meeeeeeeeeeee!

sometimes pictures speak clearer than words.... so here are some pictures of meeeeeeee!

In the spotlight: Grey2KUSA.org

hello dear two-legged friends, ebbery now and then me Luka la Loca wants to share with you some of the wonderful two-leggers that get thaselves organised and do greyt things for my brothas and sistas in Espagna... this week:

http://www.grey2kusa.org/

A National Voice for Greyhounds

Formed in March of 2001, GREY2K USA is a national non-profit organization dedicated to passing stronger greyhound protection laws and ending the cruelty of dog racing. To this end, we work nationwide to fight for greyhounds in state legislatures, at the ballot box, and in the courts.

Ending the Cruelty of Dog Racing

Greyhound racing is cruel and inhumane, and should be prohibited. GREY2K USA was the first organization to successfully outlaw dog racing using the ballot initiative process. In November 2008, the citizens of Massachusetts chose compassion over cruelty and voted 56%-44% to close down Raynham and Wonderland Greyhound Parks. Since our formation, twenty-five dog tracks have closed for live racing all across the country, and the number of states with dog racing has been cut in half.

"Greyhound racing has remained a legal activity in some states partly because no single group has existed to consistently and persistently expose on a national level the abuses inherent in the industry and to fight its expansion. GREY2K USA's emergence is the best news greyhounds have had in decades."
    - Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States

Passing Stronger Greyhound
Protection Laws

In recent years, GREY2K USA has been instrumental in fighting for stronger laws to protect racing greyhounds. In Massachusetts and New Hampshire, we successfully passed laws requiring that these states inform the public on the number of greyhounds injured while racing, and report on the ultimate fate of racing dogs. Also in Massachusetts, we helped pass the first state-funded greyhound adoption trust fund in United States history. In Florida and New Hampshire, we passed legislation to restore greyhounds to the protections of anti-cruelty laws

Defeating Attempts to Subsidize Dog Tracks

GREY2K USA works to defeat attempts to prop up the cruelty of dog racing and has successfully repealed direct subsidies, tax breaks and other special legislative favors once awarded to dog track owners.

Since 2002, we have helped defeat attempts to subsidize dog races with slot machine profits in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Oregon. Dog track owners in Colorado, Kansas and Oregon decided to close their facilities as a result.

see their website:  http://www.grey2kusa.org/ for more information!

Luka lets the Main Servant share some thoughts...

Okay, here's something that has been bothering both my houndie and me. I have no children of my own. Not by choice, but because mother nature has provided me with malfunctioning ovaries and I seem to be unable to reproduce. Miracles could still happen but the ole biological clock is tick-tick-tocking faster every year on this side of fourty so for now I console myself being a happy dogsmother. In a way, having a pack of dogs has had the same impact on my life on an emotional, financial and social level as would be the case having a horde of kids. Either way, I cannot do as I please since I have 5 lives depending on me (not mentioning our 4 feline kids), there's the medical expenses and all the joy and grief that goes with sharing your life with loved ones, since it hurts either way when they die, be it the two-legged or four-legged kind. 

Surprisingly, kids and dogs have more in common that one might think. All around me I often see people happily procreating, getting one kid after another, but the kids are then all too often confined to their rooms, their toys have to be stashed away in a playing room and once they're old enough they spend most of their spare time in the streets, hanging out totally unsupervised, being taught nothing but streetwise bluff. Upon entering some of their so called homes, it is sometimes hard to see any of their presence there. Maybe a drawing on the fridge, or their coats at the hanger. But downstairs, everything looks like something straigth out of an interior design guide. No toys, no handicrafted items, just everything need and tidy. The only bit of the house that has some playfullness is the child's own bedroom, which often in these cases is either way depressingly sparsely fitted or depressingly overcrowded and messy, filled with cheap pacifying toys. With these kind of folks, it is often the same story when they have dogs. They keep their pets confined in a kennel all day, or outside in a doghouse. No feeding bowls in the kitchen, sometimes not even a dog bed... They want the child, they want the dog, because it is part of the picture perfect of the suburban house with the picket fence and the neatly clipped lawn, but dog forbid their presence is shown.

Their kids and dogs are supposed to adapt, adapt, adapt, just sit there and be still and nice and don't bother the parents. To achieve this goal, the parents can resort to a range of craftily designed tools, made to ensure the child is totally silent but with a side effect of lasting damage to thinking abilities and creative thinking, a side effect often overlooked by the parents and only discovered after the damage has been done. With their dogs it is more a matter of closing the door or getting the dog tied up somewhere in a back room.

How totally different it is, fortunately, with most of my friends. A big cupboard in the living room holding their children's toys, proudly displaced handicrafted flowerpots and play-doh constructions made for mothers' day, an assortment of little boots, coats and bags on the stairs and on the pegs in the hall, loads of little scribbled attempts to portray mum and dad pasted on the fridge, and also dog beds, feeding bowls, and an assortment of tug-a-war ropes, balls and rubber animals that go squeek when bitten by happy dog mouths (or stepped on by hapless visitors). Kids tumbling around their back yard or engaging in fairy-tale roleplaying, building things of lego blocks or reading stories to each other. Dogs knowing their place in the pack order, but also happily engaging in play with the kids or the guests if they want to. Parents who don't throw a fit upon discovering muddy foot- or pawprints on the floor, but shrug and say hey, that's why someone invented the mop and bucket. The children in those families grow up being happy and loved, and so do the dogs. Every dog, every child deserves a life like that!