ANDOVER - At age 8, Amanda MacDonald unselfishly spurned Christmas presents. Instead, she urged family members to donate money to help preserve rain forests and their exotic creatures. The following December, Amanda, who once aspired to be a zookeeper, asked that her gift money go to an elephant sanctuary.
Always an advocate for animal rights, Amanda, now 13, is collecting signatures - more than 350 so far - in and around her hometown of Andover in an effort to phase out dog racing in Massachusetts.
"I really love animals, and I think it's cruel for humans to race them," she said from behind blue-capped braces as she sat at a table in her family's dining room. "I don't think people should make money off animals."
The West Middle School eighth-grader's panoply of signatures will assist the Somerville-based Committee to Protect Dogs in its quest to outlaw racing in the state. For months, a team of roughly 2,000 volunteers has canvassed cities and towns in an effort to collect 150,000 signatures for a ballot question next November. If passed, the act would eliminate dog racing by 2010.
All signatures will be submitted to the state by Wednesday, according to Christine Dorchak, committee cochairwoman and president of Grey2KUSA, a national antiracing effort. Next summer, the organization will complete a second collection.
Amanda has set her own goal of 400 signatures - and, fittingly, she is always carrying her clipboard of alphabetically organized John Hancocks. She totes it to tennis practices to wrangle teammates' parents, to the dentist's office to get endorsements of orthodontists, and to school to give her teachers a lesson in civics.
"They all signed," she said of her instructors, with a grin.
The lanky teenager - who, in her spare time, keeps busy with figure skating, track, tennis, piano lessons, and an art club - also did a presentation before her classmates, took part in a rally in Andover in September, and convinced her grandfather to advocate within his retirement community.
All this has impressed her mother, Jodi MacDonald. Amanda's diligence has been especially commendable in times when she has knocked on doors for hours and collected only a handful of signatures, she said. "It's hard work," said the homemaker who formerly worked as an engineer. "The process can sometimes seem unfair."
For instance, as outlined by state law, every signed sheet must be in pristine condition - no smudges, no cross-outs, no coffee stains, no crinkles. So MacDonald expects that a good portion of the signatures she gathers eventually will be ditched.
Still, she's not dissuaded. "It takes work to fight for something."
Dorchak understands that: This is the third time she has helped broach the antiracing question in Massachusetts - a similar initiative was narrowly defeated on the 2000 ballot and another was disqualified on a technicality last year.
There are two dog tracks still in operation in Massachusetts: Raynham Park in Raynham and Wonderland Greyhound Park in Revere. Nationally, there are 35, according to Dorchak; nearly one-third of them are in Florida.
The committee's efforts stem from a belief that the dogs live dismal lives. Dorchak contends that both Massachusetts tracks house roughly 3,000 dogs that are kept confined for 20 hours a day in 32- inch-wide by 34-inch-high cages. The dogs are also fed raw meat that has been deemed unfit for human consumption, she said.
Racing itself also poses a dangerous - sometimes deadly - situation, according to a report compiled by the committee: Since 2002, there have been 728 reported greyhound injuries at both tracks. Those have included broken bones, cardiac arrest, paralysis, and seizures. In another case, one dog at Wonderland tested positive for cocaine.
"These dogs are treated as commodities - they're numbers to dog track owners," Dorchak said.
But Greyhound Racing Association president Ron Hevener calls statements like those cruel and untrue.
In many cases, the most successful people in the racing business started out by adopting greyhounds, he said. He owns several racing dogs, and he said he sees them "having fun out there" every time they get on the track.
"I have truthfully never seen the horrible things that they claim, or that they try to make you believe, or that they show pictures of," said the Michigan-based artist and author. "I am extremely disappointed by what happened to the animal rights movement. . . . They're very militant, in my opinion. I wish that they would be more spiritual."
Representatives from Raynham and Wonderland did not return several calls and e-mails seeking comment, although the Revere track does address the topic on its website. In one statement, it says that dogs are housed in climate-controlled buildings in pens that resemble "bunk beds," and maintain a daily schedule of exercise, interaction, and a "well-balanced" diet of vitamins, grains, fish, and chicken.
"Anything less than the finest care will make it impossible for the impressive dogs to reach their full potential as competitors," the statement says.
Hevener agreed, and said greyhounds are also assets, costing anywhere from $2,500 to $100,000 each. As for concerns about injuries, he said, "Any athlete runs the risk of getting hurt. Drivers get hurt in NASCAR. Why not worry about people, too?"
He expressed dismay at what he called a proliferation of "rotten, horrible stories that tear at your heart" and are often embellished.
Dorchak maintained that no exaggeration is required. "It's bad enough as it is."
Young Amanda is similarly downhearted by what she believes is cruelty at the tracks.
"Collecting signatures is making people more aware of these conditions."
In her quest for signatures, she often draws inspiration from her own dog, a 2 1/2-year-old Havanese named Lemony. The pooch's coat is dusted white and gray like an Oreo cookie, and his friendly personality makes him a "people dog," she said.
"Ideally I would have, like, 10 dogs," she said.
Her parents won't allow more than one, though.
Amanda reached under the table to pet a sniffing Lemony. Of the dogs at the tracks, she said, "I would just feel so bad, thinking of my dog living that life."
Taryn Plumb can be reached at taryn.plumb@gmail.com.
