Yes, there are worse things in the world than greyhound racing...

But greyhounds are not in the food chain, they’re not for clothing - they're dogs, just like your average pet Labrador – and they make very good pets.  

The issue is that they're bred for 'sport'. They're bred to race round a tight track for human entertainment. Its not necessary to use them in this way - they make people rich.

And where there is money there is mass-exploitation.

Its not just what they're doing with the dogs once they're finished racing. Its also what is happening to them while they are racing.

Or before.

Greyhounds are massively over bred. Thousands of greyhound pups are bred each year. From that there are a percentage which are culled early on because they're runts of the litter.

Then of course, you have the racing greyhounds. Each and every time a greyhound races round a track, its risking injury and death. The very design of the race track is to try to prevent the dog from safely making it round - the bends are tight to slow the dog down so what you find is dogs falling, bumping each other etc.

This leads to injuries - serious ones because at the sheer speed these dogs are going, the slightest bump can kill or seriously injure. Then you have the dogs running with injuries. Sometimes this is masked because they pump the dogs full of painkillers then put it on track. This just means the dog doesn't feel itself damaging itself further.

Then of course you have the 'retiring' greyhounds. In the UK we put to sleep 10,000 dogs a year who don't have a home. Add the greyhound 'disposal' problem to this and you could significantly reduce the other dogs chances of survival. That is if there weren't so many greyhounds, more non-greyhound dogs would have a better chance of survival.

Its impossible to have a greyhound racing industry without producing the massive numbers of dogs - and that means culling the numbers that are culled. There won't ever be enough homes for every greyhound that retires therefore greyhounds will continue dying as long as this barbaric practice goes on.

The only way to stop this is to ban greyhound racing.