08/16/2025
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Today we must share some very sad news. Susan Netboy, the very founder of anti-racing advocacy in the United States, has passed away. Her steadfast voice prompted the entire movement that has now blossomed across the globe.
The leader of the Greyhound Protection League, her strength was in investigating the cruelty of dog racing and exposing the suffering of the thousands of greyhounds who paid the price for it each year -- many with their lives. All the progress and change seen around the world today started with her.
Rest in Peace, dear Susan.
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Here is more information on her legacy and impact, which is detailed in our book, Brooklyn Goes Home:
"In 1989 animal protection group In Defense of Animals came to learn that the U.S. Army planned to kill 118 former ex-racing greyhounds at its Presidio laboratories in San Francisco. The dogs would have a piece of leg bone removed and then replaced by a bone-mending compound. After two months of healing, the dogs would be killed, and their limbs subjected to stress tests. IDA learned of the plans and alerted Congresswoman Barbara Boxer, who launched inquiries. The group also paired up with a local sighthound rescuer named Susan Netboy. Through a series of demonstrations, legal maneuvers and news exposés, the coalition was able to halt the program and secure freedom for the surviving dogs. Two years later in 1991, Netboy formed the Greyhound Protection League to advocate for racing dogs full-time.
Over the next decade, the Greyhound Protection League led the first national movement against greyhound racing. It was a grassroots effort that received only token support from mainstream animal groups. Netboy cultivated an extensive network of industry informants, who provided her with inside information on dog racing throughout the country. She was a regular contributor to the national anti-racing newsletter, Greyhound Network News, which had been launched in 1992 by Joan Eidinger in Arizona. Netboy was particularly skilled at exposing the use of greyhounds in research laboratories. In 1998 she helped publicize a major scandal in which 2,600 ex-racers were donated for terminal lab experiments at the Colorado State University veterinary school over a three-year period. The Rocky Mountain News reported on the public outcry that led to the end of the program.
A few years later, in the Spring of 2000, the Wisconsin State Journal, the Des Moines Register and the Chicago Sun-Times were among the newspapers that reported on the sale of one thousand greyhounds to the Guidant cardiac research lab in Minnesota. NGA member Daniel Shonka, who accepted the dogs on the premise of placing them for adoption, instead sold them to the laboratory for $400 each. In 2006, history repeated itself when the Denver Post reported that Richard Favreau, who had also released dogs to CSU, received $28,000 to adopt out approximately two hundred greyhounds, but could only account for a handful of them. As with all of these cases, Netboy worked to publicize the situation, creating a public relations nightmare for the dog racing industry."
