AZ Dept of Racing Promotes Greyhound Breeding
According to the Arizona Department of Racing’s home page – the Department of Racing promotes and encourages the breeding of horses and greyhounds in the State.
Scroll down to “Department Description” and read that shocking paragraph.
There are at least 600 greyhounds that file through Tucson Dog Track every year – many never get to legitimate adoption groups. Many end up as coyote hunters which translates into death. Hundreds are hauled to god knows where and are presumed dead by the Arizona Department of Racing, the government organization that encourages their breeding. Some are euthanized for broken hocks and legs. And some are taken to local veterinarians to be euthanized; they are never accounted for. Some are given away unaltered to friends of handlers or free to track attendees and their fate is unknown yet they breed with other dogs, further increasing the unwanted pet population of Pima County, and that’s why there are so many greyhound mixes who usually end up at Pima Animal Control.
Common sense dictates that with the ongoing abuse and cruelty affecting greyhounds – the state of Arizona’s Racing Department would not “promote and encourage the breeding of greyhounds.”
Looking at the “Department Description”, a few other fallacies come to mind:
–The Department oversees and supervises…greyhound… - We beg to differ. There is next to none supervision at Tucson Dog Track; if there was then perhaps bad things wouldn’t happen to greyhounds at the Tucson track and/or leaving the track suspiciously to parts unknown.
–The Department…enforces laws and rules related to racing and wagering to protect industry participants and the public. The Department’s veterinarians and track stewards did nothing to protect a dog (on the night of August 31, 2007) who broke her hock but finished the race. Tucson Dog Track failed to follow the statute regulation that “every effort must be made to adopt out a dog.” An adoption rep was on her way to pick up the dog.
No, the Arizona Department of Racing failed to protect the industry’s participants – its dogs.
And whether or not the Arizona Department of Racing is going to penalize the perpetrators who failed to adopt out the dog rather than kill her – is yet to be seen.
Nevertheless — let the greyhound breeding continue…
Well apparently it promotes breeding of greyhounds but takes no responsibility of petting them out. In the Department of Racing 2007 annual report it states the following about greyhound racing: The Department provides grants to non-profit organizations to promote the adoption of retired racing greyhounds as domestic pets. This fund received 100% of all fees collected from licensing greyhound racing kennels, breeding farms and other operations where greyhounds are raised for racing purposes. In Fiscal Year 2007, the fund received $200.
2005 - 2 grants awarded for $3,143
2006 - 2 grants awarded for $1,534
2007 - 0 grants awarded for $0
So…what it comes down to is a bogus adoption program at the track and not helping functioning rescue groups in the community.