In case you missed the title..
OzGreyhoundSales DOES NOT “support” greyhound adoption!
This might sound a little shocking to you at first. Let me explain…
“Support” in the context we are using it means to:
OzGreyhoundSales is 100% totally and willfully dedicated to promoting and advocating (very loudly) the safe passage of both retired racing greyhounds and also un-raced greyhounds into the loving and caring hands of people that wish to nurture and care for them via adoption and foster programs!
- The Regenus AdiCell arthritis treatment for animals that uses the animals own fat tissue to heal arthritic bones and joints.
- Laser therapy which stimulates healthy cell growth and healing.
- Trigger point therapies and massages
- A Grade premium quality foods which greyhound breeders and trainers spend thousands of dollars a year on, in fact the greyhound racing industry is well known for feeding BARF or other similar mixtures well before the health trend actually kicked off.
- Supplements such as fish oils, electrolytes and other minerals are used quite regularly on greyhounds whereas compared with the regular pet who may never see a vitamin in his entire life.
Education. Educating people from the one time owners right through to the back yard breeders and even families wanting a new pet. If we can educate more people that want to own a dog for the fun of it that they should be inclined to look after the dog after its racing career ends the chances are most people would either be unwilling to go ahead with their new venture or that they would take responsibility of the greyhound after it’s race career.
The same goes with one time or backyard breeders and especially for families on the hunt for a new family pet. I mean it’s still all too common to hear of people that have no idea they can easily and affordable adopt a retired racing greyhound with an excellent story behind them and a great temperament!
Finally, adoption. If we put more effort and time into re-homing greyhounds and finding suitable people and families to adopt them then we could potentially solve two problems at once.
Here is a scary fact seeing as we are talking about canine euthanasia.
We know that in Australia dogs are purchased and then abandoned on a regular basis. Many of those abandoned dogs are then euthanized. That number sits at a whopping 245,783 as per a PIAA (pet industry association paper from 2012).
However we also know that a very large number of the greyhounds that go into adoption programs and are then successfully re-homed stay that way because of the adoptions contracts that some volunteer organizations and adoption programs use as a pre-requisite prior to re-homing.
So would it be too much to ask if we where to discuss the relationship between new dog ownership and greyhound adoption?
To me the relationship is quite clear and strong.
When people want a new dog why can’t we offer them a greyhound?
There are about 450,000 pet dogs purchased each year (again as per PIAA), surely some of those new owners would be interested in a greyhound don’t you think? And with the adoption contracts and home placing that occurs I see no reason for the new owner to then abandon the dog if he or she could simply return it back to the adoption center.
Adoption hurdle overcome
For a long time retired racing greyhounds have under law been required to wear a muzzle in a public place. Although the laws are somewhat different for the states, they are all very similar. This law directly stood in the way and acted as a major hurdle to greyhound retirement programs.
In 2011 the NSW regulation was amended to allow for retired racing greyhounds and pet greyhounds who had successfully completed a re-training program to instead wear a green collar as opposed to the muzzle.
For more information on the Greenhounds initiative go here.
So to all those that are calling the industry folk a bunch of monsters, they need to sit back and have a good hard long think about exactly who is loving, caring, training, re-homing and batting for these animals. If they look closely they just might find its the very same people called monsters.
For more information on adopting a greyhound and or getting the message out please visit:
http://www.gapsa.org.au/ SA (also looks after NT)
http://www.greyhoundsaspets.com.au/ WA
http://www.thedogs.com.au/DPage.aspx?spid=130&id=58 NSW (also looks after ACT)
http://www.greyhoundpets.org.au/ QLD
The greyhound racing industry is not going away and it has no reason to, so let’s all try to work together to look after the dogs!
What a load of c rap!
If an industry overbreeds thousands of greyhounds then how do you expect to re-home them all? Hate it as much as you want but you id iots need rescue groups to unload your unwanted dogs and feel better about yourselves. Rescue groups run by the industry are inefficient and have high kill rates. How does this solve the problem?
I welcome your efforts to solve the high kill rate but it won’t get solved until you greedy bast ards stop racing the dogs. Race cars, go run yourselves around the track for all we care but leave the animals out of it. Because if you have animals and money in the equation then the animals always suffer. As an industry, you don’t take great care of your dogs and even though you THINK you love them, love does not hurt, exploit and kill so shame on you all.
Hey Ernie appreciate the fine words and all you have done to try and curb your offensive behavior as well as your childish use of the English language towards both ourselves and the readers of this blog. We have decided to allow your blog post to be shown so that people can see a real debate, a discussion hopefully.
Unfortunately I think one small part of the reason not all adoption efforts are successful is because of the distaste in breeders and owners mouths from having dealt with people of the same mindset as yourself. You really can’t go around calling people bastards, idiots and killers. Especially the very people you wish to influence.
The industry does not actually over breed i’m not sure where you are getting this information from.
Yes we do believe all retired racing greyhound’s can be re-homed. Its actually a very positive, optimistic and realistic belief and we are not sure why you are getting so upset about it as a person that seems so overwhelmingly concerned with the well being of greyhounds?
At the end of the day racing is part and parcel with both Australian culture and society but its also a global past time that is not going away, with all due respect you need to get over it and start working towards a realistic and achievable goal towards greyhound adoption. The more energy you spend on calling people names and trying to shut the industry down with pitiful efforts online the less energy you have to spread the word about real efforts that do work such as adoption programs run by GAP.
There are countless greyhound owners and breeders that actually own many retired greyhounds themselves so trying to make breeders out to be killers is just ignorant and its not going to get you anywhere.
The fact of the matter is that the industry itself both created GAP and funds it. GAP does an excellent job of moving greyhounds into homes which stay in homes and are loved and cared for. The reason the numbers are not accurate is because there are many well meaning non profits out there that do as much if not more than GAP in the way of re-homing dogs however because they are so under funded they have no way of documenting how many dogs they take in, how many they re-home, which of those greyhounds remain in the home and they cant monitor those greyhounds or provide further information.
You never fix a problem by squashing the medium it occurs within. Problems are part of society and we need to come up with smarter solutions. Lets say your computer crashes, do you pick it up and turf it through the window? You could, but your probably wouldn’t.
Greyhound racing and all the other industries that support it bring in a wealth of money for the nation, it employs thousands of people and so you just snap your fingers and shut the industry down. It doesn’t work that way.
Now this would be a very different story if greyhound racing was not as popular as it is. Take for instance what happened in Florida. The fact is that the sport became less and less popular, stopped bringing in state revenue and then all the extremist groups jumped up and down trying to ban it in Florida, then the bill came out and the rest is history.
What happened in Florida is perfectly fine because it was a natural decline. However what wasn’t natural was when some of the extremist groups began making up absolutely horrid stories that had no proof whatsoever of greyhounds being bound and gagged and then killed. It was really disgusting from the groups to make up such nonsense.
Now in Australia however we have a different state of affairs, our industry backs adoption fully so that the organism that is greyhound racing and sustain itself fully. Whats wrong with that?