Hacker News Reader

Comment by DanCarvajal | Hacker News Reader

I own a former racing Greyhound and it took forever to get rid of our boy's hookworms. Annoyingly, as soon as they were gone he got a new round of worms from the rather terrible grounds of the apartment complex we lived in at the time. The new worms were much easier to get rid of than the track worms.

Dog tracks are filthy, they should all be shut down.

View on HN

That's interesting that it supports the article. Seems the hookworms on the track evolved against common medication, but the ones in your apartment complex didn't.

I strongly suspect that to be the case. It was frustrating to put in the work picking up after our dog's bowel movements and spraying the area with a bleach solution only for other people to not pick up enough after their dogs.

> spraying the area with a bleach solution

Does that help?

I'm interested in any efforts to make playgrounds, dog parks, etc. safer.

Along the lines of choosing plants to reduce mosquitos.

Like perhaps there's a species of ground cover that kills parasites.

Or ticks avoid the needles from the crunchy pine tree (not a real thing, to avoid creating a false idea).

Or maybe there are fungi that break down poop faster.

Or....?

Can you elaborate what is "took forever to get rid of"? My cat had hookworms too as he was a shelter cat. It took 3 rounds of medication to finally cure it (I haven't seen a worm since June 2020). My vet said that's pretty much normal, single dose may not 100% kill all parasites. I live in MA, USA.

As I understand it, this problem is due to the worm’s lifecycle and rapid generations. The deworming medication is only effective against the worms themselves, not their eggs. Since the worms lay eggs constantly and hatch quickly it takes several treatments to thin out their numbers and cut off the reproductive cycle.

Sure it was multiple rounds of multiple medications trying to find which ones could actually kill the dog track worms he had. It took nearly a year all told.

This is off subject of the worm issue, but my mom has owned retired racing greyhounds for years, and I’ve grown to love the breed.

I get your sentiment, the tracks have been notoriously bad in many aspects of the dogs safety and health. But the issue is more complex then just ‘shutting down’ the tracks I think.

They are wonderful dogs, I love them so much, great personality & demeanor. Especially for a hunting dog, they are great house companions.

But after Florida banned dog racing a couple years ago, the sport is all but dead. ‘Coursing’ in the UK is all but banned as well, so my point is the future of the breed is in jeopardy.

Nobody really hunts with these dogs anymore, so once the competitive outlets are gone ( coursing & track racing), the will be no reason left for breeders to invest time and money into the breed.

Maybe a handful of niche breeders will keep them alive to breed for show or something, but other wise I think it’s important to remember that when we talk about eliminating track racing, we are therefore talking about eliminating the breed from existence.

Sort of a catch 22 right? As distasteful as racing tracks can be, they also are the main reason the breed still exists. Personally I don’t want to see the breed go extinct. They are amazing dogs when you get to know them. It would also be ashamed to lose the bloodlines & the history, the centuries of breeding to create them.

I’m not necessarily trying to support track racing, but I don’t know what a good answer is.

> when we talk about eliminating track racing, we are therefore talking about eliminating the breed from existence

I am struggling with this logic. It's not like the dogs themselves will be put to death. We won't be selectively breeding them anymore other than to enjoy their company.

I agree with his point that in a few generations, greyhounds will be a lot less common to see if there isn't strong interest in breeding them for companionship. They aren't particularly fashionable (like a Corgi), or useful (like a Shepherd). It wouldn't be the first breed to go nearly extinct due to a lack of interest.

But it will be BETTER FOR THE DOGS, if they are bred for health and happiness as companion animals, rather than race performance.

A species or a breed can't suffer, only the individual animals.

That's great and all, but there are other externalities that GP was referring to. Animal wellbeing doesn't mean a whole lot if all the animals have died out.

The issue you usually run into is that the alternative isn't breeding for health or happiness, it's breeding for some arbitrary "standard" of aesthetics. It results in substantially less healthy animals (see: bulldog, German shepherd dog, for examples).

It's no different than mourning the old 90's internet or music from a certain era. A thing gp loves about the world will diminish drastically because it's no longer viable, and they're going to miss it when it's gone. Makes sense to me.

I get what you’re saying and think you’re right, but it is very different.

Someone keeping the 90s internet alive will cost them money but have no other collateral damage.

Keeping dog tracks alive means subjecting many sentient living creatures to a fairly cruel life.

You can keep the breed alive using time/money too. Make a YouTube channel about the breed, ask for donations from like minded people or use your own money to breed them etc

But it won't be gone. Greyhounds will continue to exist because people like them merely as companion animals and not for their racing or hunting skills.

Breeds have absolutely vanished in the past(1). It takes an awful lot of effort to breed dogs and if there isn't money in it most breeders won't. Without the main financial incentive it's not crazy to think that within a human generation everyone who did it for money will have moved on and anyone who did it for love will have retired.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_dog_breeds

Breeds vanish because too few people care. If too few people care, then...who cares exactly?

I don’t quite understand: lots of people buy purebred dogs from breeders for lots of reasons. If greyhounds are such amazing dogs why wouldn’t people continue to buy them, just perhaps at a smaller scale?

I'm not mourning the loss of greyhound racing in any way shape or form.

But I will say Greyhounds and retired racing Greyhounds seem pretty different. Most of the behavior that defines mine is a result of racing, for better or for worse.

Mine didn't even know how to bark until he went to a dog park for a few months, and to this day it's exceptionally rare to hear him bark or roo

The way they're brought up around other dogs for most of their lives is also somewhat unique and contributes to their demeanor

I don't think it's any sort of loss compared to what Greyhound racing was doing to dogs though. To this day I get people complaining to me about my dog being skinny... he's 15 lbs over the weight I got him at (75 lbs from 60 lbs).

Pictures of him from when his was racing are depressing, despite constantly being happy and inquisitive today not a single one shows him as anything but scared and/or disinterested.

I can only theorize they will no longer be selectively bred for performance, only looks and behavior. In a few generations, the performance will start to diminish until it's no longer an advantage.

What advantage would their performance have, if they have no outlet for the performance? And you can still have your bitches and studs run a 200m race and breed the fastest ones, just not in the context of that's-their-whole-life...

I’m a long-time greyhound lover (6 adopted, and fosters), and I’m not worried about the future of the breed.

They are “greyt” dogs. Many other breeds survive and thrive without racing or other working roles, and I have no doubt greyhounds will as well. People will want them as pets and that will take care of that.

(Personally, I’m only going to adopt rescues, so maybe there won’t be a greyhound in need when the time next comes — but that will be only a temporary disappoint. Really, it’s a sign of progress.)

I have mixed feelings about dog breeds. They are selectivly bred for a specific set of features for a use-case, if that use-case is gone, is there a purpose for the breed? Other than a companion or to look pretty? Should we feel bad if they go away?

I always owned mutts because that is what all shelters have. And they offer the same amount of love if not more. I didn't pay a cent apart from a donation and I don't have to fear any specific heridetary problem (which is a good and bad thing because I cannot predict health issues).

Same here. We adopted Noodle last year and she had hookworms that took several rounds of treatment to get rid of.

We heard all the hounds the adoption group took in from that track (one in Alabama that closed due to covid) had the same issue. Luckily someone had found a treatment regimen that worked and once our vet switched Noodle to that we finally got rid of the worms.

Any insight as to how you managed to get rid of the track worms in your grey? We're still battling that here and nothing seems to last.

We did the typical recommendation from adoption groups now days is Drontal combined with AdvantageMulti. Drontal to kill the worms and AdvantageMulti to prevent reinfection during and after the killing. Lately I have heard of groups switching bovine grade dewormers, especially for dogs from Mexican tracks.

As I mentioned in another response, we had the same issue with Noodle. And similar solution. For us, it took two courses of Panacur + AdvantageMulti. (Before that we had tried two courses of just Panacur, which was our vet’s preferred tx before the “super worms” from the track.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com