Race to Rescue

“I love them all and it’s too hard to choose,” the La Habra Heights man said quietly.

As recently as two years ago, greyhounds at the popular Caliente racetrack were destroyed if they became injured, or when they retired. But efforts by dog lovers like McRorie, 63, and his wife, Joyce, 61, have given these sleek dogs a new leash on life.

The McRories head up the Orange County/Greater Los Angeles chapter of Greyhound Pets of America. They work with a small army of local volunteers--there are about 150 of them--who spend their own money and donate countless hours rescuing greyhounds and preparing them for adoption. Nationally, there are more than 200 greyhound rescue groups that each year come to the aid of thousands of the animals, mostly bred for racing at tracks in more than a dozen states.

On this day, McRorie has room for only nine dogs. The rest will wait for next time, all part of an agreement reached with track officials. McRorie supplies food and other necessities for the dogs kept in a pet kennel that volunteers paid to have built. In exchange, track employees feed and water the dogs.

McRorie makes the trip to Mexico once a month. But the real work begins upon his return. Joyce McRorie and fellow volunteers work with assembly-line precision. Dogs are treated for fleas and ticks and given a checkup that includes vaccinations and dental exam. Then it’s bath time, and each dog is given a bright new collar.

Foster “parents” care for the dogs until permanent homes can be found. Greyhound lovers say they make calm, gentle pets, or “45-mph couch potatoes.” Adoptive families are carefully screened. The greyhounds’ thin skin makes them susceptible to the cold, which means they require a cozy home.

“We don’t want anyone adopting a pet because they feel sorry for them, we want them to adopt because they make wonderful pets,” Tom McRorie said.

The McRories never set out to be greyhound rescuers. He’s a former Rockwell engineer; she’s a former Huntington Beach schoolteacher. After raising their three children, they were in the midst of retiring to Oregon about 10 years ago when Joyce McRorie learned about the plight of greyhounds. They’ve never looked back.

“We are having the best times of our lives,” she said. “This changed our retirement plans, but in retrospect it would have been a boring life.”

Tom McRorie says he thinks of the dogs as his children: “Only they don’t talk back and you don’t have to send them to college.” But financially, he might as well. The group’s work costs about $78,000 a year, mostly in vet bills.

Many require treatment beyond basic medical care--leg injuries, for example, are routine among the dogs, which rank as some of the fastest animals in the world. Donations and fund-raisers help cover the bills.

More than 1,200 dogs have been rescued by the local group so far, but Tom McRorie says the work is never finished: “There is so much work to be done, it’s a never-ending process.”

To contact the regional chapter of Greyhound Pets of America, call (562) 694-3519, or visit https://www.fastfriends.org.