Dozens of former racing greyhounds arrived Saturday morning in Phoenix to be shuffled into foster homes and other programs in the hopes of eventually finding forever homes. 

About half of the 40 dogs were taken in by a couple of local greyhound organizations while the rest will be picked up by a Las Vegas-based animal organization in the coming days, according to Rory Goreé, president of Greyhound Pets of America’s Arizona chapter and organizer of Saturday’s event.

The dogs are the first of many planned for shipment to Arizona over the next few months as part of a larger effort by Goreé to provide homes to former racing greyhounds whose tracks are scheduled to close. 

“I’m charged with regulating and ensuring the safety and welfare of not just the humans and jockeys … but all participants and, for me, it’s really important to help the greyhounds get into homes,” said Goreé, who is also chairman of the Arizona Racing Commission. 

With live greyhound racing coming to an end in Florida by 2021 and the recently announced closure of Arkansas’ only greyhound racing track the following year, thousands of dogs will soon need new homes — and Goreé plans to bring them out west. 

Saturday’s pack of dogs — which cost about $4,500 to ship to Arizona, said Goreé — came from various greyhound farms in Abilene, Kansas, that have cut back on breeding due to the upcoming track closures and now have an influx of dogs, he explained. 

In increments of 40 to 80, Goreé plans to reduce the number of available greyhound dogs by shipping them to Phoenix, where regional animal organizations can take them in and adopt them out, he said.

Once space is freed up in those Kansas farms, Goreé said he hopes to fill them with dogs from the closing tracks and then begin adoption efforts in the west all over again. 

Where will the dogs go?

Arizona Adopt A Greyhound of Phoenix took in 12 former racing greyhound dogs Saturday.

The dogs will be foster tested, microchipped and then put into foster homes until they are ready for adoption, said Rebecca Spellman, interim director for the organization. How long the dogs remain in foster homes depends on how quickly they can acclimate to being a pet, she explained. 

“These are trained athletes that have to be trained as pets,” said Spellman. “If someone were to take any of us here and set us down in the middle of a Cardinals training camp and say do what you need to do, we would not have a clue (and) that’s their (the dogs’) experience.” 

The dogs will be listed on the organization’s website once they are ready for adoption, according to Spellman. 

Another 10 greyhounds were taken in by Racing Home Greyhound Adoption, where they will phased through the organization’s prison program. As part of the program, the dogs are trained by inmates of Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy for a minimum of nine weeks, explained Jody Brown, a spokeswoman for the organization. 

The organization’s dogs remain in the prison program until they are adopted. 

Greyhound racing becoming a dying sport

Brown expressed gratitude for Saturday’s event because of how difficult and expensive it is to ship greyhounds to Arizona where she said there’s a need for after dog racing ended statewide in 2016. 

“I hate the fact that racing is becoming a dying sport because that will eventually cause this breed to disappear,” she said. “What Rory is doing is going to be a wonderful help for us … I hope he’s able to keep it up and bring us dogs — we need them.”

Arizona had more than five greyhound racetracks in the 1970s, according to the Arizona Department of Gaming Division of Racing website. Now, only five operate nationwide with West Virginia, Iowa and Texas tracks being the only ones with no scheduled closures, said Goreé. 

He added that his concern with eliminating greyhound racing tracks across the country was it expanding outside of the U.S. and “into places where there is not good regulation (and) there is not good welfare thoughts.”

“I love the sport,” Goreé said. “One of the things that makes them (greyhounds) such a great pets is the education that they got from their littermates and the care that they got from the folks at the farm and the track.”

Reach the reporter at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @curtis_chels. 

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