Last week, New Hampshire’s House voted, 198-138, against a bill that would have shut down live racing at its three greyhound race tracks. Rep. Fran Wendelboe, a supporter of the ban, said, “A dog is man’s best friend, and I don’t think we should be making profit off their sacrifice and their hard life when we don’t have to.”

Then there’s the abuse documented by Grey2k USA and its Vote for the Dogs project, which includes a steathily-filmed slideshow of dogs at the NH tracks, stories of the 700+ dogs seriously injured in two years, and documentation of abuse of dogs by track employees. Nevertheless, legislators failed to see the urgent nature of this issue, claiming they didn’t want to shut down the tracks because that would be bad for the dogs (by creating a glut) and the employees of the tracks. As the proud mom of two retired racers, I wrote to Rep. Anne-Marie Irwin (D!), who has a dog and voted against the ban, and suggested she broaden her circle of compassion to dogs other than her own. Check out her response.

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