Hooray for Florida! Odd words for me to write as contentious election contests morph into contentious vote recounts … but Floridians of all political stripes stepped up for the dogs. The measure to ban greyhound racing passed with 69 percent of the vote.

Greyhound racing will at long last be phased out in Florida. According to the Orlando Sentinel, the 11 active tracks have until January 1, 2021, to end dog races.

Grey2K and other rescue and shelter organizations are already gearing up to handle an expected flood of retiring racedogs. Thousands of greyhounds currently race in Florida, and, though some will be moved to states that still allow racing, most will probably need homes.

And rehabilitation. Several years ago, while working on an article on prison-based dog-training programs, I visited a prison in Michigan. The head of the training program there, where dogs from a nearby shelter and retired racing greyhounds were getting training prior to placement, explained how much the greyhounds needed to learn.

They spend their racing lives in cages and don’t understand how to function in a normal environment. It took three men and a boatload of patience to teach the rescued greyhounds how to walk down stairs, for example — something that can be easily taught to a puppy in a few short sessions.

The few rescued greyhounds I’ve interacted with all seemed to grasp some of the greatest comforts of life-with-kind-humans pretty easily though, enjoying soft beds, warm sweaters, and yummy regular meals. They are large but quite gentle and often shy — perhaps a result of spending much of their early lives isolated from most other dogs and humans.

Spokespeople for the industry claim there was no abuse of the dogs, who were well cared-for; 500 deaths of racing greyhounds in Florida in just the last 5 years says otherwise, as do state reports of injuries and deaths, some with video documentation. Add in the rabid opposition from the industry to any kind of  regulation, like tracking injuries or prohibiting steroid use, and I somehow am having difficulty feeling too bad for the people whose livelihoods will be affected by the ban — track operators, breeders, track workers. I do hope they find work in a less-cruel industry.