UK greyhounds seen at risk as racing industry declines

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From www.trust.org

UK greyhounds seen at risk as racing industry declines

Wed, 6 Mar 2013 17:01 GMT Source: reuters // Reuters

By Chris Helgren

HEBDEN BRIDGE, England, March 6 (Reuters) - A bundle of skin and bones,
Alice did not seem to be a lucky greyhound at first glance.

Alice was bred to race but was not fast enough. She was used for hare
coursing but failed at that too.

So Alice was discarded outside the English city of Doncaster, abandoned like
many unsuccessful greyhounds in Britain's multi-million dollar industry that
is in decline as the popularity of watching dogs race around a track wanes.

She would probably have died of starvation or been hit by a car had it not
been for a volunteer who picked up the shivering dog from the streets and
took her to a sanctuary in 2011.

"She weighed 14 kg (30 lb) - half (the usual) body weight, absolutely
flea-ridden," said Debra Rothery, who runs the facility. "It's absolutely
appalling."

The treatment of racing greyhounds in Britain, a country where many pets are
pampered and are cared for like children, highlights a darker side of the
highly competitive business that dates back about 90 years and is often
accused of cruelty.

Dog racing was once highly popular with 80 licensed greyhound tracks in
Britain governed by the self-regulating Greyhound Board of Great Britain
(GBGB) but this has fallen to about 26 although there are some unregulated
racetracks too.

Attendance has slumped. In 1947, 60,000 spectators were recorded at the
Derby at White City, one of 21 tracks operating in London. In 2011 the Derby
was held at Wimbledon Stadium - now the only dog track left in London - and
attendance was 2,423.

Figures from the Gambling Commission show that off-course betting fell to
1.3 billion pounds ($1.96 billion) in the year to March 2012, down 15
percent from 2008, while on-course betting dropped 21 percent to 29.8
million pounds ($45 million).

Many blame the fall in attendance and betting on virtual greyhound racing, a
computer-generated betting event offered by bookmakers, which is not helping
the GBGB's bid to revive the industry with a new administrative body and
welfare policy.

NO RECORDS

Rothery, who manages the Tia Greyhound and Lurcher Rescue kennels, said more
dogs than ever seem to be winding up on the streets despite efforts at
reform in the industry.

"I started 15 years ago and it's worse (now). I have just short of 100 dogs
here at the minute and if I re-homed all these dogs here today, I could fill
again tomorrow," she said.

She blames a system of industry self-government and wants the GBGB to open
its records so the whereabouts and ownership of dogs leaving the racing
industry can be traacked.

The British government commissioned an inquiry into the industry in 2007
after revelations that greyhounds were being killed and dumped in a mass
grave in Seaham, northern England.

The investigator, Bernard Donoughue, a Labour member of parliament's upper
house, found that an estimated 35,000 dogs were bred annually for racing but
only 8,000 a year made the grade and those who did only raced until about
the age of four.

His report, and figures from the All Parliamentary Group on Animal Welfare
(APGAW), found that up to half the dogs that retired after racing
disappeared from records.

Clarissa Baldwin, chief executive of Dogs Trust, Britain's largest canine
charity, said microchipping was vital for all dogs, to know where they were
bred and how they were dispersed, and urged transparency with greyhound
records.

"It would be possible to bring about prosecutions of owners who don't look
after their dogs properly," she said.

The GBGB says it has its own system in place to track the animals and to
report strays and maintains that greyhounds are not being abandoned in large
numbers.

The industry-funded Retired Greyhound Trust says its 72 adoption branches
find homes for roughly half the dogs that retire every year while many
registered greyhounds are retained as pets by their trainers or re-homed by
other organisations.

Greyhound welfare campaigners were not so sure.

"If you breed the numbers of dogs they do ... if you ask how many dogs are
racing each year, you can't hope to find homes for those dogs every year,"
said actress Annette Crosbie, patron of the Wimbledon Greyhound Welfare, an
independent retirement kennel.

Meanwhile Alice now seems to be one of the lucky ones, having found a home
with Wendy and Gary Jones in the former mining town of Barnsley, south
Yorkshire, where she enjoys daily walks on the rolling, green hills nearby.

"The dogs that actually race and get discarded or thrown out onto the
streets are actually the lucky ones," says Tia rescue centre's Rothery.
"They stand a better chance of actually getting into a place like this and
getting re-homed."