SPOOKS

My experiences with "spooks" (fearful, withdrawn greyhounds) led me to believe that as with all other facets of greyhound care and training, it is an irrefutable fact of life that if you hurry them up, they will make you wait. Patience is a virtue, and the key to the gradual easement of whatever autism or perceptive distortion it is that compels their flight instinct to overrule less panicked assessment of (and reaction to) novel situations and events, and strangers.

Only the most deeply withdrawn and fearful spooks are necessarily so, within the pack dynamic. While they may be unable to act independently, other than to choose to follow other greyhounds, they often and usually can function, sometimes quite without inhibitions, as pack and colony members---where routine is paramount, and daily events are entirely predictable and familiar---and within the culture, supports, and security of the greyhound pack/colony.

Even the most profound spooks can and do, eventually, become comfortable with, and/or bonded to and accepting of patient and empathetic handlers.

The complete upheaval of their lives with which we confront them, upon beginning and then completing the adoption process, is a much greater challenge to them. Couple that with the voluminous amounts of disinformation concerning idiopathic fear and withdrawal within the breed (or among canines at large), and we have a recipe for myth creation. Mythology that presumes the "spook" phenomenon, known to be highly heritable, is necessarily a result of mishandling or even physical abuse, which can exponentially raise the barriers the dog must overcome, to greater degrees of difficulty.

So, most often, and erroneously assuming they are dealing with a greyhound in need of some sort of rehabilitation, the adoptive owner smothers the dog with attention and sensory overload that intimidates and confounds, and with items and objects that are of no interest, value or comfort, and the greyhound, reflexively, withdraws to an even deeper state of fear, confusion and isolation. The new adopter then becomes increasingly frustrated and stressed, which the fearful greyhound picks up on, doubling down on the fear and the compulsion to withdraw and escape he/she feels.

To sum it up, like greyhounds within their formative and professional, colonial culture, the adopted "spook"---and even the less withdrawn, merely skittish, reactive types---eventually thrive with routine and punctuality, in an environment as free of human-induced stresses as we can manage to make it, and where known, rather than than novel events take place, punctually formatted within a daily schedule. If we are introducing them to a new pack or housemate, the acclimation process is often a bit less daunting to them.

copyright, 2020

Denniss Corner
The writings of Dennis McKeon.
EXTERNAL LINK

The guy is an absolute master of greyhounds

As others have already posted Dennis is one of the most knowledgeable people on greyhounds here in the U.S. He was a trainer for many years in the 70's and 80's.

Here is another site that has some of his writings.

EXTERNAL LINK
Here is another. While some of these site have duplicate articles some articles are ones not on the other sites.

EXTERNAL LINK
Take care,

Dick

Grey2K was able to get it on the ballot and racing was voted illegal. Same in Florida. In actuality racing is still legal in Massachusetts and Florida since all G2K does is make wagering on the races illegal and not the races themselves.

Take care,

Dick

Dick

Does the ban on wagering apply to Florida residents only or does it extend to on-line gambling outside of Florida?

Florida residents only so online from out ADW, Advanced Deposit Wagering hubs would be legal. The largest hub in the country is based in Oregon. If the hub was in Florida it would be a different story.

So theoretically, if the Florida tracks were able to secure a revenue stream from online gambling organisations from providing their racefields they could actually keep racing and be paid for it

That could be a massive revenue stream in the USA with your population and not counting any export of the product to Australia, England, Asia and Europe

That is correct. The three big tracks in Florida are the three still running and the funny part about the "ban" is when the vote took place in 2018 it left the penalty if a track kept running in 2021 up to the legislature. The legislature never did anything about this in 2019 so there is, as of now, no fine or penalty if any of these tracks continued to run in 2021. The Florida legislature doesn't convene till March 7th or something like that.

Whether any or all of these three keep running we'll see.

If those track operators are smart enough, they will be looking at these options to keep the tracks going and keep racing alive in Florida