Since Fishdog Kennels/Team Greyhound Racing left Birmingham Race Course in December of 2008, I thought our days of running down to the track to pick up adoption dogs were pretty much over. Last Saturday, we had one more run. Six Fishdoggies that had been sent to race at Gulf Greyhound were hauled back to Birmingham to await adoption. Four were going to Greyhound Friends of NC, one was coming home to us and one was going to GPA-Nashville. So, I made the four hour drive down to Birmingham to pick up our new girl, Denim Days, and the four adoption pups for GFNC.

The dogs at the track are housed in kennel buildings a little way behind the actual track. When they race, the dogs are loaded up into a dog truck and driven down to the track. This same road is the access road you use to get from the general parking lot back to the kennel compound to visit the kennels. In order to leave the track and head on out to the highway, you drive the winding road from the guard shack down to where the dog trucks turn off to take the dogs down to race.

And it never fails…when you load the dogs up, all they remember is that this is the way they go when they get to race. “Get” being the operative word. Because any race dog that makes it at any race track must do one thing: love to race. So, asI drive down the winding road and we approach the track, the dogs pace the window and whine. They think they are being taken to race! Well, I finally captured the sequence with my camera…something I’ve always been meaning to do:

Loaded up and ready to go!

Past the guard shack, you can see the Grandstand and the back of the tote board. Birmingham used to also run horses, and in the foreground you can still see the rail for what was the horse track.

Crazystreak and Claire’s Alexia enjoy the view…

As we approach the turn the dog trucks normally would make, the whining has started from these two and they turn their heads to look in the direction of the track…

And as I pass the turn and head up to the parking lot, I get this look: Hey Lady, you overshot the track!

The dogs settle down once you get on the Interstate, but the perplexed look some of them get as you bypass their track is priceless. Some will even stand up on their hind legs and dig at the window as you get close to the track. Little do they know what major changes are in store for them! Retirement and pethood.

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