In the early 1990s, when I initially became involved in animal protection issues, I learned about the horrors of commercial greyhound racing, which had expanded to nearly 70 operational dog tracks in 19 states, making it the sixth-largest spectator sport in the United States. At the time, about 50,000 greyhounds were killed every year, either because of overbreeding, or because they had insufficient winning potential, or because they weren’t winning enough races, or because they were injured while training or while racing.

The industry also got rid of many unwanted greyhounds by selling them to research laboratories, where they suffered and died from cruel and unnecessary vivisection studies and experiments.

I learned that greyhounds continually exploited by the dog racing industry often were starved, lived much of their lives in barren, filthy cages, and were otherwise abused. I also learned that in the training and racing of greyhounds, live animals to include rabbits, cats, guinea pigs, and chickens were set loose in an enclosed field before releasing greyhounds, who were trained to tear them apart.

At the actual races, spectators witnessed live animals used as lures, hung by their legs from a mechanical arm that spins around the track.

“Brooklyn Goes Home: The Rise and Fall of American Greyhound Racing and the Dog that Inspired a Movement” also explains that many early dog tracks offered hurdle racing as well as races of different lengths to attract audiences. Some even used monkeys as jockeys to make the races “more entertaining,” even though the unwilling riders were frequently shaken to death.

I have been a long-standing supporter of GREY2KUSA Worldwide, founded by Christine Dorchak and Carey Theil, the now-married couple who authored........

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