In the United States the kennels are indoor creates stacked two levels high, with the females kept on the upper level, and males on the lower level. While the space allocated to each dog varies between locations, they generally provide enough room for the dog to stand and turn around, but not much more. While living on the track these dogs will spend most of their time in these kennels.
In Ireland and the UK dogs are usually kept by a trainer.
In several European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland) greyhound racing is carried out by the owners of the dogs without financial interest. In these countries the dogs live are pets and therefore generally well treated.
Medical Care
In places that allow gambling on Greyhound racing the owners often treat the dogs as short-term investments. This often means that the care they receive is intended only to help them perform on the track, not for their long-term health. Greyhound adoption groups frequently report that the dogs from the tracks have tooth problems the cause of which is debated although it is likely related to either a low quality raw meat diet or damage to the gums from chewing on metal cage bars. The groups often also find that the dogs carry tick-born diseases from a lack of proper precautions.
Due to the dense living conditions in the kennels the dogs require regular vacination to prevent outbreaks of diseases like heart worm and kennel cough. After the dogs are no longer able to run owners often have ex-racing greyhounds killed since they do not want to go through the expense of finding the dogs homes (the ratio of dogs killed versus adopted is greatly debated). There is much debate between th e racing industry and anti-racing activists about the quality of the dog's care making the exact details hard to determine.
Recently doping has also emerged as a problem in Greyhound racing, while the industry is actively working to preventing this behavior but testing the winning dogs some dogs are still affected negatively by the practice.
Several organizations, such as British Greyhounds Retired Database, Adopt-a-Greyhound and National Greyhound Adoption Program, try to ensure that the dogs are adopted. Some of these groups also advocate for better treatment of the dogs while at the track and/or and end to racing for profit.
In recent years, several state governments in the United States have passed legislation to improve the treatment of racing dogs in their jurisdiction.
In areas where greyhound racing does not involve gambling, the dogs are usually pets and generally therefore treated well.From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
