You Have A Fat Dog

Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Have you been told that you have a fat dog? Do you fit the definition of fat or obese? Believe it or not some people do not think of themselves as being overweight. Unfortunately they pass the same eating habits onto their dogs and cats.

Be honest. Are you overweight by 500, 300, or 100 pounds? Are you overweight by 50 or 25 pounds? Ten pounds or less is considered vanity weight and is easily corrected as it is usually a temporary condition. Most often the health of the dog or cat reflects their owners' food philosophy.

We have a family member who is overweight, has owned 3 dogs, has overfed these dogs, all three became diabetics, and all three have died from their illness. Diabetes is a disease of overweight.

Here is a checklist of health problems related to over weight:

• Cancer


• Arthritis


• Ligament injury


• Liver Disease- especially in cats


• Heart failure


• High Blood pressure


• Blindness


• Kidney disease


• Diabetes

First and foremost what is the breed of your dog?

My parents raised Greyhounds for racing. This breed requires a very different feeding program and pet care from many other breeds of dogs. They must be kept streamlined for optimum health and racing speed.

Different breeds of dogs are bred for work, hunting, and as pets. The types of foods, required nutrients, and health care will vary according to the breed.

Underweight dogs will show their ribs. Their abdominal area is extremely narrow or sucked in. Food intake and correct nutrition needs to be increased.

Obese or extremely overweight dogs have overall body fat which makes them look like an over inflated balloon and their head size appears very small. They labor at walking and pant heavily from the stress of carrying extra pounds on their body.

Overweight dogs have bulging chests, a large sagging abdomen, and a saddle dip in their spine from the weight of the abdomen. They have no waistline and have fatty hips. As you stroke and massage your dog or cat you can feel the softness of the fatty tissue under your touch.

Correct body weight for a dog is viewed by looking at the topside of the animal. It should have an hour-glass shape which means it has a narrow waistline. The abdomen is raised. As you pet your dog you will feel a hint of its ribs and firmness in its muscles as you stroke him.

You have a fat dog if your dog is extremely overweight or obese. Worse; you are shortening the life of your pet.

The problem we have with our pets is their dependency on us for their wellbeing. Therefore we are truly responsible for their weight problems.�

Have you been told you have a fat dog? What are the solutions?�

• Change of diet


• Controlled feedings


• Increase of exercise or activities which are suitable for the breed


• Change types of treats

Have you been told you have a fat dog? Discover how to have a healthier lifestyle for your pets. Visit the pet care section of Infotrish at and review Veterinary Secrets Revealed.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Yes, There ARE 4-Dog Trifectas and They Pay Big Bucks

Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Do you bet trifectas? Do you win very often? The nice thing about trifectas is that you don't have to hit too many of them to make a nice profit.

Of course, they're harder to hit, which is why they pay better than quinielas or win, place and show bets. You have to really refine your handicapping skills to be able to find the 3 dogs who will cross the finish line. And then you have to figure out how to bet them.

I'll tell you. In my experience, it's the rare greyhound handicapper who can pick a trifecta cold more than a few times in their life. It's only a $2 bet, which is why you'll find so many losing tickets with a straight trifecta on it on the floor after a dog race.

Those $2 bets add up, too, especially if you make more than one of them on each race, which is common. Talk about nickeling and diming yourself to the poorhouse. Any bet that doesn't come in, even if it's a $2 bet, is a step down the slipper slope to being a loser. Don't go there.

So should you give up betting on trifectas? Well, let's say that you should definitely change your way of betting if you're losing on straight trifecta bets or even 3-dog boxes. It's almost as hard to come up with the 3 dogs who are going to win the trifecta as it is to come up with it straight.

Instead, why not find a fourth dog and box all four for $24? If that sounds like a lot of money, maybe you should be betting quinielas instead of trifectas. The 4-dog trifecta box is a good bet if your system of handicapping can eliminate four dogs who aren't contenders.

That way, you can put the other four dogs into a trifecta box and have a pretty good shot at hitting the trifecta. Since almost any trifecta will pay more than $24 for half of it, you're only limited by how well you can handicap and the size of your bankroll.

Check it out on some old programs where you played trifectas and see how much better you would have done if you'd only put another dog into your 3-dog trifecta box. You'd be surprised at the money you can miss by leaving out that one dog.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning Quinielas in Dog Racing

Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Trifectas usually pay bigger than quinielas at the dog track. So why would I want to bet quinielas, you ask? Why would anyone want to play them when they could win much more with a trifecta bet?

Well, for that matter, superfectas, Pick-Sixes and other exotic bets pay more than trifectas, so why doesn't everyone just play them instead of trifectas? You know the reason, although you might not have completely thought the whole thing through yet.

You can play a four-dog quiniela box for $12. A four-dog trifecta box will cost you double that - $24. You chances of hitting a quiniela with four dogs are much better than your chances of hitting a trifecta with four dogs.

A quiniela, as you probably know, is the dog who finishes first with the dog who finishes second. Unlike the exacta, where you have to pick the dogs in the exact order of finish, with a quiniela, you can have the dogs in either order. As long as you have the first two dogs to cross the finish line, you win.

What does the average quiniela pay? Well, that depends on your track takeout, the odds of the two dogs and the order they finish in. But at most tracks, the average quiniela pays between $12 and $24. Once in awhile, there are much bigger and much smaller quinielas, but that's the average payout.

Obviously, in order to make money with quinielas, you have to hit enough to pay for your $12 box bet with enough profit to cover the races where you bet but don't hit the quiniela. This isn't as hard as you might think it is.

If you have a system that narrows down the likely contenders, such as the Graded Greyhound Handicapping System, the Two Key Trifecta System or the Marks Method, you have a very good chance of picking the quiniela in most races.

Or, if you're pretty good at greyhound handicapping, yourself, you should be able to pick a quiniela often enough to be ahead of the game at your favorite track. The trick with betting quinielas is to pick them often enough so that your losses are covered by your wins. It's as simple as that.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning Bets That Lose Money at the Dog Track

Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Have you ever picked dogs that finish in the money, cashed a ticket and lost money? If you're like most of the greyhound handicappers I know, including me, it's happened to you at least once in your life.

It's a horrible feeling to know that you picked the right dogs, bet them and still managed to come out behind the eight ball. How does this happen?

One way is when you wheel a dog that you feel strongly is going to win in the trifecta with all the other dogs. This is an $84 bet. If your dog wins, no matter which dogs come after it, you cash your ticket.

So, you may be thinking, most trifectas pay more than $84 for a one-dollar bet, so why don't I just do that and make some easy money? It's not that easy, believe me.

For one thing, it's very hard to pick a dog that's almost certain to win. Even if the dog has all the factors going for him, things happen. Dogs fall down. They stumble. Other dogs block and bump them. They fade to second right at the wire. There are no sure things in dog racing.

There's also no worse feeling than wheeling a dog to win in the trifecta and having it come in second so that the trifecta pays big bucks. That's when you realize that you would have been a lot better off if you'd picked three other dogs to put with that dog and played them in a box.

There are many other ways to pick winners and still lose money at the dog track. You can play two or three dogs to win. One wins, but pays less than $6 and you lose money. You can bet a dog to win and in a quiniela or other exotic bets. It wins, but you don't have the quiniela or trifecta and you've lost money on those tickets.

Knowing WHAT to bet, obviously, is just as important as knowing WHO to bet on in greyhound racing. That's why it's important that you have a good system going for you that makes sure that you know who to bet on and what kind of bet will give you the best return on your investment.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track Without Getting Disqualified

Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

My friend,Willie and I were talking the other day about how often we've bet on a dog and had it get bumped by another dog, which is pretty discouraging. I said maybe it'd be a good idea if they disqualified dogs and changed the results of the race like they do for horse races. Willie is clearheaded, however, and he set me straight on that idea right away.

"Yeah, but then what about our dogs that come in because they bump another dog or another dog bumps a dog and they benefit? We'd lose those bets too."

As usual, Willie made a good point. Most greyhound races have one or two dogs who get into trouble or cause trouble. But, unlike at the horse track, it's not because their jockeys didn't control them properly. It's just because they're dogs and dogs bump each other. It's the nature of the beast as you'll know if you've ever thrown a tennis ball for more than one dog at a time.

People get so angry when dogs knock each other down and bump and "turn their heads" to nip each other (doesn't work with a muzzle, but they try anyhow), but that's what dogs do. It's just as much a part of a greyhound's makeup as running as fast as it can after anything that moves is.

Many years ago, at Lincoln Greyhound Park in RI, someone got the bright idea of using monkeys for jockeys on the dogs. Not only was it cruel and inhumane to both species, but it didn't work. You can't control monkeys any more than monkeys can control greyhounds. The idea was scrapped and the dogs were allowed to run as nature intended - free of all outside control.

When you think about it, in horse racing, it's not the horse that's penalized. It's the jockey. So disqualifying greyhounds wouldn't make sense, since they're not under anyone's control. And in some races, if you disqualified every dog who bumped another dog or went wide and took out the outside dogs, you wouldn't have any dogs left for Win, Place or Show.

Nope, Willie is right. Some bumping and blocking and shuffling is normal in dog racing, so we should just accept it and do the best we can to handicap around it by improving our handicapping skills.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track Without Dramatics

Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

When I first started going to the dog track, I loved betting on closers. Not for me the early speed dogs that went off at low odds. Nope. I was the one who bet on the dog that hung back until the last turn, then put on the juice and passed the tiring speedballs that the crowd had bet down to nothing. My closers, on the other hand, usually paid well, because most bettors are fools for early speed and afraid to bet closers because they might get blocked or not make it in time.

My friend, Willie, who got me going to the track in the first place, used to call me Longshot Louie, because I bet on so many closers at long odds. But he had to admit that they paid off well when they came in. And nothing beats the thrill of seeing your longshot pass the frontrunners right at the wire, except the thrill of cashing a ticket on a dog at 10-1. For me, the drama was almost as important as winning.

But now, the thrill is gone. I don't bet on dogs because they're closers anymore, unless there are other good reasons to bet on them. Over the last thirty years, I've learned that dramatics don't pay the bills. The thrill I get from cashing several tickets on dogs who pay decent - but not long - odds is much better than cashing one longshot ticket and losing the other longshot bets.

Early speed and the ability to keep up with the pace are more likely to indicate a winner than pure closing ability. Even in a route race, early speed is a good thing. Although closing ability is important, go over your old programs and notice how many times the winner of a route race got out early. Maybe it wasn't first, but it was out there at the beginning of the race or at least at the 1/8th call.

Every once in awhile, a dog comes along that gets up into stakes races, even though it doesn't have early speed. When that happens it makes for some exciting races, because so many stakes dogs have early speed. Of course, the really good ones also have stamina and determination. (K's Flak's puppies come to mind. They must have been crossed with bulldogs somewhere in the past, because they never gave up.)

I love watching races where closers come off the pace to nip the frontrunners right at the wire, but I don't bet on many of those races. I don't bet on whims either, like I did when I first started going to the dog track. Nowadays, I use much better judgment and cash a lot more tickets than I did back then. I still get a thrill, but I don't have to have a cliff-hanger finish on every race to get one.

Greyhound Dog Racing.

Winning at the Dog Track With the First System

Greyhound Dog Racing Tips.

Everyone is looking for a system nowadays. Systems to beat the dog track. Systems to pick lottery numbers. Systems to get their life back together, relieve stress and find a mate. It makes sense, because life is really just a series of systems.

We either make up our own every time we do something, or we use someone else's knowledge and experience to guide us. Oftentimes, it makes sense to consult someone else who knows more about the subject than we do. After all, we don't reinvent the wheel every time we drive our car, do we?

There's one system that I'll share with you for free. I call it The First System and it's one of the best ways to make money at the track and in life. Be first. That's it. It's as simple as that. Come to think of it, that's the system that dogs use to win races, isn't it?

Let me tell you how being first can help you win at the track. Say there's a dog who's coming back from a layoff. You and your friends are discussing the dog before the races and no one really knows whether he's liable to come in or not today.

Someone says that they think they remember that he got hurt in a race a couple of months ago and that's why he's had a layoff. Someone else says, "No, he didn't get hurt. They just gave him a layoff because he was running lousy races because he was tired." And someone else says, "Well, you guys didn't notice but "he's" a "she" and I heard she had a litter of puppies, so no way can she be back in shape yet."

Someone might be right, but everyone might be wrong in this conversation. There's a really good chance that none of the people discussing this dog really knows why it had a layoff or what it did before it had the layoff. Now, what if someone - namely you - had downloaded a program the day before and looked at this dog's record in Greyhound Track Data or old programs?

That person, namely you, would have a much better idea of why the dog had that layoff and would know whether the dog was a good bet today or not. They'd be first to know and they could either keep quiet or share it with their friends. But either way, they'd have a much better chance of making money on the dog.

It's the same with dogs who win M races and have litter mates. If you see a dog who does well in M, take the time to check for litter mates and keep an eye on them. The dog doesn't have to be fantastic, just good. Chances are, at least some of the litter mates will be worth betting on also.

How about dogs who break and fade and ship in from another track where the sprint races are shorter than they are at your track? If you know this before the other bettors do, you know what they don't know. At the shorter distance, the fader may not fade after all. It may just hang on and win. How many people check the length of the track that dogs come from, compared to the track they play?

There are all kinds of situations at the dog track where you can be first to benefit from something if you're willing to put out a little more effort than most bettors are. Look around you at the track and notice how many people hardly glance at their programs - the programs they grabbed on the way in. How many people are buying lottery tickets or yakking on the phone or watching Fox News?

If you want to win at the track, you have to be better than the average bettor. I learned that the hard way a long time ago. It's the reason I write articles and sell systems. I figure if I share what I know, it might keep at least some people from making the same mistakes I made when I started out. So keep your eyes open and look for opportunities to use The First System. After all, it's free.

Greyhound Dog Racing.