Talk:Greyhound racing

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[edit] Medical treatment

I felt that we needed to correct one sentence claiming "that Greyhound are generally medically badly treated in the USA". While this might have happend this is of course not the general case. Greyhound are an investment. An above average running racing greyhound is often worth over $10,000 Top greys can cost over $100,000. Every sane person will properly vaccinate and heathcare them. Not vaccinating the kenneled greyhound could risk the break out of a disease which would risk loosing the valuable greyhounds and which would risk that the races business would end on this track. As the track make millions on greyhound betting, and the dogs are needed to run the business, they have very strick health regulations. BTW Proper vaccinating and heathcare is regulated by law in the USA. Gunnarvb 18:31, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'll spend some time pulling together links about this later today. But I will state here that your economic assumption is wrong. The only economic reason to vaccinate the dogs is if the risk of lost income from the dogs is greater then the cost of vaccination, since the risked income the dog is far lower then the dog's actual monetary value that is only a part of the equation when calculated properly. You might provide proper care to a pup (or at least better care), but a 2 year old or 3 year old are going to have dropped in value significantly and no longer be worth the same level of care.
All dogs are vaccinated - there are regulations requiring this. Vaccinating costs pennies but having an single outbreak out kennel cough cost a track millions. Mind that every track has at least one vet belonging to this track.
Therefore warms and tick dieses are lower priorities since they are not likely to kill a dog while still racing and better care can be provided if the dog proves it worth as a breeder.
You are right flees are not really problem but worms are. Worms will reduces the racebility of a dog significantly. As the owner and trainers of a dog get the winning money of the dog they have a fincancial intrest to deworm their dogs. Deworming a dog costs 2 dollars a year. Even a low grade dog can usually win over 100 dollars a week.
The biggest heath risk of dogs does not come from not vaccionation but

from dopiong the dogs.

BTW: every track has to make doping tests. A doping test costs aroun 100 dollar per race.
Sure, but the risk in doping is the the gambling establishment first, therefore it's worth a great deal to prevent it, it could undermine the whole industry fundimentally, the health of the dogs is irrelenvent. If it really was a few bad owners there wouldn't be a problem worth talking about. --Ahc 21:06, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Yes vaccination is required in the US but I don't think it's regulated (implies someone actually sets verifiable standards for compliance); laws only help when properly enforced.
Its regulated by the NGA and AGTOA.
So it's self regulation not outside regulation? Anyway to see compliance reports that anyone knows about? --Ahc 21:06, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
If treatment is properly regulated I'd love to see information about it so I could learn how that process works. Furthermore, you failed to address the question about the dog's teeth, which (to my understanding) is more common.
Teeth problem are common but not mainly because of the diat but because sometimes dogs tend to bite and gnaw at fence of their kennel.
One last point, I'm not clear that this is a US only problem. While I don't know as much about treatment outside the US, what I've heard doesn't support the line of thought (again I'll look around for actual evidence later). Why the assumption that we're talking about US dogs since the original sentence talks about all dogs in gambling situations? I would think the economics would dictate similar treatment unless well enforced laws changed the economic balance.
Your text is USA centric. Outside the USA in Ireland or UK dogs are not kept at the track. In Ireland dogs are kept at their trainer. A trainer usually has 20-30 dogs which he trains and brings to the track to run.
The trainer lives from the winning money of the dogs. A trainer will do is very best to keep the dogs fit and healthy. A trainer will denie to train dogs which is unable to win. And on the European continent greyhound live is different (BETTER) again. In most countries the dog don't fall under the farming law as in UK and US so putting dogs down is illegal in all northern European countries.
Can we get a discription of those living conditions. I've now heard everything from trainers that keep the dogs outside 24/7 to living as pets in the UK (both of which seem implosible) I'd love to know that the average living conditions are when living with their trainer.


Risk of diseases increases with more dogs focused on one place. The US tracks focus a lot of dogs on one place, some track have around 800 dogs.


I do think it is important to give examples of what the short-term view of the dogs does to their care. Since you didn't remove the rest of the statement or mention it above I assume you agree that it's a fair evaluation of the situation in the covered areas. What examples would you suggest to help uninformed readers understand the implications of the remaining comments? --Ahc 19:31, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

- The worm and vaccination story is wrong! - True is that big crowds of animals increase the risk of a disease outbreak. - True is that people are focusing of the *race value* of a dog. A bad running dog which has has an injure is often put down. - True is that dogs which fails to win any race are not very profitable. They are put down are given to adoption. - True is that there people are doping the dogs. The tracks do test dogs to find doping results. - Doping is a big health risk. Dogs can die on too much or wrong doping. - A very big health risk is the neutering of the dogs done by the adoption organization.

 Many dogs die each year because of complicating related to this surgery.
The last of these is an issue for the adoption article (since it's not about living/treatment while racing). But I ask what you're suggesting? That the dog's shouldn't be neutered? I know that some die on the table (again the numbers are debated), but not nearly as many as used to, since NGPA developed better techniques for putting Greyhounds under. If you want to get into this, let's move it over the the adoption article where it belongs. --Ahc 21:06, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Okay, I promised links. Sorry if this is a little over board, but since we've gone over this now on articles and you've failed to produce evidence to the contrary here what I've pick up in the last 30 minutes or so of searching:

Watch out which link you read not everything on the web is a fact.

The kennel cough did costs the tracks billions. The reason for kennel cought is not missing vaccination.
The problem with kennel cought is that you need to vaccinate your dog from the beginning starting on the farm where there are born. The reason of the outbreaks was a partly misunderstanding of the times the vacciantion needs to take effect. The dogs were vaccinated but science was NOT sure about how long the vacciation hold. This means that 1999 the medicaments even had printed wrong times on them.


I'm sure that this is true.


Just a summary of claims no facts here.


that includes section of live at track (talks mostly about diet)] I know traines in UK/IE which brush the teath of all their dogs daily. This is more than most private people do.


The dogs are not badly treaded in Barcelona. I had my doubts before but I have verified myself and met with the president of the tracks. True is that the dogs at the farmer the hunting galgos are treated very badly. The article mixed up facts. There are tow types of kennels, bigger living kennels and kennel or boxes (1 sqm) were the dogs stay shortly before they run.


link written twice?

typo, my fault. I can track down the original if anyone cares, I think the general point is covered. --Ahc 21:06, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Those things might have happend - Yes, man can be a very ugly creature. Unfortunately those cruel things happen every where man hold animals on every farm and every slaugther house. I'm all up for improving these things.


Until someone provides evidence to contradict these claims, I'm inclined to think a sentence like the one removed belongs in an article about racing. If someone thinks there's a POV problem with the wording, I'm happy to work on that. --Ahc 03:47, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

AHC, thanks for looking for links and for spending so much time on writing a good article. I have the very same goal as you and all the anti greyhound racing activists. I want to improve the living conditions of the greyhounds. The problem is that some activists after over motivated and they acsitendtly or willing bending the truths a little bit and by over exagating things. They do it because they want to help the dogs and many spread the romours because they believe them and they don't know better. True is that very cruel things have happened in greyhound business, but these cruel things are not daily routine. There are people with higher moral standards in the industry which make regulations to improve the dogs live. The World Greyhound Federation and the local boards in the USA, IE, UK, AU try to improve the living contitions by enforcing vaccination, doping controlls and by forbitting putting down of healthy dogs.


A problem is that most of these story are simply not true. Most of them have a true origine but then people have misunderstood something or exagated the story and in the end the story in not true any more. Like the story with the kennel cought - Yes bit disease outbreak have happened but NOT because the dogs where not vaccinated but because people have misunderstood how long the vaccination holds. This was a scientifyc problem and has nothing to do with not caring. Recent kennel cought outbreaks have other reasons. There were new variations of kennel cought against some vaccination did not help. Just for your information: the American Track owners organizations finances dogs disease research every year with millions of dollars. The medicin that you can buy to vaccinate your pet dog against kennel cough was developed with the money of Greyhound racing industry.

Gunnarvb 08:37, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Okay, so you aggree that the economics force a short-term view of the dog's health, and that some of the statements are true, but cause is wrong or they are exgerated. I work with activities every day (not on these issues, but the behavior is the same), while they tend to exagerate at times, I also find that industries that are inherently exploitive (like animal racing) tend to go to great length to hide their level of exploitation. I have been working harder recently to keep my POV out of these articles, but I think removing the information instead of correcting it is the wrong approach. Since many of the stories are true in their core, let's not avoid them, let's get the summary right; I feel we should fix the sentence about consequences instead of removing it. There are a couple places that you seem to be wrong as well, for instance the rate or lymns diseses is high enough amoung US dogs that nearly all rescue groups treat nearly all dogs, unless you feel they can't find better ways to spend the money I suggest this means they feel that dogs are at high risk. Also the damage to the dog's teeth from a lack of cleaning verses chewing would be very different (dirty vs. damanged) while the groups see both, they are conviced that most of it is related to diet (which is also a known issue in other breeds when feed soft-food diets for long periods of time). Gunnarvb, I'm also bothered by the earilier suggestion that my word was not good enough on it's own (as it should not be in this context), but you don't provide outside evidence to support your arguements provided please hold yourself to same standard you so rightly hold me to. I am glad to have someone so willing to challenge my understanding of the issues, and knowledgable about non-US Greyhounds, hopefully we can find the right way to phrase all the parts of this article so they are balanced and accurate.
All that said I suggest the following compromise statements (I extracted much of this from the statments above):
...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 poor meat diet may also mean that Greyhounds are at risk for contracting Mad Cow disease (although this has not yet been seen). The groups often also state that the dogs carry tick-born diseases from a lack of proper precautions. Moreover the dense living conditions on the dogs increases their risk of contracting disease like worms and kennel cough, requiring regular treatment to prevent outbreaks. Additional owners often have ex-racing greyhounds killed after their career is over 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 the racing industry and anti-racing activists making the exact details hard for outsiders 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....
Since it's been several days and no one provided feed back, I went ahead and added a slightly edited version of the above. I tried to improved the POV, and removed the Mad Cow remark. --Ahc 23:56, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] US Centric issues with treatment

As to the US centric issue, I would like to drive that bias out as best we can. I tried to add the qualifier about gambling dogs (to deal with northern european non-professional racing), what else needs to change in your opinion. I'd be interested in knowing how UK and Irish dogs are kept by their trainer. Are they in kenels? outdoor runs? comfy beds? Since we want to make sure this article isn't about US racing only those details are important to include and are currently missing. --Ahc 21:06, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Spain

Something should be included about the often inhumane treatment of greyhounds, praticularly in spain, as described here: http://www.greyhound-rescue-scotland.org.uk/Greyhound_Facts/body_greyhound_facts.html

Please be carefull before you include wrong info in wikipedia!

The so called "FACT" is full of nonsense. Please go to Spain and verify it yourself.

True is: Spain treats animals very badly. Galgos (a local dog breed very similar to greyhound) are bred by local farmers are generally speaking treated VERY badly.

True is: Spain imports Greyhounds to race them at the track. These greyhounds are kept and handled very good for Spain standards. Their life is comparable with Greys in the USA. However for US kennels climate controlled kennels are standard which is not the case in Spain. Gunnarvb

The truth as I've heard it from people doing rescue in Spain is that they get BOTH Galgos and Greyhounds in terrible conditions into the rescue. Sure they owners deny it, but the people doing the rescue get Greyhounds in bad shape, there is a simple disconnect here, someone (or everyone) is lying, and I tend to find the people with pictures are lying less often then the people with the big check books on almost any issue (note: this theory doesn't apply to news agencies, nor is it absolute). --Ahc 21:06, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Myth and trues

Hi, I'm devoted to improve the Greyhound live. I'm working in adoption since some time.

Yes, the greyhound live is often hard. Some of the cruel stories we hear about Greyhound live are true. But many stories are not true and are over exaggerated. I think its importan for us not to spread rumors on Wikiepedia. The story about Spain for example is a mix of facts and lies.

I would love to help out with some fatcs, but I don't want to edit the Wikipedia page without discussing this first with the other editor here. What will be the best way to do this?

Please feel write to email me at gunnar@greyhound-data.com

Cheers Gunnarvb

Feel free to edit the page, as long as the goal is to improve the included information. We can always take out the chages. Of late the Greyhound articles have been pretty active, so mistakes by any of us don't sit around long. --Ahc 14:24, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This article is very biased in favor of the Greyhound Racing industry. It needs to bring out some info about this corrupt and cruel "industry". Rogerd 21:57, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

The rather disjointed discussion you'll find above, is the leftovers from an attempted to find a nuetural balance between those that want to make it highly biased one way or the other. That experience leads me to want to treat this issue with caution. Can I suggest you highlite specific changes you want to see made, and we'll can discuss them a little first? We certainly want to keep the bias minimized, but I'd rather avoid the contensious nature of the last discussion on the issue. --Ahc 13:57, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] US States

Why were the US States removed from this article? I wish to know. Greyhound racing is not available in all states of the US. -- AllyUnion (talk) 06:24, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure why they were removed. Feel free to put them back if you don't get a good answer. I would suggest that the list of locations could use a little more text around it. Probably it's own section seperate from the history section. The one arguement that will need to be addressed in replacing the list is make sure that it's not making the article any more US-centric then it already is. --Ahc 19:08, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
IHMO the list of 5 US-states was incomplete misleading information. There are ~ 500 greyhound tracks worldwide. <30 tracks are in the USA in 15 states. Australia and Ireland have both the same number of tracks as the USA - England even has more. If you start listing the US states then you should list the Australian states as well. Before we list the US states we should list all Countries which have Greyhound tracks. Gunnarvb
I'm not sure it's a bad idea to break out where in each country (at least those with limits) racing is currently active. This can provide clarity for some countries, for instance my memory of 15 US states number is that there are 15 where it COULD be legal to race them since their is horse racing already, but only 7 or 8 that have currently active tracks. I don't seem a problem extending this list to provide more complete information. --Ahc 14:24, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
IHMO 15 US states have tracks But as mentioned there are around 500 tracks worldwide.

The complete overview will will not fit on one page. The best place for looking these things up are decicated websites like [, www.agtoa.com] for the US or [, www.greyhound-data.com/stadia.htm] for the worldwide overview Gunnarvb

Thank you for the links I stand corrected. 47 tracks in 15 states (the industry pages seem to count 48, but they include one in Mexico for some reason).m For those that are intersted the list is: AZ, AL, FL, IA, CO, TX, WI, NH, RI, KS, MA, WV, AR, CT, OR.
To be clear I didn't mean to suggest the article should list all 48 US tracks, and therefore all 500 track worldwide. I meant to suggest the inclussion of this list of 15 states (we could format to keep is small if we needed). Along with similar lists (as they are sensible) for other countries. The reason this is relavent in the US is that there are only a few states beyond these 15 that could even ever add tracks without a change in federal law which currently prohibits adding animal gambling in states that don't already have a history of it. Of those remaining states some would require changes in state law to allow dog racing (maybe all, I don't know many details about this), so would be a big deal to add or remove a state. I don't know what kinds of limitations the industry faces in other countries. --Ahc 19:24, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Greyhound racing is legal in the whole Europe. But not all European Countries allow betting on Greys.

Technically it would be possible to aquire a betting license everywhere. But this is complecated as the Horse betting industry tries to prevent this in some countries. Gunnarvb 20:05, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

To me that seems like important information. But if I'm alone here, I'll shut up about it. --Ahc 15:27, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Not to be US-centric or anything, but I think it should be worth mentioning where Greyhound racing is active in the US. Speaking as a Californian, one does not hear about one going to the races to bet on a greyhound. -- AllyUnion (talk) 10:51, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There are only 7 states that specifically outlaw greyhound racing in the U.S. Any other state, you would just need a license from the state. If the state has no gambling regulatory agency to issue such a license, it would be difficult to open a track without some guidelines being drawn by the state.

[edit] Ireland UK clarification

Could someone please define trainer as used in this context

In Ireland and the UK dogs are usually kept at a trainer.

I think it would be helpful to create a more complete discription to match the US discription. --Ahc 14:24, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup?

I find myself wanting more of the history of dog racing, number of tracks, money wagered, attendance. Even something as simple as the length of a lap, which I understand is 480m (525yd), is omitted. Also, the links out are a bit general; if the article is "Greyhound Racing", shouldn't the link goto racing in U.S. or Oz, & N to the nation's "main page"? Trekphiler 03:44, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia. Your suggestions sound good to me. Go for it. :-) Elf | Talk 19:49, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Controversy

Should there not be a section regarding the controversial nature of the sport (ie. animal rights being against it due to claims of cruelty)? I will add one if people don't mind. I am personally against greyhound racing but try to be npov on wikipedia - so would mention both sides of the argument and try to keep it balanced. -localzuk 01:49, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

See "Myth and trues" section above. If you want to write a balanced addition, go ahead --rogerd 04:06, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm all for balanced coverage of the issue. Please go look over the past discussions, and keep in mind that there are two other greyhound articles. In the past we've moved some content about this issue to other articles, so some of the content you're thinking about may be elsewhere. If there are good arguements for bringing it back, then please do so. --Ahc 05:49, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Greyhound racing in South Afica

Greyhound racing in South Africa is illegal, yet South Africa is listed as a country where racing takes place.

This was tested in court during 2002. Here are links to the NSPCA's press releases concerning the issue:

I'm editing and removing South Africa (MoHaG (not registered yet) 198.54.202.226 22:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC) )

Thanks for the correction. --Ahc 14:12, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Links

I have done a brief link cull as there were a few which didn't deserve to be there (a duplicate link, a link to a missing page and a link to a forum with ~50 members). I still think the list is too long though as Wikipedia is not a collection of links/random information. Anyone else agree? -Localzuk (talk) 18:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

It appears that the whole list can be replaced with two or three dmoz.org entries that cover everything still listed and much more. I favor using dmoz when possible because if we can get rid of all non-reference direct links, there is no worry about playing favorites. --iMeowbot~Meow 21:43, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
All right, how about these two? Do they appear to cover all the relevant areas, or have I missed anything?
--iMeowbot~Meow 21:53, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] PaddyPower

I don't like to remove large blocks of text without comment, so I've move it here for now. To me this reads too much like an ad to include as is. It was placed in the "Also See" section, so I suspect it's anonymous editor doesn't know much about how Wikipedia works which increases my concern about why it was added. If it seems like important information to others, please feel free to edit and replace (in a better location). --Ahc 16:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

paddypower.com Irish Greyhound Derby
The paddypower.com Irish Greyhound Derby 2006 is the zenith of the Greyhound racing calendar in Ireland and the most prestigious prize in Greyhound racing. Because of it’s high value as a prize, it’s looked forward to and talked about all year round by greyhound trainers and punters alike.
It’s also the richest greyhound race In the world. Prizemoney this year has increased from €280,000 to €305,000 in total, with the winner getting a whopping €175,000 (up from €150,000 last year)
In total 144 of the world’s best greyhounds will compete for this huge purse over the space of a month. The Derby Takes place every Saturday during August with the final on 9th August.

[edit] Popularity

Hi, I just added some facts and figures to this, but would like to add my voice to the call for references to support the sentence about the sport's recent resurgence in popularity. I dispute this assertion; everything I've seen has indicated the opposite. See, for example, the HSUS link I put into that note. Unless real statistics can be put in here to support this sentence, I strongly believe it should be deleted./KatherineN KatherineN 21:35, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Given that this detail has been contests for several months, I'm going to remove it until someone can provide a reference. --Ahc 19:53, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Treatment of racing dogs

I'm kind of curious about the part under Medical Care where it states "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." I think someone needs to find a reference for this. When greyhounds are kept as pets, their owners are encouraged to feed them a raw meat diet (I've seen one in particular called BARF, or "Biologically Appropriate Raw Food"). This has many advantages, and dental health is one of them. A raw meat diet should improve this, not compromise it. I'm not sure how true this is, but I think someone ought to look into it. Erick295 01:13, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Much of this article still needs better references. I'll try to review the books around the house to provide sources on these claims. The problem in my experience has been that it's very hard to pin these problems down since the best research tends to come either from NGAP or Greyhound Protection League or the racing industry. Since NGAP and GPL want to vilify the racing industry, and the industry refuses to admit they could cause any trouble, making finding the truth hard. I've heard people suggest BARFing as a way of improving dental health, although I've usually heard them suggest adding foods other than meat to help clean teeth, not the meat itself. That said, we opted not to BARF our dog, so I’ve never look into the details carefully. --Ahc 13:37, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Track Listing

I've pulled the list of tracks in the UK since we've previously felt that such listings were too long to be helpful (see US States above). I've copied them here, so if others disaggree we can replace them easily without having to revert any changes made in the mean time. My sense is still that it makes sense to list localities that have racing, but not every track. If someone wanted to start a List of Greyhound Tracks article, I think that would be fine. --Ahc 14:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Colours

Hi. I'm not sure if this worthy of addition but it is my understanding that greyhound racing (in the UK at least) has set colours worn by the dogs depending on their position in the traps, rather than say the colour of the trainers (I think that's the horse-racing standard?). Any clarity on this? Also is it worth adding if there is a rule/reasoning behind it? ny156uk 19:22, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

If you can verify it, then it seems like information that should be included. Sounds like you need to find a source to confirm it first. --Ahc 00:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)