Champion greyhound tests positive for cocaine

Poor animal.

The really hilarious part is now that he's banned and he's not making them money anymore he'll probably be shipped off to China and ran to death or boiled and skinned alive then eaten!

Or maybe if he's lucky he'll just disappear here in Ireland, like thousands of other greyhounds every year. And he might even turn up again, at the bottom of a river, with his ears burned off with acid so his tattoo can't be found. That's hilarious too.

Another really funny part of this whole business with greyhounds.. you'll like this now lads, it's just so funny.. The industry is dying on its arse because it's such a total disgrace but our government keeps throwing millions at it every year! 16 million this year! While we're crying out for more important things like better mental health services and hospital beds.

Let's all run over to thread there on suicide, where they're talking about having no access to mental health services out of hours and on weekends and tell them about the millions being been flushed down the jacks on an evil and sick industry and I'm sure they can laugh along with us too.

Ha fu.cking ha.

GoneHome wrote: »

The quote above is the bit I can't agree with, I was recently at a night in Cork dog track, a Friday night, 36 of us went there as part of an engagement party, we had the best night ever, betting on the greyhounds etc, and from what I could see all the dogs were treated very well being collected straight away after each race by the owner/trainer and given water etc, I really don't see what the problem is, the place was packed the same night and everyone enjoying themselves

Well I wasn't just making that up. It's just fact. Attendance figures halved between 2007 and 2015. From around 1.2m to around 600,000.

Because of that they have less prize money. I believe it's dropped by about 31m. Thats led to less breeders and less trainers.

They have rising staff costs. Just over 7m in 2011 and over 8m in 2014. Why their staff costs are growing while the industry is declining I don't know.

They have a rising debt burden and plummeting attendance. Im not sure of the exact figure. I know they had a debt of over 20m at one stage recently. Harold's cross was sold off because of their debt burden.

It's not just Ireland either. 40 out of 50 US states have banned it and the other 10 don't have tracks. Argentina has banned it. It's on its knees in Australia as well.

As for your remark about from what you could see the dogs were being treated well. I dont really know what relevance that statement has tbh. They're hardly going to bring the loser out at the end of a race and flog him for the audience to watch! The cruelty of the industry is a badly kept secret. But a secret nonetheless.

The reason attendance has dropped and the industry is failing is simple.. the public are turning on it. Increased sharing of info worldwide is bringing it down. People don't want to support what is an inherently cruel institution. It doesn't have the public backing to make a proper comeback.

Doping is widespread, this is only one story of many. Ireland doesn't or didn't have proper labs for proper testing so old stats here aren't even realistic. Several cases have been taken over the years in Britain, against Irish trainers and owners for doping. This is because it's properly tested for there. In fact the Greyhound board in Britain warned it's members about taking Irish dogs as steroid use in them is 'endemic'. (These trainers and owners are still high profile members here in Ireland)

In Britain and Australia and Ireland itself, Irish owners and trainers have been filmed blooding their dogs. In 2014 an Irish Greyhound handler was filmed in Australia taking part in the strapping of a tiny live piglet to a lure and then it was subsequently torn to shreds by the dogs. That's just one example, there's many. Blooding is rampant here. That particularly handler is back in Ireland, working in the industry also. Blooding uses cats, kittens, rabbits etc.

The Greyhound industry also covers hare coursing so when you're betting on the dogs you're also funding a practice where tiny creatures are taken from their natural habitat and forced to run in blind panic from pre blooded dogs who ultimately maul them to death, crush them to death or they're caught and released to die of their injuries at a later stage.

A Greyhounds natural lifespan is 14 years. In Greyhound racing it's 3 or 4. That's for the ones that aren't killed as pups. And how those lives end is often heinously cruel.