Jennifer still trod as far as her legs could take her, despite her nearly complete exhaustion slowing her down gradually. By the time she saw the wire (finish line) after the bend, two greyhounds already crossed it. She managed to make her way to the wire, but finished dead last. She was absolutely exhausted by the experience. The many torsos trailing behind her gave her a very large body size and this meant that she could not dissipate heat very efficiently, and her transformation definitely did not give her the energy reserves enough to sustain her entire body. She was panting extremely quickly to recover herself, but even with ten pairs of lungs it took her some time, since the lungs at the very back could not receive any air as their muscles were not strong enough.
Goodness. Being a taur train just feet agonizing: she had to coordinate so many torsos and legs in places she could not see, such that they can only follow the torsos ahead of her like a train or centipede, such that she is unable to react to changing environments; and she was hungry as she didn't have enough energy to sustain her sprinting. If they fed her the same amount as any other greyhound, she'd definitely starve to death.
"Come on, girl, back to your cage."
Jen was lead on her leash to the special cage made for her, three times as wide as one for a normal greyhound, and twice as tall, such that she didn't have to bend her upper torso down , but had to bend line of 10 torsos (including the upper one, now lain flat) in a zig-zag to even fit into the cage, and it gave her much less freedom of movement; the requirement to bend her whole body reminded her of the game Snake.
The muzzle was then removed from her. She bent all of her legs at the same time to lie down like any other dog would, then laid her upper torso flat as well, her head and arms resting upon her rump. There, she could take her time to observe the cages of the other racers: far smaller, stacked on each other and even more cramped… bunch of cheapskates, she muttered under her breath. Her body did NOT elongate after this statement.
A while later, she heard the lock on another cage open. She unfortunately couldn't see the combination, her line of sight obstructed by another greyhound, but she could make out some kibble being poured out into a container. The greyhound reluctantly nibbled on it bit by bit.
The rows of cages opened one by one with food served to them. By the time the worker reached Jen's cage, she took a glance at the lock…4…3…9…6. The worker gave up and simply dumped the whole bag, overflowing the bowl entirely. The result is a mountain of kibble that buried the laughably tiny bowl. However plain it smelt, Jennifer had to eat the kibble, as she was on the verge of starvation. She wasn't used to her snout blocking the bottom of her vision, and she had to learn to use her snout to figure out where the food is, before she opened her mouth and chomped on the kibble. It was tasteless, but she had no other choice. As the mountain gradually emptied, she felt the food gradually flow through each of the digestive systems in each of her torsos. She couldn't help but wonder if the lower torsos are digesting partially digested food, as in a cow, or… nope.
Just then, she felt her bladders fill. he raised her hindmost torso straight up, turned her head to race her rump, raised one leg to aim at the corner, and relieved herself on the spot. That's how livestock is treated, to live with their waste in their cramped cages; even house pets in cages care trained to do their business somewhere else, she realized. "Oh, how nicely these creatures are treated." Unfortunately, the curse didn't understand sarcasm. With her rump in the corner, it could not grow sideways as with what happened in the gate. It chose to grow upwards instead. Jennifer was too tired to stand all legs up and move, and since the cage was twice as tall her behind didn't smack against the ceiling, so she felt safe to leave it dangling in the air. Sigh.
4...3...9...6.
An idea popped into her head.