this may be an odd question, but are greyhound racing inhumane?
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this may be an odd question, but are greyhound racing inhumane?
I prefer lure coursing to greyhound racing. Lure coursing tests the dog's sense of instinct and it's a fun activity dog owners do with their sighthounds (sort of like agility and tracking and whatnot). I don't know too much about greyhound racing, but what I DO know is that a lot of times, dogs that retire are euthanized, so there are a lot of organizations now that try to rescue retired greyhounds and place them in homes. During their race career, they're mostly kept in cages and never really get to experience the outside world or spend their time in anyone's home.
In my opinion greyhound racing is extremely digusting. The treatment of greyhounds after retirement is beyond inhumane. I saw a documentary where undercover agents when into greyhound retirement homes to discover greyhounds in cages literally starving to death. When the females have babies they were buried alive. The agents unearthed about 35 puppies ranging from newborn to a couple months old in a mass grave. The dogs were never fed, never watered, never exercised- they just wasted away in a cage until they died. The dogs were covered in feces and were burned from the urine, they were also raging with parasites. Just about every single retirement facility for greyhounds is like that, according to the documentary. It was on our local news last year, they did a special on it for some reason.
Utterly disgusting. I cried my eyes out watching that video footage.
The kind of home I was talking about was the kind that the greyhound rescue organizations put the dogs into...not just any random homes. I've seen on TV (and met in real life) several happy and healthy retired greyhounds that have gone through a rescue agency and now are just loving pets. :)Quote:
Originally posted by YellowLabLover
In my opinion greyhound racing is extremely digusting. The treatment of greyhounds after retirement is beyond inhumane. I saw a documentary where undercover agents when into greyhound retirement homes to discover greyhounds in cages literally starving to death. When the females have babies they were buried alive. The agents unearthed about 35 puppies ranging from newborn to a couple months old in a mass grave. The dogs were never fed, never watered, never exercised- they just wasted away in a cage until they died. The dogs were covered in feces and were burned from the urine, they were also raging with parasites. Just about every single retirement facility for greyhounds is like that, according to the documentary. It was on our local news last year, they did a special on it for some reason.
Utterly disgusting. I cried my eyes out watching that video footage.
I think it is very inhumane. About 4.5-5 years ago I moved to Florida, I was mostly homeless (lived in my van) could not find a job for the life except at a greyhound racing track. I only lasted 4 days, I just could not handle it anymore. I worked with the dogs, gettting them ready for their race. This was the one I worked at not sure how the other ones are cared for but here is my story:
The dogs are housed in small homeade chicken wire/wood crates, stacked on top of one another, they can not even stand fully in them (granted some have homes not sure what the conditions are there, but some practically live at the track). They are NOT anxious at all to come out of the crate & when they see their vest most cower & look so pittiful (nothing at all like how a sled dog gets excited when they see their harness). Then we take them out to a sand yard about 10 feet by 10 feet to potty in (this is where all the dogs go potty, ussually about 5-12 in the area trying to potty at the same time while their *handler* was with them holding the lesh). Many of the other handlers would whip them with leashes just for the he** of it, they would almost litterally drag them around as most greyhounds there just did not want to race. Some dogs would be limping but were still forced to race. There was this one cute brindle male that was my favorite, I let him out to potty on my first day there, his urine was pure blood! I spoke to the vet right away, he said "don't worry about that, he's been peeing pure blood for over 2 years now" exact words!! There was another there that had an eye infection, I went to the vet again right away he said "oh yeah, he was born like that, we keep him well fit & built & just clean up his eyes before any betters see him, they always think he's gonna be a winner, but he can't see well, so he makes us lots of money, we hide him for a little while, change his name so no one catches on" Now this dog was 2 & it was puss coming from his eye, born like that!! Maybe but duh its not a non treatable disease, some antibiotics at least should of cleared it up. Many dogs had scabs, itchy dry skin, dirty ears possibly mites. Fleas, oh my it was terrible. They never treated any dogs there they just cover up the problems. Before they race dogs with dull coats you would have to spraythem with who knows what it was, an unlabeled bottle filled with some greasy stuff you sprayed on the coats to make them shiny. It smelled horrible. And every dog there always had some kind of conconction in their food, weather it was powder, liquid or pills. Everything was unabeled so who knows what the heck it was.
The list goes on & on, this disgusted me so bad & it still bothers me. I really do hope & pray that they have cleaned up their act since then.
I kept on him (the vet), the management & other supervisiors the whole time I was there about all the conditions that were going on & no one was willing to even budge one bit, not even any sympothy in their soul or voice.
And the AKC office was right in the track :eek: :eek: I couldn't believe they would treat the dogs like this especially since the akc is right there.
Oh yeah & I forgot to add how the owner of the dogs treated them. 99% of the owners would drag, whip, hit, yell at their dogs if they lost (about 60-70% of the owners would be their for the race, at least that I encountered for the 4 days). You could just see many of the dogs just did not have any soul in them, just empty, it was the saddest thing I ever encountered.
Although there was this one owner!!!! I loved him, an old chubby man, grey with a full beard, never did catch his name, but he owned this one dog, a white w/ tan spots greyhound. It was his only dog, he would live at home with his owner, come to the track, the guy would not bring his dog anywhere near the other dogs, he would not use the tracks vet etc.. etc.. but the dog would ride in his vehicle, right in the front seat. He would get treats all the time, the owner would praise him & talkk to him in a baby voice even if he lost the race. You could see in this ONE dog that he loved his owner, his owner loved him & he loved to race!
OMG.. those sounds terrble stories.. well I don't like those greyhound races...I've seen bit of documental film about those races and I saw that almosty all day they live in small cages, possibly they get out just for race.. it was awful..
OMG!!! i had no idea! that's terrible.:(
the reason i asked was because my pastor has a retired greyhound. and she is very sweet.he loves her to death. i guess she's one of the happy endings then.:)
Most racing greyhounds are super sweet, even while they are racing & being abused, I think it is half because of that they are just too scared and half because they know they have to be sweet to get someone to love them. Throughout the 4 days I worked there, even the sickest most abused dog was very very nice, no growls or bites.
My sister and brother-in-law adopted a former racing greyhound from a rescue organization. He is a precious dog, but he was in rough shape when he came to live with them. Now, he is a pampered house pet.
I'm not sure about actual racing ( I don't know much about it so I can't base an opinion on it) but I hate the fact that there's many Greyhounds in our local Humane Society which are only ranging 2-4 years old and all retired racers.
They're such gentle sweethearts and so elegant looking, I don't understand how someone could throw them away like that... and that basically goes for all shelter pups. :(
i don't think the actual "race" is nad but the way they are treated is terrible! :(
Did you know that the grayhounds that dont get adopted after they retire go to the slaughter houses!!!! :(