The Dark World of Greyhound Racing

An investigation by Four Corners, an Australian current affairs program, has uncovered a disgusting and inhumane method of getting an edge with their dogs. Animals, including rabbits, possums and piglets have been used as live baits for the dogs to chase and maul.

These revelations have put the whole greyhound racing industry into a spin, and there are talks of shutting down the sport while investigations are carried out.

There are far reaching implications if this happens, much like what happened when the live export of cattle was banned for a period of time, if the dogs can't race, they can't make money so they'll be destroyed, thousands of greyhounds will be needlessly destroyed and thousands of innocent animals mauled because of greed and lack of morals

www.abc.net.au...

a reply to: Chadwickus
That's sad..

Im surprised this thread hasnt garnered more attention. Maybe wouldve done better in the pets forum.

My apologies, I keep reading that this is a conspiracy site so I stupidly thought a real conspiracy would be interesting here.

I guess stupid hyperbole about Obama giving jobs to jihadists and tweeting them to death is far more interesting..

No apologies needed. I think its an interesting (and sad) thread. I like it. You brought to light some disturbing info that needs to be addressed.

I think you may have misunderstood me.

Or..am I misunderstanding you?

Oh well...peace

Well, it's not nice to the animals, but in Australia, aren't pigs and rabbits highly destructive invasive species?

And in the US, the dogs are supposed to be trained to course lures.

a reply to: Tucket

I actually replied the same time as you and wasn't directly replying to you despite looking that way.

I agree, it's a disturbing practice that needs to be shared.

a reply to: ketsuko

Rabbits yes, pigs, not so much, but wild pigs are a pest.

That doesn't mean it's ok to strap them up and use them as a live lure for the dogs, doing that has been criminalised for a long time now.

It's plain barbaric.

a reply to: Chadwickus

Dog,Horse racing....Bull fighting are all forms of animal cruelty in my book. Look at the type of people that enjoy this crap and see some very simple truths.




Sad people will little to no empathy. Horse and dogs are used for everything they are worth day after day. The people betting on this crap are lower than pond scum in my book. What a pathetic hobby/sport this is. It amazes me that more people do not stand up against this crap. Oh but I did not know the dark side........Learn some common sense.

I considered putting up the video showing what happens. I saw it the other day and was deeply sickened.
Basically it boils down to Bogan/RedNeck version of an Aussie, using live animals tied up on sticks. Like dragging the alive animals around for the dogs to chase down and eventually kill, but not after a few good goes and playing around. Imagine like you do with a cat and a ball of string.
These pricks do that with live animals. I honestly thought we'd gone back in time to the forties! Bloody sickening and I hope they all see jail time.

(edit, found a censored version, watch at your own discretion though - it is still quite upsetting)

Its getting some attention in Australia. Sadly I think its much more widespread than you'd expect.

While its horrible and I don't agree with it, I don't think enough Australians will really care and will continue going to the track to put bets on.

originally posted by: Chadwickus
An investigation by Four Corners, an Australian current affairs program, has uncovered a disgusting and inhumane method of getting an edge with their dogs. Animals, including rabbits, possums and piglets have been used as live baits for the dogs to chase and maul.

These revelations have put the whole greyhound racing industry into a spin, and there are talks of shutting down the sport while investigations are carried out.

There are far reaching implications if this happens, much like what happened when the live export of cattle was banned for a period of time, if the dogs can't race, they can't make money so they'll be destroyed, thousands of greyhounds will be needlessly destroyed and thousands of innocent animals mauled because of greed and lack of morals

www.abc.net.au...

When we were younger, our grandfather took us on a "backstage" tour, if you will, of Monmouth Park in Oceanport, NJ. Now, as a kid, it was fascinating to see where the horses were stored before a race, the feed they used, meet the jockeys, etc... They even had the greyhound races there, which again, as a kid was neat to see. You have to understand, I was about 9 at the time and this was a very new experience for me. I am, and always have been a very voracious reader. So of course, I wanted to learn more. Man I so wish I kept the blinders on. The more I learned, the sicker I felt. I never went back. I had a friend drag me to the Daytona Beach to see horses race. I thought we were going to go to the beach, not to see horses race, otherwise I would have stayed at home. It's been 20 years and I don't see a track listed, so they must have torn it down between then and now. Sadly they're in the process of building another.




(Edit, don't be surprised if Mods move this to Sports. When I posted about a Jockey shocking his horse in Pets, they moved it over to sports. Just giving you a heads up so you won't be shocked if it happens.)

a reply to: Agit8dChop

Sadly you might be right, look at how many horses get killed each year with horse jumps racing - it's a shocking industry full of scoundrels and scumbags desperate to gamble and fix races no matter the animal cost.

I remember a greyhound scandal when I was a kid that involved pet kidnapping.
I suspect that greyhound racing has an intergrally dark aspect, otherwise the people above wouldn't have risked doing what they did.

Ugh. When is Australia going to look at "punters" with anything other than a fond twinkle in our collective eyes. They are implicit in this scandal too.
Fine, you can't ban gambling, but as far as hobbies go it can get pretty damned destructive and take people to some dark places.

This awful practice has been around a long time. They sometime use unwanted cats I have heard. One of our cats which we adopted last year was found with his claws ripped out and his front teeth pulled out. Poor little bloke. They do this so they cannot defend themselves. He must have got away somehow and was found living as a feral cat near a netball court not far from the greyhound track. I will try and post a photo of him later.

I watched the program the other night and was horrified. This will rip the guts out of the industry when its the big players that have been caught.

This has been going on since the inception of greyhound racing. My grandfather used to breed and race greyhounds "back in the day" and was mortified by the methods some trainers used to train their dogs. It doesn't stop at just rabbits, piglets and possums, he told me stories of trainers tying cats, birds, lambs and all sorts of other baby animals to the lures to get ripped apart by the dogs.

He ended up selling his dogs and getting out of the racing industry in disgust when his efforts to expose the methods were corrupted by the trainers and the industry itself. I am overjoyed this is finally coming to light and my hope is every single last one of those bastards ends up out on his ass or, hopefully, in jail.

Did you see the top trainer had over 4 million in prize money.

a reply to: bellagirl


Yeah unfortunately corruption pays.

a reply to: Kryties

I have always suspected that treatment of the dogs would be subpar, they're not seen as a living creature, more like a piece of equipment, much like how a lot of working dogs are seen.

But live lures? Complete news to me! Would never have even crossed my mind that they needed to do it...but they do, and on a ridiculously huge scale.

I know in the UK it used to be a common practice to catch a ferry to Northern Ireland and midway just chuck the unwanted dogs who were too old to race etc over the side as it was cheaper than paying for a vet to put them out of their misery but now theres more rescue charities around its died off now they can palm them off for no cost at all