A dog's life, but it needn't be short and brutal

Perhaps it was her beauty that saved her. The little black greyhound bitch was too slow to win races, but she was a looker, and her life was spared. She was one of the lucky ones.

Up to 20,000 other greyhounds a year are put down because they are too slow or too old to race, and they can't all find homes.

In racing parlance, the black greyhound now known as Phoebe was just another "unnamed bitch". Her pedigree sounded impressive — she was by Royal Assassin from Lucky Fire — but she would bunny hop at the start of her runs and lose ground fast.

Her owner wanted to get rid of her — but not with a bullet, the usual fate of slow racing dogs.

He contacted Greyhound Safety Net (GSN), a Victorian-based group dedicated to the rescue and placement of former racing dogs as pets, and she was found a home in Melbourne.

Her owners say Phoebe is companionable, gentle and craves affection. She loves her food, but is so well-mannered she will let you take a meaty bone from her mouth. "The problem is over-breeding, and the racing authorities know it," GSN president Spiros Karamoutzos, whose family owns Phoebe, told The Sunday Age.

"Most greyhounds being bred are simply not fast enough. Even if they succeed, they lose speed fast. So the industry just keeps on trying to find new winners and it only costs $17 in Victoria to apply to breed a greyhound litter."

Mr Karamoutzos said GSN often gets calls from greyhound owners saying, "I can only keep him until Thursday, so it's up to you", or "I'm going to shoot this greyhound if you don't pick it up".

"This is the ugly side to our work," he said.

More than 20,000 greyhounds are born in Australia annually but the total greyhound population is just 35,000, which suggests that the average life expectancy is less than two years.

So what happens to greyhounds past use-by date?

There have been rumours of "killing fields" in country areas.

Animal welfare groups claim dogs not put down by a vet are shot, beaten to death or drowned. There have even been claims of dogs buried alive, with their ears cut off to prevent identification from the tattoo brands all registered greyhounds must have.

The welfare groups remain sceptical that DNA tests of samples taken from carcasses of what appeared to be six greyhounds piled on top of one another at Yendon, near Ballarat, last year did not prove to be canine.

A woman walking a bush track who made the gruesome discovery believed the dogs had had their ears cut off to prevent identification and were dumped into a makeshift grave.

Greyhound Racing Victoria investigated and later announced that DNA tests had concluded the samples were not canine.

GRV chairman Jan Wilson said the industry recognised the problem of over-breeding but denied the existence of killing fields.

Ms Wilson said a system had been introduced that tracked a dog from birth. Greyhounds not suitable for breeding or as pets were humanely destroyed.

Asked if there were unscrupulous owners and trainers not doing the right thing, she said: "We come down very heavily on such people, and we have very few cases." An industry discussion paper, "Animal welfare — responsible breeding", was released recently to find ways to tackle over-breeding. The paper outlined how the industry allowed owners and trainers to make their own choices on whether or not to breed a litter.

The industry says it has no plans to change this freedom of choice, but "there are some participants that started off with one greyhound and now find they have 10 or 20 dogs on their property, and almost by accident things have become very difficult to manage".

http://greyhoundsafetynet.org

http://grv.org.au

Reference: www.theage.com.au

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