@article{margolies_2015, title={Going to the Dogs: Greyhound Racing, Animal Activism, and American Popular Culture}, volume={38}, ISSN={["1542-734X"]}, DOI={10.1111/jacc.12471}, abstractNote={Going to the Dogs: Greyhound Racing, Animal Activism, and American Popular Culture Gwyneth Anne Thayer. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013.This book tackles the complexity of the history, development, and controversies over greyhound racing within a broader consideration of the evolving role of the dog and the race itself in American culture. As attitudes toward greyhound racing shifted, Thayer argues for a causal role for a shift in American consciousness toward the idea that "greyhound racing was unequivocally wrong and needed to be eliminated entirely" (4). Going to the Dogs provides historical background on greyhound coursing, including some strikingly cruel uses of the dogs for rabbit killing and other pursuits that were perhaps related more to bloodsports than to racing. She does not spare the human involvement in rabbit drives which often led to the beating deaths of enormous numbers of animals. Thayer pays careful attention to the class and ethnic basis of coursing, a theme she will follow throughout the book when discussing the clear class aspects evident in modern variants of greyhound racing.The mechanical rabbit was developed in the United States by Owen Patrick Smith at the start of the twentieth century as a measure to reduce animal cruelty. Thayer argues that the mechanical rabbit in fact "was also, in a sense, a cultural metaphor" which "represented the influence of the nascent animal protection movement" (21). This innovation in turn laid the basis for dog racing on a commercial and profitable scale, starting in California and soon flourishing around the country and especially in Florida, which is the subject of a whole chapter. The new tracks and technology allowed for more dogs, greater numbers of spectators, and the rise of gambling in the form of parimutuel wagering. New leisure time, the rise of sport fandom, the development of spectator and tourist cultures, and the rapid spread of the automobile all played a part in helping greyhound racing become popular. Thayer explains how the sport matured and then stayed relatively stable throughout the profitable twentieth century, albeit with some extremely odd developments in the 1930s like the rise of monkey jockeys. It was not uncommon for the monkeys, strapped to the dogs, to die from shaking during these races. With the development of new leisure and touristic pursuits, shifts in class attitudes, and the rise of new ideas of animal welfare, greyhound racing began to fade. …}, number={4}, journal={JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE}, author={Margolies, Daniel S.}, year={2015}, month={Dec}, pages={423-+} }