One woman's crusade to ban greyhound racing

GREY2K's Mr. Theil, who lives with Dorchak plus Zoe and four cats in an Arlington, Mass., apartment, describes her as "compassionate, stubborn, and incredibly sharp." As he talks about the Boston marathons Dorchak has run since her accident, Theil's voice roughens with emotion. "She inspires me," he says.

Virginia Fuller, past president of the New England Wildlife Center in Weymouth, Mass., says that even as animal rescue people go, Dorchak is atypically impassioned. "It's the focus of her being," says Ms. Fuller. "Christine is a force of nature."

That people seem either to love her or hate her doesn't matter to Dorchak. "I'm not on Wonderland's Christmas card list," she says referring to the local racetrack. "That's OK. What's not OK is the tragedies that are happening at both [Massachusetts] tracks."

At the heart of it are the greyhounds themselves – dogs with a long, illustrious, and often controversial history. One of the most ancient of canine breeds, greyhounds have lived among humans for thousands of years. They are the only canine mentioned by name in the Bible.

The Forest Laws, enacted in England in 1014 by King Canute, mandated that only nobility could own the greyhound, by then a celebrated hunting dog. Greyhounds were introduced to the US in the 1800s to control the jack rabbit population. Racing became popular as farmers started to stage competitions.

According to the Greyhound Racing Association of America, the sport reached its zenith in 1992, when attendance approached 3.5 million and nearly $3.5 billion was bet at more than 50 tracks. Since then, revenue has dropped by nearly 50 percent. Many tracks have closed. Other forms of legal gambling have been the major issue, but pressure from animal rights groups has also been a factor.

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With heated rhetoric on both sides, determining the true state of conditions for working greyhounds isn't easy. Even industry supporters acknowledge that the dogs are kept caged for long periods, sometimes as long as 20 hours per day, and suffer injuries on the racetrack – 728 since 2002 in Massachusetts, according to records released by the tracks. Critics also maintain that the animals are fed a substandard and potentially pathogenic diet of raw meat and that, despite an increase in adoptions, too many greyhounds continue to be euthanized after their careers are over.

In recent years, Idaho, Maine, North Carolina, Nevada, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Pennsylvania all passed legislative bans on dog racing. Massachusetts remains one of only 13 states that still allows commercial dog racing. The initiative to ban it is being put forth by the Committee to Protect Dogs, of which GREY2K USA is a key member, along with other groups such as the Animal Rescue League of Boston.

Greyhound advocates got a similar measure on the ballot in 2000, but it lost by a slim margin. An effort to place the proposal on the 2006 ballot failed after a court ruled that the wording lacked clarity.

The group has until Nov. 21 to obtain signatures from 66,593 registered voters. A second round of 11,099 signatures is due in July 2008. It is a race that Dorchak – committed marathoner and crusader – is determined to win. "This time, we're going to do it," she says.

In an ironic twist that somehow suits the Dorchak story, the owner of the Raynham Park racetrack, George Carney, paid for her scholarship to law school several years ago. Dorchak says he initially seemed "amused and a little charmed" that the money he'd donated as a trustee of the New England School of Law had gone to support her. Mr. Carney himself acknowledges that he was onstage to hand Dorchak her diploma at graduation. He wishes her the best, he says.

Dorchak isn't convinced. Over time Carney's amusement has waned, she says, as he saw her career path: "He thought I was going to graduate and go make a lot of money and just go away."

Clearly, Carney did not know Dorchak well.

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