A Look at Greyhound Racing; Why It’s Just Plain Abusive

This is actually written in England, but there’s not much difference with the plight of greyhounds in the US. This article gives you a great idea on the truth behind this abusive money-making racquet.

For more on Greyhounds and Greyhound racing see http://www.grey2kusa.org/

Article:

My acting helped draw attention to greyhound plight

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/index.jhtml;jsessionid
=XJKRAMT4ADGXZQFIQMGSFFOAVCBQWIV0

Interview by Oliver Brown
(Filed: 11/08/2006)

I have been following what goes on in greyhound racing for 10 years at least, and I find it indefensible that the sport can operate in the way it does, with impunity. The recent case in Seaham, Co Durham, where a builders' merchant was alleged to have been killing retired greyhounds with a bolt gun at £10 a time, is not an isolated one. There are far too many greyhounds being bred - with roughly 30-35,000 racing in this country. You cannot deal with those numbers. What are you going to do with the 11,000 dogs that come off the tracks every year? Where are you going to put them?

The trouble is that this sport has no control over how many dogs are bred, or even how many are needed. It is also impossible to find out the numbers destroyed. I remember listening, five years ago, to a young vet from the Nottingham track explaining how he had to put down nine or 10 perfectly healthy dogs each week. The sport has always been about smoke and mirrors. While the Government insist that there is closer scrutiny now, I am already having the Data Protection Act quoted at me when I try to find out where money, meant for the dogs, has gone.

All my life I have lived with dogs, but it was only in taking on greyhounds as pets that I discovered a whole breed being persecuted. It is fortunate that when this happened, so many people were watching One Foot in the Grave. Had I not been Margaret Meldrew, the whole issue of greyhound welfare would never have received the same coverage. I turned to the League Against Cruel Sports to take the campaign further. I have since become the League's president, but am careful to ensure that my focus remains fairly strictly on greyhounds. To take on all the sports, I would risk being labelled an 'animal-loving fruitcake' - and if you start from the position of an actor, you are on a particular hiding to nothing.

Every facet of greyhound racing is controlled by an industry run by the bookmakers, for whom the rule book was drawn up, and the promoters. There was never any interest in the dogs when they finished racing. Even now they disappear into a limbo of indifference. 'Welfare' has only been mentioned since independent licensing and inspection looked like a possibility in the Animal Welfare Bill. For this Government to keep pushing for a discredited self-regulation system looks like a Government that is determined to protect the money, rather than the animals. All the greyhounds need is an amendment for independent licensing put down in the House of Lords, which can be debated in the House of Commons. That is what Lord Lipsey, chairman of the British Greyhound Racing Board, is doing his best to avoid. He has no support for self-regulation from any of the animal charities.

It is ridiculous to suggest - as Ben Bradshaw, the minister responsible for animal welfare, does - that a code of practice will cover all contingencies. For that to work you need a whistle blower - but the only people who see what goes on in greyhound racing are the people who earn their living from it and stand to lose for informing. I have been given information from many re-homers of greyhounds that I have not been able to take anywhere because, once identified, trainers would not give them dogs to re-home. That is why so many dogs found by wardens have had their ears hacked off. No identification, no embarrassment.

For the past 10 years the scale of the wastage of young, healthy dogs and the indifference displayed by bookmakers and promoters has been my main preoccupation. It is a huge animal cruelty scandal. The Government cannot plead ignorance. To be prepared to perpetuate the cruelty for the money is shameless and stupefyingly arrogant.