Overbreeding
What is the single worst thing about Greyhound racing? A short time spent at www.greyhoundmuses.com will probably provide you with several answers to that question. From the squalid, inhumane conditions that some Greyhounds are forced to endure throughout their curtailed lifetime on the track, to the way that their life is ended when they are no longer of any use to their uncaring owners, usually when they are just four or five years old.
To me one of the worst things however is the massive over breeding that goes on to produce the “high quality stock” needed for the racetracks each year. What kind of a phrase is that? High quality stock? But that is just the way these poor unfortunate dogs are seen by those whose only interest in them is as a money making machine. In order to produce the relatively few top racers required, many thousands are bred on terrible puppy farms and other intensive breeding locations. Probably 90 out of 100 of the little souls born will not be good enough to be a top class racer, and if you have perused other pages of this site you will already know what will happen to them. The purpose of this page is not to go over what is adequately covered elsewhere, but to point out the way in which beautiful, living beings are mass produced in great numbers to satisfy the selfish desires of a few greedy men.
How do they get away with it? Imagine the outcry if some other breed of dog was being exploited in this way. If thousands of Labradors or thousands of Poodles were produced every year just so that a few lucky ones could become a pampered pet for someone, and the rest were then disposed of in some vague way that no one really knew much about, they just somehow disappeared without too many questions being asked. Wouldn’t there be a great fuss raised about such goings on? Yet this is what is happening all the time with Greyhounds. Thousands bred to produce the few wanted for the tracks, and even those few are not destined to be pets as with other breeds, but to earn their meagre existence until they are no longer economical to keep alive and are subsequently discarded in favour of next years model.
If you care about Greyhounds, and I’m sure you do or you wouldn’t be reading this, then please write to your MP and ask him to stop subsidies for farmers for dog breeding. If a farm is not running economically the government sometimes offers subsidies to the farmer to use the land to breed Greyhounds. Please point out to your MP the cruelty inherent in this practice and ask that it be discontinued. Also, please tell all your friends about the over breeding of Greyhounds and ask them how they would like it if it was their favourite breed that was being exploited in this way. Most importantly of all, never go to a Greyhound race or bet on one at a betting shop, and please ask all your friends not to do so either. Please do something. However small a thing it is, it will be better than doing nothing.
