Dying for sport: Abuse claims rock Australian greyhound racing

[DogsAndTheMob]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8vdrzr9mq1o

 

”In an explosive report made public by lawmakers, the organisation's former chief veterinarian has described the industry as a hotbed of “exploitation and suffering”, claiming that dogs are being raced at “barbaric” rates, euthanised without cause, or left to rot in metal cages when they can no longer compete.”

[Rebanne]

sorry but some of that is just stupid. No one with any brains would let any dog out of it's crate without getting a lead on it. Yeah it happens, we all hear the stories of lost dogs at airports but a Greyhound thinking it was in a starting box?? Same as a dog losing a nail and being in a pool of blood. Nell lost a nail yesterday from SLO, if she had been in a crate she would have been in a pool of blood and I wouldn't have had to spend 30 minutes cleaning all the blood off the floors. And the dogs not rehomed and living in industrial kennels? Breeding dogs on the main. Not a lot different to a lot of ANKC dogs who live in a kennel environment.

 

Not saying there are not bad people in the sport but give us real examples not hysterical rantings of one person.

[Mairead]

I took my sighthounds to a greyhound vet because regular vets tended not to know much about them. In the greyhound waiting room were well kept, well adjusted dogs. In the pet waiting room were usually overweight, poorly socialised and poorly controlled dogs. 

At a Million Paws walk one year (I stopped going - too many long flexileads and being run into by strollers) the vet students doing free checkups said the show dogs are in good condition and the pets look like coffee tables.

In the Baird greyhound enquiry, didn't the RSPCA say they didn't get many greyhound cruelty cases?

[asal]

I too have seen first hand how much loved greyhounds are loved by both their breeders and owners.  My daughter in laws family has them, a brother breeds and races his, they are trained to run to the catching pen for their favourite toy.

As a result his dogs are not "chasing the mechanical hare" they are running for the catching pen and their toy.  Result, in a race the hare malfunctioned one day and stopped, only one dog in the race field stopped at the" hare".  all the other 9 were doing the same as Honey, racing to their toy.   

As a result although the owner of the dog that stopped tried to have it declared a "no race" it was refused and the placings declared.

The winner?  Honey by three lengths. 3 wins for 3 races.

She then went to my daughter in laws sister and I couldn't count how many people after meeting Honey wanted to put their names down to adopt a greyhound she impressed them so with her loving gentle nature.  Ah and her incredible zoomie's around the backyard playing with her toys.

So many people got to meet her because after having some puppies stolen from me by people who had come to see mine when they were for sale, Maree offered to let me bring them to her place for potential buyers to meet as I had become too afraid to have people come to my home.

almost every one who met Honey was so taken by her, decided if they get a second dog as a companion for their puppy, they want a greyhound too

 

but hey that's not the kind of stories Emma Hurst wants made public

Edited July 20 by asal

[tdierikx]

Interesting to note that from Emma's call for all papers relating to greyhound racing, this is the only one that is being touted as "proof" that the industry as a whole is rife with cruelty... generally these calls for papers result in literally hundreds, if not thousands of said papers.... surely if the industry was rife with cruelty cases, there would be more than one paper referring to it?

 

As for RSPCA reacting to calls about racing greyhound issues, I'm not sure if they are actually tasked with that job under POCTAA... aren't racing greyhound complaints usually put through GWIC? In most animal welfare legislation there is a clear delineation between domestic dogs and working greyhounds, with jurisdiction for complaint management allocated elsewhere than RSPCA/AWL. RSPCA/AWL are generally responsible for domestic animal welfare management, and also usually only investigate or get involved in working/production animal welfare cases on an "invitation" basis by industry or government bodies if a case allows.

 

Generally, the majority of racing greyhound owners care very well for their dogs, but as with any industry, there will be a minority component who mess it up for everyone.

 

T.