loss waswhen I was 26,.
I had just graduated fromcollege and I was walking with
(14:48):
my dog crossing the street andwe were run down by a speeding
train and I should have diedthat day.
But I believe my dog saved mylife and when I came out of my
coma I said to my family I'mgoing to help dogs.
I owe something to dogs.
Now, I didn't know what thatmeant actually, so it would take
(15:10):
a few years, of course ofrehabilitation before I was able
to get out in the world again.
And once I started looking atthe problem of greyhound racing,
I realized this was a problemthat was in my own backyard
2,000 greyhounds suffering,living in tiny cages, being
killed when they were no longervalued as money winners.
(15:31):
And I said I'm in, I want tohelp.
And I ended up going to lawschool so that I could learn the
legal process and become thegeneral counsel for our new
organization, which we formedout of the loss of 2,000.
We formed Grey2KUSA with theidea of ending dog racing
(15:53):
nationwide that year.
Now we aren't Grey2KUSAworldwide because the problem we
realize has no borders.
But for me, I have a great dealof empathy for these poor dogs
that suffer terrible injuriesand nobody helps them.
They're just killed.
A broken leg's, a deathsentence For me, all of the
(16:16):
injuries I had.
I had a team of doctors andmonths of care, emergency care
surgeries.
Everything was done to help meget back up on my feet and I
said the dogs deserve the samerespect, they deserve the same
protection.
So that's what really keeps mefocused.
Every day I think about thedogs and whenever I try to make
(16:37):
a hard decision, it actuallybecomes very simple.
I say, what would the dogs want?
And it just.
It makes our organizationaldecision making quite simple and
direct.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Well, first of all, I'm so sorry that you went
through such trauma in your life, and may I ask if your own
personal dog survived, or has hebeen guiding you from above
through this process?
Speaker 3 (17:06):
In fact, my dog, whose name was Kelsey, did
survive.
She had a broken hip which wasrepaired, and we both went into
a long period of rehabilitationand got well together.
And, as I said, she taught me alot, because she saved my life
(17:28):
and I knew I had an obligationto keep trying to help dogs in
some way, and it was in Kelsey'shonor that I began this work
with Carrie.
And, by the way, kelsey was nota Greyhound, kelsey was a Black
Russian terrier, about theopposite of the furry black dog.
(17:51):
But one of the key points we tryto make is that Greyhounds are
dogs.
They aren't some special beingthat's different or better or
lower, higher, lower than otherdogs.
They are just dogs and theydeserve the same protections
that a beagle or a poodle orwhatever dog you might name,
deserve and are guaranteed underthe law.
(18:12):
But the way that the laws havebeen written in this country,
there are exceptions written fordogs used for racing, so they
could be treated differently.
So that's one of the thingsthat we've tried to do along the
way.
We've tried to equalize the lawto apply to Greyhounds.
And one of the important thingswe learned along the way like I
(18:34):
said, we didn't know anythingabout the process.
We were just completelygreenhorns.
We realized we had to takeincremental steps to reach our
goal.
We had to realize thatsometimes we were going to lose,
but we had to get up and fightagain because the dogs still
needed us.
The next day after we lost theywere in the same horrible place
(18:57):
and still needed to be helped.
So it's because we've had thepatience to work step by step,
state by state, that we havebeen able to have some success.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Absolutely.
That was going to be myquestion.
So you just kind of attackedeach state one by one and kind
of we're able to change the lawsin each state.
Is that how that worked?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah, I mean it was you know, it was a struggle and
I think yeah yeah, I, ironically, the greatest tool we had was
that we didn't know we weredoing.
And you know we really embracedour experience.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
That's really helpful .
Speaker 2 (19:40):
No, no, it really is like in anyone who see something
in their community and wants tomake and wants to make a change
.
You know, I would say that yourgreatest ally genuinely is is
that you know you don't know howto do it.
I mean because for us, you know, embracing our inexperience
really forced us to try and andfigure out this problem and
(20:02):
Figure out how to attack it andhow to.
So, you know, it was ayears-long process.
I mean we, we ended up Sort ofmerging, you know, the
grassroots activism which willalways be our core and where we
came from, with the modernpolitical techniques and, you
know, a lot of research.
(20:23):
I mean, one of our goals wastruly to Understand this
industry even better than itknows itself.
And then, you know, go forwardand try to give the dogs a voice
in in the, the legislativeprocess and in the courts, in
the media and, and just, youknow, push and push and push and
look, look for opportunities.
And it was, it was a, it was aslow process.
(20:46):
I mean we, we did a bunch oflegislative work in the state of
New Hampshire which, which wasvery Informative for us to took
place over, you know, almost adecade, by six or eight years
and that, you know, we just keptcoming back to the legislature
every year fighting subsidies,fighting, you know, tax breaks.
The industry was getting tryingto pass reforms and we and we
(21:08):
just kept and our work, justkept building and building and
you know, I think we Learned alot of things that were
surprising, you know.
I think that the value of Simplybeing at the right place at the
right time, I mean, I think ina lot of ways we're living
(21:29):
through, all of us, a Periodwhen animal welfare is
transcendent and and we'rereally, you know, they're riding
that wave, and so, in the bigpicture, I think all of us, if
we care about animals, are, in asense, in the right place at
the right time, because, youknow, there's so many victories
happening right now for animalsthat 20 or 30 years ago would
(21:51):
have we would have thought wereimpossible.
You know, and also I think weyou know, when we started to
research that the real historyof Greyhound racing, which goes
all the way back to the 20s and30s, what we discovered was that
the grassroots fight that thatwe had come out of wasn't the
beginning of the story, thatthere had been very Rambunctious
(22:15):
debates over Greyhound racingIn the 20s and 30s and 40s and
50s, and I mean this was a, youknow, a debate that had had
taken place over Decades andgenerations, and so I think we,
we became really grateful forthe contributions of all those
who preceded us in terms ofdoing this work.
But more than anything, it wasjust to not give up.
(22:37):
I mean, I, you know,christine's story is Truly a
story of perseverance, you know,as is Brooklyn's story, and
they will get into that.
But you know, he, I think,personified Perseverance, maybe
more than anyone.
But you know, we really learnedthat that if you want to change
the world, the number onesecret is to never give up.
(22:59):
And you're not gonna win everyfight.
You're gonna.
You're gonna go through a lotof losses, but you have to
always keep trying and alwayskeep fighting and always keep
believing in yourself.
And if you can do that, if youcan, if you can, you just never
leave the field, then you knowthe power of everyday people
really can win the day.
(23:20):
I mean, I think the thing thatis unique about our story In the
animal movement, certainly, butalso just in our, in our
broader society is we fought amulti-billion dollar industry
and one, and you know that IThink people today become so
(23:40):
cynical about our democracy, andI understand why our democracy
is is sick and a lot of ways isbroken, and but it can still
work.
And I think you know our fightfor Greyhounds, which which was,
by the way, very bipartisan,you know, and and crosses party
(24:03):
lines, crosses ideology, crossesage, crosses gender.
I mean, you know, it truly islike an equalizer across all
aspects of our society.
You know, our, our work isproof that, that the democracy
can still work.
So you know, and, and lastthing I'll say is, you know, I
think part of the reason forthat is that Exploited
(24:26):
industries like Greyhound racingcontain within themselves the
seeds of their own destruction.
And so, you know, we werealways just just trying to keep
giving dogs a voice and keepfighting for them.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Thank you this is thank you for all that you've
done, when you succeeded inclosing down the industry,
essentially in other thanVirginia.
What happens to those dogs?
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Well, one of the most important things about our
campaigns is that it's a fullcircle.
When we, for instance, webrought a ballot question to
Florida to close down 12 tracks,what we asked voters to do was
to support a phase out of dogracing so that dogs could be
adopted out on a rolling basis,and that's what happened.
(25:13):
And what is beautiful aboutending dog racing is these dogs
become cause celeb and they itis actually hard to adopt a
greyhound because everybody Iwant one of those dogs.
And they become so popular thatPeople actually, you know, get
quite disappointed if they can'tadopt a Miami dog or a Fort
(25:37):
Lauderdale dog or whatever theyhad in their mind.
So, instead of being a crisis,it's actually kind of a tug of
war to place the dogs in goodhomes.
And we are not an adoptiongroup.
We fund adoption groups.
But we have strong allianceswith these hardworking people
(25:57):
who are on the ground taking thedogs in, and it isn't just a
matter of picking them up andsaying, okay, put them up for
adoption after this.
These dogs need to berehabilitated.
They've had a very poorexistence, low level of welfare
and care at racing kennels.
They live in stacked metalcages About 100 dogs per kettle
(26:20):
in these dark warehouses andthey spend very little time out
of those cages.
They're inside by themselvesfor 20 to 23 hours a day.
They're let out to relievethemselves and basically what is
a litter box for greyhounds?
It's a small space outside thekennel building.
(26:41):
It's enclosed, so it's juststill outside outside and they
pee in their poop and then theyput them back in the cage.
They don't walk dogs who areinvolved in racing other than to
walk them out in front of thebedders right before the race.
That's part of the wholeprocess of the gamblers can take
(27:02):
a look at the dogs and decidewho they're going to bet on or
whatever.
It's quite atrocious and it's areally old fashioned way of
gambling that certainly has lostits luster.
So one of the things that's beena positive for us is that other
forms of gambling havecertainly been in competition
(27:25):
with old fashioned kind of dogracing.
The cruelty of dog racing ismuch more well known than it was
before States with dog racing.
One of the things we did was weinstituted record keeping laws
so that people could decide forthemselves.
Well, do I think it's rightthat in Massachusetts a dog is
injured every three days?
(27:45):
Well, no, actually I don't.
I don't like that's not a sport.
Or in West Virginia right now,thousands of dogs have been
injured since 2008, sufferingbroken backs, broken legs,
broken necks Is this somethingthat really we want to have in
the 21st century?
So the dogs can speak forthemselves with their records?
(28:08):
So there's been increasededucation, the competition is
certainly there, and even thetrack owners themselves are no
longer interested in this oldfashioned form of gambling.
They'd rather move on to muchmore lucrative kinds of casino
type gambling, which we are notan anti-gamely organization or a
(28:31):
pro-gamely organization.
We are an anti-dog racingorganization.
That's our one mission here isto end the cruelty of dog racing
and I think, because we've beenso focused, that's also been a
great asset to our efforts.
We're a small organization withone mission and we just don't
(28:54):
let anybody get in our way aboutit.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
So essentially the tracks have to be accountable
for each and every dog and onceyou see that in real time, it
kind of shifts people, it makesit a little bit more real and
shifts people's perception ofwhat's really going on Versus
what they see in that moment infront of them when the dogs are
racing right.
(29:18):
And I think that's how we makeit more human, we make it more.
You know, these are livingbeings, living, feeling,
sentient beings, and they'regetting hurt every single day
and being put in thesesituations, not just when it's
right in front of you, but theirentire lives essentially Also
the records produced to thepublic show that Greyhounds are
(29:40):
drugged to fix races.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
So there's cheating going on.
It's not even fair to thegamblers.
So, from start to finish, youcould say that dog racing hasn't
really stepped too far awayfrom its original criminal
element.
It's still what it always was.
What we learned was that peopleunderstand this is no way to
(30:03):
treat a dog, and these dogs caninspire people to come and do
the right thing and vote for thedogs or contact their lawmakers
to vote for the dogs.
As Carrie said, only about halfthe states have the ballot
question process.
So we work through legislaturesto end dog racing.
And I tell you, when lawmakerslove to go up and debate and say
(30:25):
I'm voting for dogs, I likedogs.
It makes them look good andit's a good thing to do.
It makes them look good.
That's what I'm going to say.
And you know, when we saw thatpicture of Brooklyn, this dog
who was languishing at a Chinesedog track, there was just this
magical moment.
We were so transfixed.
(30:46):
He was such an astoundinglooking dog, he inspired us.
And Then we looked at hisrecords.
Then we came to understand howlong he'd been there, where he
came from, and we said we'regonna shut this place down, and
it took eight years, but we wereso inspired by this one dog and
(31:07):
he became the ambassador forthe other 600 dogs who are also
at this terrible place calledthe canadrome.
It was a place that had beenracing dogs for decades, and
About 400 dogs were shipped infrom Australia each year to live
and die at the canadrome.
(31:29):
And the canadrome is on Macau,which is a peninsula off the
mainland China.
It's kind of like the Las Vegasof China, because gambling is
illegal on the mainland, but itwas allowed on Macau and there
was no adoption program at thecanadrome.
So every dog that went theredied there, and our first step
(31:53):
in the what we called the rescueBrooklyn campaign was to Ask
the track to please start anadoption program.
Very simple it refused.
People held rallies all aroundthe world candlelight rallies
and vigils for this one dog, andYet they would not be moved to
(32:13):
create an adoption program.
So then we appealed to thegovernment, we went to Macau, we
talked with officials and wesaid this is a very, this is
very bad for your reputation.
Every month, 30 dogs wereshipped in and 30 dogs on the
property were killed to make aroom.
It was like clockwork and theykept very good records.
They kept them on their websiteso it wasn't hard to see this
(32:35):
was happening.
So it was a terrible problem.
It had been going on fordecades and decades and it took
us eight years to close thatterrible place down.
But with our allies Enema,macau and pet levy area, we not
only closed down the dog trackbut we airlifted over Over 500
dogs the surviving dogs tosafety, to adoption groups all
(32:58):
across the world.
So my feeling is, if we canclose a Chinese dog track and
save those dogs, anything'spossible right, absolutely, and
this was before like the adventof social media, wasn't it?
Speaker 1 (33:14):
like before, like now , news spreads fast, it's easy
to get you know, it's easy toget your message across quickly
and into gain momentum quickly,and you were able to do this
Really hands-on, grassrootsright.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Yeah, well, I think that I think it was.
It was because you know itbecame a worldwide issue.
Because it was a worldwideissue in a sense.
I mean, you know, brooklyn hadbeen born in 2008 in Australia.
He had Both of his parents werefailed racers.
They were chasing a bloodlineof a champion dog and he raced
(33:52):
for a short period of time.
He did not perform well andthen had been shipped off to the
canadrome when he was still ayoung dog.
One of our board members went tothe track, took a series of
photographs and, as Christinesaid, you know, there was this
very iconic Photograph thatturned out to be of Brooklyn and
when she came back and gave usher report, showed us the photos
(34:14):
.
We were just mesmerized by bythis incredible, this incredible
dog.
And so, and all we had to go byin terms of identifying him was
on his collar were threeletters L, y, n, and you know,
our research staff tried to findout who was this dog, and we
their best guess was it was thisdog named Brooklyn and, as
(34:35):
Christine said, we thenproceeded to lobby the
government, but it took eightlong years before the track was
with finally shut down and,quite frankly, we thought
Brooklyn had been killed.
He wasn't racing, there was noinformation coming out about him
and when the track finallyclosed and Our allies went in
(34:56):
and and assess the 500 plus dogsthat were there, brooklyn was
still there and he was stillalive.
He'd been living in a cementcell essentially for eight long
years and you know, he, afterChristine and others, helped
find homes for all of those dogsyou know, to various places
(35:16):
across the world.
Brooklyn did come home toChristine and I personally, and
it was, it was just, I think,the most incredible experience
of my life.
Quite frankly, we we've hadother companion animals, had had
other dogs.
You know we have bats and youknow, obviously they all mean
the world to us.
(35:37):
But there was something Evenbeyond that.
There was something uniqueabout about this dog he was.
He came to us Underweights,with missing teeth, with, you
know, there's all sorts ofissues, but he was none.
Despite that, he was loving andJust the most gentle, sweet,
(36:04):
you know, individual we had comeacross and we just loved him so
, so much and he was only withus At our home and which really
was the only home he had everknown for about three weeks when
he started to limp and we tookhim to the vet and we got the
worst possible diagnosis, whichwas that he did in fact have
(36:25):
bone cancer.
And we went forward with theamputation and with chemotherapy
and the veterinarian said youknow, you can hope for nine
months, and that that it seemedIncredibly cruel that a dog who
had suffered so much wasprobably the most well-known
(36:46):
greyhound in the world becauseof his suffering when he finally
found a home, would have such ashort time left.
But this dog would not give up.
He ended up living after thatdiagnosis for three years.
He became within, yeah, at thethe animal hospitals in the area
(37:07):
.
He became like the, the exampleof.
You know they would say well,you know, your dog probably has
about nine months, but there aredogs like Brooklyn that you
know live a lot longer.
So he became this example thatthe people would be told about.
And he also later had what'scalled an FCE, which is a
version of a spinal stroke.
So we almost lost him a secondtime and he had to he.
(37:31):
He became much less mobile.
I had to take him out torelieve himself and, you know,
he could walk, but he was sortof just like I, stumbled around
a little bit.
But despite all of that, aftereverything he went through, he
was the sweetest dog.
When we came in, every day hewould stand at the lobby of our
(37:52):
building and wait for people tocome in, and people would come
in and rub his ears and he justeveryone he met and came across
he touched in this very specialway.
So I think for us, you know,first of all, that was like a
reward.
I mean, when we wrote the book,you know it wasn't well.
(38:12):
We have this, this passion towrite.
You know that this, you know,for some ego purpose or it
wasn't any of that.
It was more that we livethrough this truly bizarre
experience of being a part of agrassroots movement that took on
the multi-billion dollarindustry and won, and, and we
(38:36):
thought that we owed it to theGreyhounds and to that fight and
and to future generations toput that story on paper so
people can can read it and takefrom it what they will.
And I think you know Brooklynwas like.
You know that, ironically, hewas born.
(38:56):
So I mentioned at the beginningof the interview that very first
campaign in Massachusetts thatwe lost.
We come, we came back eightyears later and in 2008 we
brought our issue back to thevoters in Massachusetts.
We won Sweeping victory, youknow, one by 12 percentage
points, carried 12 to 14counties.
(39:18):
You know, and that was thefirst moment that the animal
industry had really defeated thedog racing industry and two
large, powerful dog tracks InMassachusetts were shuttered as
a result and thousands of dogswere helped.
Brooklyn was born only a fewweeks after that incredible
victory and before he passed.
(39:41):
In 2018, we passed aconstitutional amendment in the
state of Florida, where therewere 12 operational dog tracks,
more than 10,000 greyhoundssuffering, you know, tracks that
have been doing a billiondollars a year in business just
by themselves at their peak.
You know, and, and you know, aconstitutional amendment in 2018
(40:01):
to shut all of those dog tracksdown.
Past with a 69% vote, with thesupport of the most liberal
members of the state legislature, the League of Women Voters.
You know the Democraticgubernatorial candidate joining
with Laura Trump, mike Huckabee,governor Rick Scott I mean this
right left coalition that youdon't see on anything.
(40:24):
And so the end of Greyhoundracing the United States really
happened within the life of thisone dog and he was such a sweet
dog and when he passedLiterally the the the entire
Greyhound community across theworld grieved.
I mean, there were, there werevigils and walks and Obituaries
(40:48):
were written and the South ChinaMorning Post wrote an entire
feature story in his passing andit you know.
So he really became again sucha personification of this
movement and the desire to keepfighting, keep fighting and
(41:09):
never give up.
So I think, christine and Ifeel incredibly blessed to have
been a part of this, so we feltan obligation to tell this
strange story.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
Oh I, you know everybody thinks their dog is
special.
You know, that's true, we knowthat.
And they are all special, but intheir own unique way and they
are all special, but there wasreally something magical about
Brooklyn and he taught me somuch.
He suffered so much.
Yeah, imagine living in aconcrete cell for eight years
(41:49):
and having no bed to sleep onand being fed slop and getting
no medical care, just anisolation, and to think of that
kind of existence and then to beshipped across the world to a
place you don't know.
This was one of the happiestdogs I've ever met.
(42:11):
He I don't know if dogs cansmile, but I can tell you he
always seemed to be smiling andhe had a very calming and a very
mesmerizing effect on everyonehe met Interesting, and I
learned that.
I learned a lot from him aboutpatience and forgiveness.
(42:33):
And you know, as I started outby saying, I'm a tough Jersey
girl, but I'll tell you he mademe step back and understand a
little bit more aboutforgiveness and if Brooklyn can
forgive how he was treated, thenwe can also take a step back
(42:53):
and kind of let things go andfocus on the good.
And that's what he did.
He lived every day with joy andevery meal was a celebration,
every walk was a celebration.
He was wonderful, but you know,more than just being this super
(43:14):
dog you know we could talkabout for hours.
Yeah, I believe that Brooklynand in fact, all Greyhounds are
ambassadors for other animals inneed, because people can feel
and understand the plight ofdogs.
It's very relatable and it's myhope that they might say and I
(43:36):
know they do say well, if it'snot right to keep a dog in a
tiny cage for 20 to 23 hours aday, how is it right to keep
chickens in battery cages orpigs in gestation crates?
This confinement issue, the waythat we control and confine
other animals, is an essentialproblem about how we interact
(44:01):
with other beings and the factthat this factory kind of
mentality we have, thisindustrialization of other
animals, actually comes back onus because it leads to
environmental damage, pollution,all sorts of major problems
with the environment because ofthese factory farms emitting
(44:23):
fumes and methane into the airand destroying the groundwater.
So I continue to be an animaladvocate in every way and I try
to live my life that way.
But I think that if people canunderstand that the way these
dogs are being treated is wrong,I think it will open their
(44:44):
minds up to how other animalsmight also deserve to be helped
right now.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Absolutely, and their hearts Absolutely.
Thank you so much for sharingyour story with us and your
journey with us.
How can we help support yourefforts and continue to help
support your efforts?
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, I would encourage
people to buy the book, to go toAmazon, order it because, and
you know, I will definitely puta link in the show notes.
Thank you, thank you, and what Iwould say is you know, we wrote
this because we want otherpeople to make changes in
(45:29):
society that they care about.
I mean, we, the, the.
The express purpose of this isto encourage others to be change
agents, and you know so I hopethere's something in this that
people can take away that willhelp them do that.
Also, you know, learn about theissue.
Go to our website great, toKSAorg.
We have a federal bill to outlawGreyhound Racing, which is
(45:53):
pending in Congress, has a lotof support, which would would
essentially close the doorcompletely on Greyhound Racing
in our country, and I wouldencourage folks to reach out to
the congressman that representsyou and ask them to cosponsor
that bill.
Again, there's details on ourwebsite and beyond that, you
know, I would just say you know,have hope that that you know,
(46:21):
listen to our story and havehope that you can make change on
the issues that you care about.
In fact, I think, if, if, if westay on the field and continue
to give a voice to the voicelistening, continue to fight and
believe in ourselves, that youknow, change is inevitable.
I really believe that.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
I hope that people can feel inspired by the small
success we've had in this oneone area.
But we're not done yet, farfrom it.
Until the US GreyhoundProtection Act passes into law,
dog racing will still be legalin this country and in fact,
like many things, dog racing hasgone viral and it's in the
(47:04):
virtual world.
American gamblers can now useplatforms to bet not only on the
last two dog tracks here in theUnited States and West Virginia
, but on races all around theworld.
So they are propping up thecruelty of Greyhound racing.
That's occurring in Australia,the United Kingdom, et cetera.
(47:24):
Mexico, mexico, which is ourneighbor, has one of the worst
tracks, if not the worst trackin the world Aqua Caliente, and
American gamblers are proppingthat up by placing bets on these
four dogs.
So one of the goals of the USGreyhound Protection Act is not
only to outlaw dog racing in ourcountry, but we'd also prohibit
(47:48):
American gamblers from bettingon races taking place elsewhere,
and it will prohibit the exportof Greyhounds for racing
elsewhere.
So we're really trying to gofull circle here and provide an
example for the rest of theworld.
Greyhound racing is legal insix countries and the United
Kingdom, so this Americaninvention unfortunately has
(48:12):
metastasized to other countries.
In fact, in Australia there are64 dog tracks, and every track
there is because of us.
It's because Americans inventedthis cruelty, and I believe
it's our job to stop it.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Thank you.
I will put links in the shownotes to all the ways that we
can help you.
Anything else you guys want toadd?
Speaker 2 (48:34):
No, we're just thank you for what you do to bring
attention to all of these issuesand thank you for spending some
time thinking about Greyhoundsand hearing our story.
Like I said, we're verygrateful for the opportunity to
talk to you today.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
Thank you so much for having us.
It's a pleasure and we reallyhope that we can be examples for
others who want to take on bigissues.
And even if no one else istrying, they can try and they
can make a difference.
And that's what we've learned.
You don't have to be thesmartest person or the most
adept person or the most skilledperson.
(49:14):
You can learn, you can grow andyou can, and you can, in fact,
make a difference.
So that's what we hope peoplewill take away from our story.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Thank you, thanks, you guys have a great day.
Well, I'm thrilled to have you on to share your
mission and your story with mylisteners.
You are the co-founders of Grey2K, which is a global nonprofit
effort to end commercialGreyhound Racing globally, and
you have been very successful inalmost eradicating it in the
United States.
So that is.
(00:21):
Your work is incredible, and Iwant to say that I know that
Greyhound Racing has existed forquite some time, but it's not
something that really has beenon my radar as an animal welfare
issue that I've been focused on.
So I really appreciate youjumping on and educating me and
(00:44):
educating my listeners and alsosharing the inspiration behind
your book Brooklyn goes home.
So I'd love to just talk alittle bit about your
backgrounds and the personaljourney that kind of led you to
really making this a passion.
Sure.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, we're both grateful to be on and really
appreciate you taking the timeto think about this issue and
hear our story.
Christine and I formed ournonprofit organization nearly a
quarter century ago and sincethen we have been very blessed
to work with a large grassrootscoalition and other
(01:28):
organizations and lawmakers toboth reform Greyhound Racing but
also to end it completely, andwe have been relatively pretty
successful.
At its peak, there were nearly70 operational dog tracks
nationwide.
There were well over 50,000Greyhounds being bred a year and
(01:50):
disposed of a year.
There were about $3 billion beton Greyhound Racing.
It was the sixth largestspectator sport in America and
it was also very powerfulpolitically.
I mean, there were many stateswhere literally Greyhound Racing
interests were the mostpowerful force in the political
process and, by contrast, todaythere are only two dog tracks
(02:14):
left, both in the state of WestVirginia.
The company that owns thatfinal two tracks once out of
Greyhound Racing and said sopublicly.
There's a grassroots movementthat is working to help these
dogs and end Greyhound Racingall over the world.
So this is something that hasspread and really become a
global movement and we areliving through the end of this
(02:41):
animal abuse industry, which iscertainly good news for everyone
who cares about dogs.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Absolutely, and do you.
Is it forgive me, but is itjust the financial aspect of it
that keeps people so invested inthis sport?
I don't know how it works.
Is it just purely greed?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Well, the interesting thing about Greyhound Racing or
one of them is that it startedas an illegal enterprise.
There were scores of illegaldog tracks set up all across the
United States the mobsters weknow of from lore, bugsy, malone
, all associated with dog racingbecause it was a great way to
(03:27):
move money.
And eventually these let's saygangsters convinced one state to
legalize their activity, andthat was the state of Florida.
And the state of Florida saidokay, we're going to let you
have dog tracks or we're goingto let you keep your dog tracks,
as a matter of fact, but youhave to give us a cut.
(03:49):
So certainly, the legalizationof dog racing came about because
there was money needed bystates during the Depression and
this was a new source ofrevenue.
Unfortunately, what wasn'tcalculated and couldn't be known
at that time was that tens ofthousands of Greyhounds,
(04:09):
hundreds of thousands ofGreyhounds, would suffer the
consequences.
A dog that slows down or agesout is a worthless dog.
And they were simply disposedof.
It wasn't until the late 1980sthat someone started saying wait
a minute, these are dogs, whyaren't we adopting them?
And the industry resisted, butthen they realized it would be a
(04:31):
good public relations move tosupport adoption.
So the adoption movement didblossom, starting in the early
1990s, as these Greyhoundsreally came to be family friends
just like any other dog.
But the issue was that moneycould be made off of these dogs
and that's what ignited dogracing.
(04:54):
And when we came along in theyear 2000, 2001, a lot of folks
doubted that we could make anykind of dent in this
multi-million dollar industrywhere the track owners had a lot
of political clout.
But we set about to do it andthe reason that we wanted to
write our book was to inspireothers to take on hard problems
(05:17):
and try to make a difference.
We continue to operate out of aone room office.
We are fighting tracks aroundthe world from this one room
office with five desks that arecircle, and if we can do it, I
think others can make adifference in the causes that
they care about.
And our book is dedicated toBrooklyn because he's the dog
(05:40):
that we rescued from a horribledog track, a horrible Chinese
dog track.
He had no hope but we rescuedhim and closed down that track
and he really has inspired us tokeep fighting since the time
that we took him in and expandour mission so that we can
(06:01):
hopefully end dog racingworldwide.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
That's fantastic.
The work that you're doing isphenomenal.
Where was the inspirationoriginally for Greyhound to save
all these Greyhounds?
Where was it in you?
What did you have Greyhoundsgrowing up?
What was it that was?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
really the.
I know it's a different storyfor Christine and I have
different paths on this, whichis the case in so many ways.
Writing book with Christine waswonderful, but it was also
challenging, because if I seesomething as up, she'll see it
as down, and similarly ourbackgrounds are very different.
(06:42):
I was born into a family thathad a lot of problems and
challenges a lot of substanceabuse, a lot of generational
poverty and other issues and Ihad a mother who was very
passionate about animal welfareissues and ran a local animal
(07:07):
rights group in Portland, oregon, and so I was exposed to, as a
teenager, a lot of these animalissues of our time and I came to
view them as an urgent justiceissue and I ended up being
essentially recruited to be thespokesperson, for I was 22 years
(07:29):
old for what turned out to bethe very first serious challenge
that animal movement had evermade to the Greyhound racing
industry.
There were really fantasticgrassroots efforts to help
Greyhounds and combat Greyhoundracing in the 80s and 90s, but
they just couldn't quite.
(07:50):
They never became a realpolitical movement and in the
state of Massachusetts around1999, a group of particularly
hardy activists, includingChristine, really made the
switch and decided to try tocompletely outlaw Greyhound
(08:10):
racing in their own community,which, again, had never been
seriously tried before.
So in Massachusetts there'ssomething called a ballot
initiative process where, if yougo out and collect a lot of
signatures this is In the realmof animal advocacy.
This is like Mount Everest.
This is the most difficultthing you can do or one of them,
certainly and you have to goout and collect hundreds of
(08:31):
thousands of signatures in avery short period of time
registered signatures of voters,not like an online petition,
and if you do that, you canplace a question before all the
voters that says do you want tomake this law or not?
Most states don't have this,but some states across the
country do have this process.
So they went out and collectedthe signatures for a complete
(08:53):
ban on Greyhound racing and Iwas brought in as the campaign
spokesperson.
It was a very tough, nastycampaign, quite frankly, that
the Greyhound racers foughtagainst us.
We was true grassroots effortand most of the established
(09:15):
animal protection groups, infact, including the national
groups, were not enthusiasticabout helping and we, sort of
MacGyver style, pulled togethera campaign and pulled together
enough resources to at least getour message out to voters a
little bit and the dog tracksspent millions against us.
They had this ad campaign.
The first ad was a policeofficer standing in front of his
(09:40):
cruiser and he said I worked atthe dog track for 20, 25 years
and I never saw any animal touse.
And we said, well, that's agood ad, it's very effective.
The second ad was a Catholicpriest with the white collar and
a greyhound and he said thesepeople are lying, vote no.
We said that's a really good ad.
The third ad was a singlemother with her children and
(10:00):
Greyhound's in an open fieldbehind her and she said if you
pass this ballot question, wewon't be able to feed my
children.
And the fourth ad was to pureattack ad, where they called us
animal rights extremists,radicals and everything under
the sunwires.
And on the Friday for theelection, christine and I and
two other people were sued byone of the track owners for $10
(10:23):
million for defamation ofcharacters.
So it truly you know.
You know taco being thrown intothe fire.
You were 22 this time.
Despite all that I was 22 at thetime, yeah.
And despite all of that, onelection day, you know, we could
(10:44):
all tell it was going to beclose, and had the election
happened on a Monday instead ofa Wednesday, or a Monday or
Wednesday instead of thatTuesday, we may well have won.
But on election day on thatTuesday, we lost 5149 in one of
the closest ballot questions inthe history of the state, and
(11:04):
that was a crushing defeat, oneof the darkest days of my life.
But over time, as the painsubsided and it was painful
because we knew that because wehad failed, dogs are going to
suffer and die, dogs are goingto continue to live in cages,
right.
Dogs are going to continue tobe drugged because we had failed
(11:26):
, and to live with that pain is.
But over time we also began torealize that we had stood up to
this incredibly powerfulindustry and taken its best shot
and almost won for the dogs,and so that that was very
empowering and that became themotivation to form a national
(11:50):
nonprofit and continue fightingfor these Greyhounds.
In the years since then I didmake master level in chess, so
I'm a strategy oriented person.
Amazing, thank you.
I'm very ambitious.
I care very deeply about thesedogs, and so I think that's what
I brought to the table.
But, like I said, you know whatChristine brought and her story
(12:13):
is.
It's much better than mine,quite frankly, but it's also
quite different.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Well, carrie's fur from the West Coast.
I'm from the East Coast, I'm aJersey girl and I'm very frank
and direct and I don't wastetime.
So when I see a problem I wantto solve it.
So what brought me into thisfight?
From being an animal rightsactivist generally, I was active
(12:42):
on so many different campaignspersonally, against fur, against
vivisection.
I was out there with my sign,writing letters and that was my
whole life.
But then I found out about dogracing and in dog racing I saw
many of the problems I wasfighting all in one place in so
(13:04):
many ways.
For instance, theoverpopulation problem.
All the Greyhounds being bredand overbred for racing were
contributing to the homelessanimal population.
The dogs were fedslaughterhouse scraps.
So these slaughterhouses weremaking money off of the 4D meat
that they couldn't sell forhuman consumption and selling it
(13:24):
in big plastic bags to dogracing kennels.
There were just over and overvivisection.
These unwanted Greyhounds weresent to experimentation On and
on.
I said, wow, this is a bigproblem.
Why isn't somebody doingsomething about this?
And luckily a friend of minesaid well, there is something we
can do.
(13:44):
We're going to hold protestsoutside the track every weekend.
Are you in?
So I said, sure, I'm in.
I did not realize that thatwasn't necessarily going to move
the needle and help and dogracing.
It wasn't until we were doingthis for quite a while that
somebody came along and said youneed to change the law, and
(14:05):
that just made so much sense tome.
And then I found out about theballot process, which I didn't
know about, being from NewJersey.
We don't have it.
So I said, oh, I'm in, let'scollect the signatures and
outlaw dog racing.
I thought it was you know, youdo this, you do that, you win.
Well, we didn't know much aboutpolitics and we had to really
(14:27):
learn as we went and learn byour mistakes, and sometimes the
worst losses became the mostbeautiful victories.
And for me, my personal loss waswhen I was 26,.
I had just graduated fromcollege and I was walking with
(14:48):
my dog crossing the street andwe were run down by a speeding
train and I should have diedthat day.
But I believe my dog saved mylife and when I came out of my
coma I said to my family I'mgoing to help dogs.
I owe something to dogs.
Now, I didn't know what thatmeant actually, so it would take
(15:10):
a few years, of course ofrehabilitation before I was able
to get out in the world again.
And once I started looking atthe problem of greyhound racing,
I realized this was a problemthat was in my own backyard
2,000 greyhounds suffering,living in tiny cages, being
killed when they were no longervalued as money winners.
(15:31):
And I said I'm in, I want tohelp.
And I ended up going to lawschool so that I could learn the
legal process and become thegeneral counsel for our new
organization, which we formedout of the loss of 2,000.
We formed Grey2KUSA with theidea of ending dog racing
(15:53):
nationwide that year.
Now we aren't Grey2KUSAworldwide because the problem we
realize has no borders.
But for me, I have a great dealof empathy for these poor dogs
that suffer terrible injuriesand nobody helps them.
They're just killed.
A broken leg's, a deathsentence For me, all of the
(16:16):
injuries I had.
I had a team of doctors andmonths of care, emergency care
surgeries.
Everything was done to help meget back up on my feet and I
said the dogs deserve the samerespect, they deserve the same
protection.
So that's what really keeps mefocused.
Every day I think about thedogs and whenever I try to make
(16:37):
a hard decision, it actuallybecomes very simple.
I say, what would the dogs want?
And it just.
It makes our organizationaldecision making quite simple and
direct.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Well, first of all, I'm so sorry that you went
through such trauma in your life, and may I ask if your own
personal dog survived, or has hebeen guiding you from above
through this process?
Speaker 3 (17:06):
In fact, my dog, whose name was Kelsey, did
survive.
She had a broken hip which wasrepaired, and we both went into
a long period of rehabilitationand got well together.
And, as I said, she taught me alot, because she saved my life
(17:28):
and I knew I had an obligationto keep trying to help dogs in
some way, and it was in Kelsey'shonor that I began this work
with Carrie.
And, by the way, kelsey was nota Greyhound, kelsey was a Black
Russian terrier, about theopposite of the furry black dog.
(17:51):
But one of the key points we tryto make is that Greyhounds are
dogs.
They aren't some special beingthat's different or better or
lower, higher, lower than otherdogs.
They are just dogs and theydeserve the same protections
that a beagle or a poodle orwhatever dog you might name,
deserve and are guaranteed underthe law.
(18:12):
But the way that the laws havebeen written in this country,
there are exceptions written fordogs used for racing, so they
could be treated differently.
So that's one of the thingsthat we've tried to do along the
way.
We've tried to equalize the lawto apply to Greyhounds.
And one of the important thingswe learned along the way like I
(18:34):
said, we didn't know anythingabout the process.
We were just completelygreenhorns.
We realized we had to takeincremental steps to reach our
goal.
We had to realize thatsometimes we were going to lose,
but we had to get up and fightagain because the dogs still
needed us.
The next day after we lost theywere in the same horrible place
(18:57):
and still needed to be helped.
So it's because we've had thepatience to work step by step,
state by state, that we havebeen able to have some success.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Absolutely.
That was going to be myquestion.
So you just kind of attackedeach state one by one and kind
of we're able to change the lawsin each state.
Is that how that worked?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah, I mean it was you know, it was a struggle and
I think yeah yeah, I, ironically, the greatest tool we had was
that we didn't know we weredoing.
And you know we really embracedour experience.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
That's really helpful .
Speaker 2 (19:40):
No, no, it really is like in anyone who see something
in their community and wants tomake and wants to make a change
.
You know, I would say that yourgreatest ally genuinely is is
that you know you don't know howto do it.
I mean because for us, you know, embracing our inexperience
really forced us to try and andfigure out this problem and
(20:02):
Figure out how to attack it andhow to.
So, you know, it was ayears-long process.
I mean we, we ended up Sort ofmerging, you know, the
grassroots activism which willalways be our core and where we
came from, with the modernpolitical techniques and, you
know, a lot of research.
(20:23):
I mean, one of our goals wastruly to Understand this
industry even better than itknows itself.
And then, you know, go forwardand try to give the dogs a voice
in in the, the legislativeprocess and in the courts, in
the media and, and just, youknow, push and push and push and
look, look for opportunities.
And it was, it was a, it was aslow process.
(20:46):
I mean we, we did a bunch oflegislative work in the state of
New Hampshire which, which wasvery Informative for us to took
place over, you know, almost adecade, by six or eight years
and that, you know, we just keptcoming back to the legislature
every year fighting subsidies,fighting, you know, tax breaks.
The industry was getting tryingto pass reforms and we and we
(21:08):
just kept and our work, justkept building and building and
you know, I think we Learned alot of things that were
surprising, you know.
I think that the value of Simplybeing at the right place at the
right time, I mean, I think ina lot of ways we're living
(21:29):
through, all of us, a Periodwhen animal welfare is
transcendent and and we'rereally, you know, they're riding
that wave, and so, in the bigpicture, I think all of us, if
we care about animals, are, in asense, in the right place at
the right time, because, youknow, there's so many victories
happening right now for animalsthat 20 or 30 years ago would
(21:51):
have we would have thought wereimpossible.
You know, and also I think weyou know, when we started to
research that the real historyof Greyhound racing, which goes
all the way back to the 20s and30s, what we discovered was that
the grassroots fight that thatwe had come out of wasn't the
beginning of the story, thatthere had been very Rambunctious
(22:15):
debates over Greyhound racingIn the 20s and 30s and 40s and
50s, and I mean this was a, youknow, a debate that had had
taken place over Decades andgenerations, and so I think we,
we became really grateful forthe contributions of all those
who preceded us in terms ofdoing this work.
But more than anything, it wasjust to not give up.
(22:37):
I mean, I, you know,christine's story is Truly a
story of perseverance, you know,as is Brooklyn's story, and
they will get into that.
But you know, he, I think,personified Perseverance, maybe
more than anyone.
But you know, we really learnedthat that if you want to change
the world, the number onesecret is to never give up.
(22:59):
And you're not gonna win everyfight.
You're gonna.
You're gonna go through a lotof losses, but you have to
always keep trying and alwayskeep fighting and always keep
believing in yourself.
And if you can do that, if youcan, if you can, you just never
leave the field, then you knowthe power of everyday people
really can win the day.
(23:20):
I mean, I think the thing thatis unique about our story In the
animal movement, certainly, butalso just in our, in our
broader society is we fought amulti-billion dollar industry
and one, and you know that IThink people today become so
(23:40):
cynical about our democracy, andI understand why our democracy
is is sick and a lot of ways isbroken, and but it can still
work.
And I think you know our fightfor Greyhounds, which which was,
by the way, very bipartisan,you know, and and crosses party
(24:03):
lines, crosses ideology, crossesage, crosses gender.
I mean, you know, it truly islike an equalizer across all
aspects of our society.
You know, our, our work isproof that, that the democracy
can still work.
So you know, and, and lastthing I'll say is, you know, I
think part of the reason forthat is that Exploited
(24:26):
industries like Greyhound racingcontain within themselves the
seeds of their own destruction.
And so, you know, we werealways just just trying to keep
giving dogs a voice and keepfighting for them.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Thank you this is thank you for all that you've
done, when you succeeded inclosing down the industry,
essentially in other thanVirginia.
What happens to those dogs?
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Well, one of the most important things about our
campaigns is that it's a fullcircle.
When we, for instance, webrought a ballot question to
Florida to close down 12 tracks,what we asked voters to do was
to support a phase out of dogracing so that dogs could be
adopted out on a rolling basis,and that's what happened.
(25:13):
And what is beautiful aboutending dog racing is these dogs
become cause celeb and they itis actually hard to adopt a
greyhound because everybody Iwant one of those dogs.
And they become so popular thatPeople actually, you know, get
quite disappointed if they can'tadopt a Miami dog or a Fort
(25:37):
Lauderdale dog or whatever theyhad in their mind.
So, instead of being a crisis,it's actually kind of a tug of
war to place the dogs in goodhomes.
And we are not an adoptiongroup.
We fund adoption groups.
But we have strong allianceswith these hardworking people
(25:57):
who are on the ground taking thedogs in, and it isn't just a
matter of picking them up andsaying, okay, put them up for
adoption after this.
These dogs need to berehabilitated.
They've had a very poorexistence, low level of welfare
and care at racing kennels.
They live in stacked metalcages About 100 dogs per kettle
(26:20):
in these dark warehouses andthey spend very little time out
of those cages.
They're inside by themselvesfor 20 to 23 hours a day.
They're let out to relievethemselves and basically what is
a litter box for greyhounds?
It's a small space outside thekennel building.
(26:41):
It's enclosed, so it's juststill outside outside and they
pee in their poop and then theyput them back in the cage.
They don't walk dogs who areinvolved in racing other than to
walk them out in front of thebedders right before the race.
That's part of the wholeprocess of the gamblers can take
(27:02):
a look at the dogs and decidewho they're going to bet on or
whatever.
It's quite atrocious and it's areally old fashioned way of
gambling that certainly has lostits luster.
So one of the things that's beena positive for us is that other
forms of gambling havecertainly been in competition
(27:25):
with old fashioned kind of dogracing.
The cruelty of dog racing ismuch more well known than it was
before States with dog racing.
One of the things we did was weinstituted record keeping laws
so that people could decide forthemselves.
Well, do I think it's rightthat in Massachusetts a dog is
injured every three days?
(27:45):
Well, no, actually I don't.
I don't like that's not a sport.
Or in West Virginia right now,thousands of dogs have been
injured since 2008, sufferingbroken backs, broken legs,
broken necks Is this somethingthat really we want to have in
the 21st century?
So the dogs can speak forthemselves with their records?
(28:08):
So there's been increasededucation, the competition is
certainly there, and even thetrack owners themselves are no
longer interested in this oldfashioned form of gambling.
They'd rather move on to muchmore lucrative kinds of casino
type gambling, which we are notan anti-gamely organization or a
(28:31):
pro-gamely organization.
We are an anti-dog racingorganization.
That's our one mission here isto end the cruelty of dog racing
and I think, because we've beenso focused, that's also been a
great asset to our efforts.
We're a small organization withone mission and we just don't
(28:54):
let anybody get in our way aboutit.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
So essentially the tracks have to be accountable
for each and every dog and onceyou see that in real time, it
kind of shifts people, it makesit a little bit more real and
shifts people's perception ofwhat's really going on Versus
what they see in that moment infront of them when the dogs are
racing right.
(29:18):
And I think that's how we makeit more human, we make it more.
You know, these are livingbeings, living, feeling,
sentient beings, and they'regetting hurt every single day
and being put in thesesituations, not just when it's
right in front of you, but theirentire lives essentially Also
the records produced to thepublic show that Greyhounds are
(29:40):
drugged to fix races.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
So there's cheating going on.
It's not even fair to thegamblers.
So, from start to finish, youcould say that dog racing hasn't
really stepped too far awayfrom its original criminal
element.
It's still what it always was.
What we learned was that peopleunderstand this is no way to
(30:03):
treat a dog, and these dogs caninspire people to come and do
the right thing and vote for thedogs or contact their lawmakers
to vote for the dogs.
As Carrie said, only about halfthe states have the ballot
question process.
So we work through legislaturesto end dog racing.
And I tell you, when lawmakerslove to go up and debate and say
(30:25):
I'm voting for dogs, I likedogs.
It makes them look good andit's a good thing to do.
It makes them look good.
That's what I'm going to say.
And you know, when we saw thatpicture of Brooklyn, this dog
who was languishing at a Chinesedog track, there was just this
magical moment.
We were so transfixed.
(30:46):
He was such an astoundinglooking dog, he inspired us.
And Then we looked at hisrecords.
Then we came to understand howlong he'd been there, where he
came from, and we said we'regonna shut this place down, and
it took eight years, but we wereso inspired by this one dog and
(31:07):
he became the ambassador forthe other 600 dogs who are also
at this terrible place calledthe canadrome.
It was a place that had beenracing dogs for decades, and
About 400 dogs were shipped infrom Australia each year to live
and die at the canadrome.
(31:29):
And the canadrome is on Macau,which is a peninsula off the
mainland China.
It's kind of like the Las Vegasof China, because gambling is
illegal on the mainland, but itwas allowed on Macau and there
was no adoption program at thecanadrome.
So every dog that went theredied there, and our first step
(31:53):
in the what we called the rescueBrooklyn campaign was to Ask
the track to please start anadoption program.
Very simple it refused.
People held rallies all aroundthe world candlelight rallies
and vigils for this one dog, andYet they would not be moved to
(32:13):
create an adoption program.
So then we appealed to thegovernment, we went to Macau, we
talked with officials and wesaid this is a very, this is
very bad for your reputation.
Every month, 30 dogs wereshipped in and 30 dogs on the
property were killed to make aroom.
It was like clockwork and theykept very good records.
They kept them on their websiteso it wasn't hard to see this
(32:35):
was happening.
So it was a terrible problem.
It had been going on fordecades and decades and it took
us eight years to close thatterrible place down.
But with our allies Enema,macau and pet levy area, we not
only closed down the dog trackbut we airlifted over Over 500
dogs the surviving dogs tosafety, to adoption groups all
(32:58):
across the world.
So my feeling is, if we canclose a Chinese dog track and
save those dogs, anything'spossible right, absolutely, and
this was before like the adventof social media, wasn't it?
Speaker 1 (33:14):
like before, like now , news spreads fast, it's easy
to get you know, it's easy toget your message across quickly
and into gain momentum quickly,and you were able to do this
Really hands-on, grassrootsright.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Yeah, well, I think that I think it was.
It was because you know itbecame a worldwide issue.
Because it was a worldwideissue in a sense.
I mean, you know, brooklyn hadbeen born in 2008 in Australia.
He had Both of his parents werefailed racers.
They were chasing a bloodlineof a champion dog and he raced
(33:52):
for a short period of time.
He did not perform well andthen had been shipped off to the
canadrome when he was still ayoung dog.
One of our board members went tothe track, took a series of
photographs and, as Christinesaid, you know, there was this
very iconic Photograph thatturned out to be of Brooklyn and
when she came back and gave usher report, showed us the photos
(34:14):
.
We were just mesmerized by bythis incredible, this incredible
dog.
And so, and all we had to go byin terms of identifying him was
on his collar were threeletters L, y, n, and you know,
our research staff tried to findout who was this dog, and we
their best guess was it was thisdog named Brooklyn and, as
(34:35):
Christine said, we thenproceeded to lobby the
government, but it took eightlong years before the track was
with finally shut down and,quite frankly, we thought
Brooklyn had been killed.
He wasn't racing, there was noinformation coming out about him
and when the track finallyclosed and Our allies went in
(34:56):
and and assess the 500 plus dogsthat were there, brooklyn was
still there and he was stillalive.
He'd been living in a cementcell essentially for eight long
years and you know, he, afterChristine and others, helped
find homes for all of those dogsyou know, to various places
(35:16):
across the world.
Brooklyn did come home toChristine and I personally, and
it was, it was just, I think,the most incredible experience
of my life.
Quite frankly, we we've hadother companion animals, had had
other dogs.
You know we have bats and youknow, obviously they all mean
the world to us.
(35:37):
But there was something Evenbeyond that.
There was something uniqueabout about this dog he was.
He came to us Underweights,with missing teeth, with, you
know, there's all sorts ofissues, but he was none.
Despite that, he was loving andJust the most gentle, sweet,
(36:04):
you know, individual we had comeacross and we just loved him so
, so much and he was only withus At our home and which really
was the only home he had everknown for about three weeks when
he started to limp and we tookhim to the vet and we got the
worst possible diagnosis, whichwas that he did in fact have
(36:25):
bone cancer.
And we went forward with theamputation and with chemotherapy
and the veterinarian said youknow, you can hope for nine
months, and that that it seemedIncredibly cruel that a dog who
had suffered so much wasprobably the most well-known
(36:46):
greyhound in the world becauseof his suffering when he finally
found a home, would have such ashort time left.
But this dog would not give up.
He ended up living after thatdiagnosis for three years.
He became within, yeah, at thethe animal hospitals in the area
(37:07):
.
He became like the, the exampleof.
You know they would say well,you know, your dog probably has
about nine months, but there aredogs like Brooklyn that you
know live a lot longer.
So he became this example thatthe people would be told about.
And he also later had what'scalled an FCE, which is a
version of a spinal stroke.
So we almost lost him a secondtime and he had to he.
(37:31):
He became much less mobile.
I had to take him out torelieve himself and, you know,
he could walk, but he was sortof just like I, stumbled around
a little bit.
But despite all of that, aftereverything he went through, he
was the sweetest dog.
When we came in, every day hewould stand at the lobby of our
(37:52):
building and wait for people tocome in, and people would come
in and rub his ears and he justeveryone he met and came across
he touched in this very specialway.
So I think for us, you know,first of all, that was like a
reward.
I mean, when we wrote the book,you know it wasn't well.
(38:12):
We have this, this passion towrite.
You know that this, you know,for some ego purpose or it
wasn't any of that.
It was more that we livethrough this truly bizarre
experience of being a part of agrassroots movement that took on
the multi-billion dollarindustry and won, and, and we
(38:36):
thought that we owed it to theGreyhounds and to that fight and
and to future generations toput that story on paper so
people can can read it and takefrom it what they will.
And I think you know Brooklynwas like.
You know that, ironically, hewas born.
(38:56):
So I mentioned at the beginningof the interview that very first
campaign in Massachusetts thatwe lost.
We come, we came back eightyears later and in 2008 we
brought our issue back to thevoters in Massachusetts.
We won Sweeping victory, youknow, one by 12 percentage
points, carried 12 to 14counties.
(39:18):
You know, and that was thefirst moment that the animal
industry had really defeated thedog racing industry and two
large, powerful dog tracks InMassachusetts were shuttered as
a result and thousands of dogswere helped.
Brooklyn was born only a fewweeks after that incredible
victory and before he passed.
(39:41):
In 2018, we passed aconstitutional amendment in the
state of Florida, where therewere 12 operational dog tracks,
more than 10,000 greyhoundssuffering, you know, tracks that
have been doing a billiondollars a year in business just
by themselves at their peak.
You know, and, and you know, aconstitutional amendment in 2018
(40:01):
to shut all of those dog tracksdown.
Past with a 69% vote, with thesupport of the most liberal
members of the state legislature, the League of Women Voters.
You know the Democraticgubernatorial candidate joining
with Laura Trump, mike Huckabee,governor Rick Scott I mean this
right left coalition that youdon't see on anything.
(40:24):
And so the end of Greyhoundracing the United States really
happened within the life of thisone dog and he was such a sweet
dog and when he passedLiterally the the the entire
Greyhound community across theworld grieved.
I mean, there were, there werevigils and walks and Obituaries
(40:48):
were written and the South ChinaMorning Post wrote an entire
feature story in his passing andit you know.
So he really became again sucha personification of this
movement and the desire to keepfighting, keep fighting and
(41:09):
never give up.
So I think, christine and Ifeel incredibly blessed to have
been a part of this, so we feltan obligation to tell this
strange story.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
Oh I, you know everybody thinks their dog is
special.
You know, that's true, we knowthat.
And they are all special, but intheir own unique way and they
are all special, but there wasreally something magical about
Brooklyn and he taught me somuch.
He suffered so much.
Yeah, imagine living in aconcrete cell for eight years
(41:49):
and having no bed to sleep onand being fed slop and getting
no medical care, just anisolation, and to think of that
kind of existence and then to beshipped across the world to a
place you don't know.
This was one of the happiestdogs I've ever met.
(42:11):
He I don't know if dogs cansmile, but I can tell you he
always seemed to be smiling andhe had a very calming and a very
mesmerizing effect on everyonehe met Interesting, and I
learned that.
I learned a lot from him aboutpatience and forgiveness.
(42:33):
And you know, as I started outby saying, I'm a tough Jersey
girl, but I'll tell you he mademe step back and understand a
little bit more aboutforgiveness and if Brooklyn can
forgive how he was treated, thenwe can also take a step back
(42:53):
and kind of let things go andfocus on the good.
And that's what he did.
He lived every day with joy andevery meal was a celebration,
every walk was a celebration.
He was wonderful, but you know,more than just being this super
(43:14):
dog you know we could talkabout for hours.
Yeah, I believe that Brooklynand in fact, all Greyhounds are
ambassadors for other animals inneed, because people can feel
and understand the plight ofdogs.
It's very relatable and it's myhope that they might say and I
(43:36):
know they do say well, if it'snot right to keep a dog in a
tiny cage for 20 to 23 hours aday, how is it right to keep
chickens in battery cages orpigs in gestation crates?
This confinement issue, the waythat we control and confine
other animals, is an essentialproblem about how we interact
(44:01):
with other beings and the factthat this factory kind of
mentality we have, thisindustrialization of other
animals, actually comes back onus because it leads to
environmental damage, pollution,all sorts of major problems
with the environment because ofthese factory farms emitting
(44:23):
fumes and methane into the airand destroying the groundwater.
So I continue to be an animaladvocate in every way and I try
to live my life that way.
But I think that if people canunderstand that the way these
dogs are being treated is wrong,I think it will open their
(44:44):
minds up to how other animalsmight also deserve to be helped
right now.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Absolutely, and their hearts Absolutely.
Thank you so much for sharingyour story with us and your
journey with us.
How can we help support yourefforts and continue to help
support your efforts?
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, I would encourage
people to buy the book, to go toAmazon, order it because, and
you know, I will definitely puta link in the show notes.
Thank you, thank you, and what Iwould say is you know, we wrote
this because we want otherpeople to make changes in
(45:29):
society that they care about.
I mean, we, the, the.
The express purpose of this isto encourage others to be change
agents, and you know so I hopethere's something in this that
people can take away that willhelp them do that.
Also, you know, learn about theissue.
Go to our website great, toKSAorg.
We have a federal bill to outlawGreyhound Racing, which is
(45:53):
pending in Congress, has a lotof support, which would would
essentially close the doorcompletely on Greyhound Racing
in our country, and I wouldencourage folks to reach out to
the congressman that representsyou and ask them to cosponsor
that bill.
Again, there's details on ourwebsite and beyond that, you
know, I would just say you know,have hope that that you know,
(46:21):
listen to our story and havehope that you can make change on
the issues that you care about.
In fact, I think, if, if, if westay on the field and continue
to give a voice to the voicelistening, continue to fight and
believe in ourselves, that youknow, change is inevitable.
I really believe that.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
I hope that people can feel inspired by the small
success we've had in this oneone area.
But we're not done yet, farfrom it.
Until the US GreyhoundProtection Act passes into law,
dog racing will still be legalin this country and in fact,
like many things, dog racing hasgone viral and it's in the
(47:04):
virtual world.
American gamblers can now useplatforms to bet not only on the
last two dog tracks here in theUnited States and West Virginia
, but on races all around theworld.
So they are propping up thecruelty of Greyhound racing.
That's occurring in Australia,the United Kingdom, et cetera.
(47:24):
Mexico, mexico, which is ourneighbor, has one of the worst
tracks, if not the worst trackin the world Aqua Caliente, and
American gamblers are proppingthat up by placing bets on these
four dogs.
So one of the goals of the USGreyhound Protection Act is not
only to outlaw dog racing in ourcountry, but we'd also prohibit
(47:48):
American gamblers from bettingon races taking place elsewhere,
and it will prohibit the exportof Greyhounds for racing
elsewhere.
So we're really trying to gofull circle here and provide an
example for the rest of theworld.
Greyhound racing is legal insix countries and the United
Kingdom, so this Americaninvention unfortunately has
(48:12):
metastasized to other countries.
In fact, in Australia there are64 dog tracks, and every track
there is because of us.
It's because Americans inventedthis cruelty, and I believe
it's our job to stop it.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Thank you.
I will put links in the shownotes to all the ways that we
can help you.
Anything else you guys want toadd?
Speaker 2 (48:34):
No, we're just thank you for what you do to bring
attention to all of these issuesand thank you for spending some
time thinking about Greyhoundsand hearing our story.
Like I said, we're verygrateful for the opportunity to
talk to you today.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
Thank you so much for having us.
It's a pleasure and we reallyhope that we can be examples for
others who want to take on bigissues.
And even if no one else istrying, they can try and they
can make a difference.
And that's what we've learned.
You don't have to be thesmartest person or the most
adept person or the most skilledperson.
(49:14):
You can learn, you can grow andyou can, and you can, in fact,
make a difference.
So that's what we hope peoplewill take away from our story.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Thank you, thanks, you guys have a great day.
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