From: ellie@ora.com (Ellie Cutler)
Newsgroups: rec.pets.dogs
Subject: Greyhound tracks
Date: 11 Nov 92 20:55:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: ora.BxKKsn.1A5
Organization: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.

In article <1992Nov10.201940.25720@newshost.lanl.gov> crs@beta.lanl.gov (Charlie Sorsby) writes:
>OK, That's two posts that consider dog racing to be disgusting or
>words to that effect.  I'm unfamiliar with the sport.  Educate me.
>What is disgusting or undesirable about it?  Are the dogs mistreated?
>Let's have some specifics from those of you who are saying that
>there's something wrong with dog racing.  Tell those of us who
>don't know specifically what it is.  

Well Charlie, and others who have wondered what might be wrong with
racing, here are some excerpts from the articles in the Boston Globe's
stellar series on greyhound racing "Running for their Lives."  I do not
have the Sunday paper with me, which talked more about the number of
greyhounds put down every year, but I believe it is in the
20,000-50,000 range.  Adoption programs are wonderful, but don't make
much of a dent in the total number of dogs killed, and the tracks tend
to use the adoption programs as PR smoke screens to give the public the
false notion that everything is happy ending.

The dogs are supposedly humanely euthanized.  Many may be, but my
sister-in-law grew up in Revere (home of the Wonderland track), where
stories of negligence and abuse are common knowledge, including finding
garbage bags full of dead greyhounds tossed out down by the highways
there.   When it comes to animals and racing, the dollar always comes
first.

<following reprinted without permission>

=======================================================================

Cases of Abuse Hurt Sport
-------------------------

Peers paint them as characters to be pitied, not punished.  When John
Duncan disciplines an aroused greyhound by wiring his penis, it is
described as the merely the act of an old, cantankerous man. 

Duncan's woes began Jan. 15 this year when two 18-month-old male
greyhounds were brought from his kennel to the MSPCA shelter in
Brockton to be put to sleep. A worker at the shelter noticed that both
dogs had wires inserted through their sheaths.  Duncan defended his
actions on the basis that sexual arousal interferes with the dog's
training and that his method was a widely acceptable one. In a visit by
an MSPCA officer, Duncan demonstrated the method used - he placed the
dog on a counter, cradled it in his arm while laying the dog's penis
over a dirty/dusty large oatmeal box, and without sterilization,
punched a heavy gauge wire through the sheath and twisted it closed.

Duncan was reinstated by the racing commission a month later, in part
because he had theatened suicide on several occasions after his
dismissal.

When John Pimental delivers 12 emaciated greyhounds to a shelter, it is
said by his peers to be symptomatic of a man caught in hard economic
times. According to the Pittsfield, Mass. shelter director, the dogs
were a rack of bones, with two or three near death.  Pimental insists
the dogs were victims of the virus that had swept through New England.
"I did what I could. I would have brought them in sooner but for the
quarantine.  I did not neglect the dogs."  But weeks after the
quarantine had been lifted, Pimental surrendered four more emaciated
dogs to the Humane Society.  The examining vet found them covered with
fleas, blood, manure and cubicle ulcers.

Pimental is a horse trainer by trade. This was his first experience
with dogs.


Lynn Fire
---------
It has been 9 months since a blaze at a Lynn, MA kennel housing
racers for the Wonderland track killed 87 greyhounds.  There were no
smoke detectors, fire alarms, or sprinklers in the complex of old
wooden kennels.  The occupancy classification of the kennels is the
same as for a warehouse or storage building - there is no extra
consideration given to the life of the animals.


Troubles Dog Belmont, NH Track
------------------------------
...The cast of characters at the Belmont track include Doc Fillmore,
Lakes Region's 76-year-old veterinarian who trainers say sometimes
sleeps on the job and often takes two or more tries to find a dog's
vein.

In one especially disturbing incident earlier this year, someone taped
a dog's mouth shut for more than five hours to keep it from whining.
The dog, Coyote, then ran a race, shattered its foot and had to be put
down.  State racing officials blamed the incident on the trainer,
suspending him for a year and fining him $200. "I definitely was not
treated fairly...I got stiffed," said the 21-year-old trainer.

The incident also pointed up problems with Fillmore, the track vet.
A trainer who was holding Coyote as Fillmore put him down says" It took
him about five minutes to get the needle ready, then it seemed like it
took forever for him to find the vein. He didn't even have half the
needle in when Coyote jerked and the needle came out.

Another track worker recalled bringing Fillmore a dog with a scraped
front leg. "Well, he looked at the back legs, under the tail and around
the privates.  I looked at hm and said, 'Doc, it's his front leg, can't
you see it? He looked at the front leg, but the wrong leg.  I had to
show him."

In New Hampshire, track vets are hired and paid by the state Pari-Mutual
Commission.  One trainer tried to bring in his own vet, but the state
said no.

Dr. Scott Robinson, a vet who works down the road from the track, had
30 or so greyhounds brought to him earlier this year to be euthanized.
He dispensed the fatal injections in his back parking lot rather than
his clinic "because they were sick, contaminated animals.



Epidemic Hits Belmont
--------------------- 
There is also controversy about Lakes Region's handling of the epidemic
that struck New England dog tracks this summer, killing dozens and
sickening thousands.  While other tracks were publicly acknowledging
they had the disease, Lakes Region remained mum. 

That might have been because veterinarian Fillmore was saying it wasn't
a major outbreak. It "was nothing but an upper respiratory thing. They
all ate well and acted well, but it was debilitating, that's all," the
vet said in a recent interview, months after state officials concluded
that Lakes Region was hit by the same epidemic as other tracks.


October Massacre
----------------

What happened to the 600 dogs at Lakes Region when the track closed in
October?  In past years, several hundred were killed in a ritual dubbed
the October Massacre - this is common at the tracks in cold weather
states, which shut down for the winter.  Most were euthanized by
licensed vets, but some, according to long-standing rumors, were shot.


Concern Follows Dogs To Brazil
------------------------------

What's happening in Brazil is a nightmare to US and Brazilian animal
rights activists.  They worry that exporting racing to a part of the
world with a sorry record of animal care could lead to the abuse of
dogs and require thousands of greyhounds to be put down when their
racing days are over, much as they are in the US and other First World
nations.

Even more controversial is the fact that the first dogs shipped to
Brazil came from second-rung US tracks: Green Mountain in Vermont,
Seabrook in New Hampshire and Ebro in Florida.  The venture's sponsors
say the dogs were slated to be killed and now have a second chance;
critics say the greyhounds are so slow that most of their offspring
won't make it even on Brazilian tracks.

"In Latin America, they have no animal protection," charged Roger
Caras, president of the ASPCA.  "I'd rather be dead than an animal in
any Latin country."  194 dogs awaiting shipment to Venezuela nearly
starved to death last winter in Florida.

At the Caliente track in Tijuana, Mexico, one of trainer Greg Kleine's
dogs was beaten to death, and when he started asking questions, two
more were poisoned.  Kennel facilities are so bad, said Kleine, that
they became infested with "Alabama rot," from which seven of his dogs
apparently died.

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END OF CLIPS FROM GLOBE ARTICLES
-- 
        Ellie Cutler

        ellie@ora.com               
        uunet!ora!ellie