Live baiting in Greyhound racing

[Aractus]

[SteelCurtain]

In America, dog tracks are getting shut down left and right for inhumane treatment of the dogs. They usually get turned into sports books. My roommate's Greyhound, JB (Jellybean) is a retired racer. The webbing on his feet is torn in two places, he has arthritis (he's only 6), and he has a detached cornea from a dirt clod hitting him. I toured the kennels at Seminola racetrack in Casselberry, FL and was appalled to see the conditions there. I guess each track has it's own conditions, but overall, I am against racing animals at all. Especially when money is at stake. People have a tendency to do terrible things to animals to make the big payday.

[Chad32]

Tormenting prey animals just so the dogs will run faster! Yay! Are these the same kind of people that are ok with dog fighting?

[Minimalist]

Well there's no question that aside from one allegation against one operator for improperly disposing of unwanted dogs that the greyhounds themselves are treated humanly.

I shared a cup of coffee with the President of the Greyhound Rescue here in Arizona one time and she told something of a different story. The living conditions may not be so bad at the tracks but the breeding of those dogs has resulted in bones, particularly back leg bones, which are too fragile for the pounding of the race. Many suffer leg fractures and before the Rescue was formed they were routinely euthanized. They have now worked a deal with the track that any dog with a broken leg is turned over to the Rescue for evaluation by an orthopedic vet with whom they have an arrangement. Those that can be saved are and then they re-home them as pets. But their running days are over. Fortunately, they are pretty mellow dogs.

[JuliaL]

I am against suffering, specifically, my suffering. I've found my suffering to be caused by many and various events including the suffering of others.
But I've never been a rabbit (once described to me by my tech as Mother Nature's Big Mac because everything eats them.)
I don't know if they accept their fates with calm and grace.
I prefer to assume that a rabbit has some sense of self and a drive towards self preservation. Similarly, that injury would produce pain and suffering. Their outward behaviors; struggling when caught, crying out when injured support this.
I am against suffering.
I have a substantially different opinion about the classic demonstration of cruelty evidenced by a small boy pulling the wings off of a fly. I do not believe the fly is sufficiently complexly constructed to have a sense of self, self preservation and pain. So to me, a small boy pulling the wings off of a fly is an indication that he may be a psychopathic future danger but not cruelty to the fly. Or he may simply not have yet developed the empathy necessary to recognize suffering in others. I'd put this greyhound live baiting in the same categories: could be psychopathic, could be empathically stunted.
There has been a long and active debate over what conditions warrant the suffering of animals: from bear baiting, dog/cock/bull fighting to medical research. Generally, I see attitudes of human exceptionalism providing the alleged moral basis for doing whatever we damn well feel like to anything not human. e.g. methodically breaking the backs of rats to see if stem cell transplants can induce regrowth of neural tissue. At least responsible research institutions have ethics committees to curb excesses. Still, I hope the white mice don't hold war crimes trials in the afterlife. I don't want to have to plead my case to Frankie and Benjy.

[Chad32]

Well there's no question that aside from one allegation against one operator for improperly disposing of unwanted dogs that the greyhounds themselves are treated humanly.

I shared a cup of coffee with the President of the Greyhound Rescue here in Arizona one time and she told something of a different story. The living conditions may not be so bad at the tracks but the breeding of those dogs has resulted in bones, particularly back leg bones, which are too fragile for the pounding of the race. Many suffer leg fractures and before the Rescue was formed they were routinely euthanized. They have now worked a deal with the track that any dog with a broken leg is turned over to the Rescue for evaluation by an orthopedic vet with whom they have an arrangement. Those that can be saved are and then they re-home them as pets. But their running days are over. Fortunately, they are pretty mellow dogs.

Purebreeding and overworking will do that to an animal. I suppose softer ground would just make the dogs slower, so they don't try something to cushion the impact?

[Minimalist]

It's Arizona, Chad. The sun bakes the ground to something resembling concrete.

[SteelCurtain]

Purebreeding and overworking will do that to an animal. I suppose softer ground would just make the dogs slower, so they don't try something to cushion the impact?

I believe Aperture Laboratories has just the thing!

[Chad32]

It's Arizona, Chad. The sun bakes the ground to something resembling concrete.

I don't really know what desert heat does to the ground, but it's certainly not good. At least Human track runners have shoes. The dogs don't.

[Aractus]

In America, dog tracks are getting shut down left and right for inhumane treatment of the dogs. They usually get turned into sports books. My roommate's Greyhound, JB (Jellybean) is a retired racer. The webbing on his feet is torn in two places, he has arthritis (he's only 6), and he has a detached cornea from a dirt clod hitting him. I toured the kennels at Seminola racetrack in Casselberry, FL and was appalled to see the conditions there. I guess each track has it's own conditions, but overall, I am against racing animals at all. Especially when money is at stake. People have a tendency to do terrible things to animals to make the big payday.

That issue is separate to whether or not the dogs are treated humanly. That's an issue of whether the sport may be bad for the dog's health and long-term well-being. And that may be true, but you can have a 2 year old dog and have it put down by the vet and there's nothing about that itself which is inhumane, nor would it be inhumane to be putting down ex-racing dogs that suffer from pain, anxiety, etc. To my knowledge that's not the norm, but as I said it wouldn't be in any way cruel to do so.

I only mentioned it because there was one allegation made in the report that one operator was in fact shooting dogs himself on-site and burying them himself - personally I don't think that's any more cruel then getting a vet to euthanase a dog for you, but it is against regulation to do so in the industry.