Hartford Courant

Dogs' Fate Uncertain As Track Closes

April 29, 2005

By STEVEN GOODE, Courant Staff Writer

PLAINFIELD -- Susan Netboy has plans to celebrate the looming closure of Plainfield Greyhound Park after 29 years of dog racing.

As a decades-long advocate of outlawing dog racing and president of the California-based Greyhound Protection League, Netboy said the demise of the track two weeks from now is a good thing and she hopes it's permanent.

But Netboy isn't throwing any parties yet. She says she's worried about the uncertain fate of more than 1,000 greyhounds whose racing careers may be coming to an end.

"It would be a day to celebrate if not for the impending crisis," Netboy said Thursday. "And it will be a day to celebrate when all those dogs find safe harbor."

According to Netboy, who said she has a source inside the track, as many as 1,500 dogs are housed at the state's oldest pari-mutuel, though Terry Foss, Plainfield's animal control officer, disputes that number.

"The track has been struggling for years and the big racers have left," Foss said Thursday. "If you've got more than 500 dogs in that kennel, I'd be surprised."

Regardless of the number, Netboy said she is concerned that the cost of placing the greyhounds may be more than the dogs' owners or the track's operators want to take on.

"There's a large number of unprofitable dogs on the property," she said. "One of the things that frequently happens [when a dog track closes] is dogs going out the back door."

Netboy said that in many cases the dogs are sent back to their owners in Florida and in the Midwest and, in a short time, they disappear.

"They're likely to be disposed of and no one will know the difference," she said. "We feel like it's on our shoulders to make sure they are taken care of."

Foss, who has been the town's animal control officer for 14 years, said many of the people she has encountered in the greyhound industry are responsible owners.

"Some owners make you cringe, but there are more that care," she said.

Netboy said she has contacted Connecticut officials who oversee the dog track's operation to recommend that the state and the track's owners pay for housing and caring for the greyhounds until they are adopted.

In a memo to William Ryan, assistant unit chief of the state's Division of Special Revenue, the Greyhound Protection League of Connecticut also outlined measures that it believes should be taken to ensure the animals' safety. The recommendations include an immediate and accurate accounting of every dog in the kennel compound and a lockdown to prevent improper disposal of any greyhound.

"Saving the lives of these dogs is going to be costly. The state and the owners who have made so much money over the years have an obligation to them," Netboy said.

Finding homes for such a large number of dogs, Netboy said, is a difficult task but not impossible. She said there have been numerous track closings around the country in the last 20 years and that those dogs were successfully placed in homes.

"When the greyhound community comes together, it can be handled," she said.

Foss said that greyhound placements are harder because of the breed's special housing and dietary needs, and emotional quirks from lives spent racing.

"These dogs didn't grow up lying on couches and having to be house-broken," she said.

Jim Capiola, general manager of the dog track, did not respond to several messages left for him Thursday.

The track's closure was precipitated by New England Raceway developer Gene Arganese's plans to begin construction of a new domed, 140,000-seat auto racetrack on the property. The $343 million project would also include a convention center, a 700-room hotel and 800,000-square-foot retail complex.

Greyhound racing would also be part of the development, Arganese said, but the existing dog track would have to be demolished to build a new facility.

Netboy said she was skeptical that the track would reopen because the business is no longer profitable, but regardless of whether the operation is only closing down temporarily, her organization and others would monitor what becomes of the dogs at Plainfield Greyhound Park.

An Associated Press report is included in this article.