Synthetic turf may help reduce the injury rate. Waiting until they are mature would definitely help; their joints have not yet fused when they start racing. At present, fatalities like Eight Belles’ are occuring every day at race tracks around the country but this level of exposure is rare. If it results in some additional scrutiny for the sport, that’s a good thing.

RIP Eight Belles. She was a beauty.

Since I leave in Greece, a country of animal overpopulation I beg you not to buy and not support breeders. Unfortunately Greeks have come to the point of importing hunting dogs from UK, Bulgaria, Hungary, that never neuter or take care. If the dog does not hunt (because themselves are bad hunters and companions) they abandon/kill/hung/shoot/abuse them. We have come to the point to thank God when we find a hunting dog abandoned because we can save him/her.

Anastasia

Below are just two links that might be useful to get very reliable information about euthanasia rates in shelters.

The first is for the Denver Metropolitan Shelter Alliance — shelters that have come together to, among other things gather statistics and to work together to help place more animals and reduce the euthanasia rates.

The second is for All Breed Rescue Network. Their January 2007 Newsletter has an article promoting the Pet Overpopulation Fund Colorado Tax write-off. In that article it states that in 2006, of the 173,000 dogs and cats that were taken into Colorado shelters alone, 43,000 were euthanized. Some of these pets were found to be unsuitable for adoption for one reason or another, but many were perfectly healthy, adoptable animals.

You may want to check these links out yourself — you can get lots of very reliable information if you dig into the sites, as well as tons of other resources for this kind of information.

http://www.saverate.org/

http://www.allbreedrescuenetwork.com/index.php

It is terribly unfortunate that shelters cannot find homes for as many dogs that are available for adoption. Many are constrained by resources in their marketing efforts. They do the best they can with the human and financial resources they have. I would encourage you to volunteer with a local shelter, as they are always in need of help, especially from people with skills or an affinity for marketing or promotion.

I am sorry we disagree about the statistics about shelter dogs and overpopulation. I’m in the trenches, working on this issue every day. The people I work with in the rescue arena are devoted, caring and committed and would never put a budget or money before a dog’s well being.