Family provides Greyhounds with life beyond racing

“Her name is Bitsy. She’s a retired racer. She’s the third Greyhound we’ve owned. We used to go to the dog track in La Marque just to watch the novelty races, things like wiener dog races and Chihuahua races. And we would see these guys in adoption windows there. We went in to get the smallest one we could find, but we ended up leaving with one of the biggest ones that ever raced there. 

“It turns out that these guys are prone to bone cancer. That’s how we lost our first two. With the second one, we caught it kind of early. It was in one of his front legs. We considered putting him down. But a few nights before that, I went online and searched for three-legged Greyhounds. I found all kinds of success stories about people with three-legged dogs running around their yard. We knew the cancer hadn’t spread throughout his body, like it had by the time we caught it with our first one. It was just in one area of his lower leg. It wasn’t cheap, but we went ahead with the amputation. It was about two weeks before he was up. Within another week, he was taking walks. Eventually, we could take him to the beach, and he’d run and play. He adapted really well to having only three legs. He lived for about two more years. He ended up having a pretty good life. 

“When you adopt them from a track, you get their racing history. Our first Greyhound was kind of a rock star. He won a lot of races. We would go back for reunions, and people knew who he was. Our second one raced for a couple years, and then he just stopped winning. Bitsy here never really took to it. She raced only five times and never did well. That’s why they retired her.

“I don’t think she misses the racing at all. But we live on a half acre, so she’ll get in the back yard and take off running. She can still open it up. For the most part, though, she’s a couch potato. We’ll take her out for a 20-minute walk, and she’s done the rest of the day. She’s exhausted. 

“And she’s definitely different from the males. She’s much more needy. She’s kind of a diva. She wants her way. The males were both kind of cat-like. They just sort of did their own thing. But she wants you to be touching her at all times. She’ll come and lie on top of you when you’re on the couch. But she’s very gentile and very low maintenance. Greyhounds are just the sweetest dogs.”

— Mike and Shelli Gill (with son, Andrew, and Bitsy)