The Travesties of the Spanish Greyhounds

The following document was obtained from the newsgroups. You will find more of the same at the following newsgroup address; rec.pets.dogs.rescue

I have e-mailed Mr. Cohen, the gentleman who wrote the article and he has given his kind permission to allow us to reproduce this article on our web page.

This is a vivid portrayal of the life a greyhound must lead in a Spanish kennel. You can e-mail Mr. Cohen and leave your messages, thoughts and support at the following address: - cohen1@total.net

The following is brutally graphic
and reader discretion is strongly advised.

HORROR IN SPAIN:

BARBARIC KILLING OF GREYHOUND EXPOSED

How YOU can help...

Medina del Campo:
A four-page investigative report recently published in the Spanish magazine "Interviu", confirms earlier accounts of the barbaric custom of hanging greyhounds at the end of their usefulness, either as racers or as coursing and hunting dogs.

"The greyhound who runs well dies by hanging so he will have a quick death in thanks for his service," is a common refrain among greyhound owners.

Greyhounds who don't perform well, however, suffer an agonizingly slow death: they are hung by the neck from tree branches with their rear feet just touching the ground where they die a long and slow death from asphyxiation when their legs tire and give out from under them. Others are hung by one leg or simply tied to a tree and left to die slowly from hunger and thirst.

Interviu reported that hundreds of greyhounds were found hanging from trees in the pine groves near this small town 100 miles northwest of Madrid in the Castile and Leon region of the country but added this practice is also common in Zamora, Andalucia and Madrid. Nearly a dozen full-colour photographs by Interviu photojournalist Fernando Abizanda accompanied the text and provided uncompromisingly graphic evidence of this unspeakable inhumanity.

Several local greyhound owners overwhelmingly denied any responsibility for the atrocities and told Interviu that outsiders were to blame. An unidentified person was quoted as saying. "When we kill our greyhounds we bury the animals... we have dogs who are 14 years old and they are here."

The barbaric Spanish practice of killing unwanted greyhounds by hanging was first exposed by Madrid-based Associacion Nacional Para La Defensa De Los Animales (ANDA) last year. Photographs taken by ANDA were sent to the Brussels-based Eurogroup for Animal Welfare, who issued a press release several months ago calling for international support to stop the killings.

Source: Interviu: Loles Silva

What YOU can do:

Please write to the following officials and respectfully request their help in stopping the export of Irish and English greyhounds to Spain.

Undercover Investigation in Spain Confirms Cruelty to Irish Greyhounds

In Dublin:

The Irish SPCA and the Royal SPCA issued a press release on December15 calling for an end to the export of Irish greyhounds to Spain. The announcement came the day a report was made public which detailed the findings of an undercover investigation into conditions at Spanish racetracks and kennels conducted by both organizations months earlier. Ciaran O'Donovan, Chief Executive Officer of the ISPCA, said, "Many of the dogs seen at the racetracks were from Ireland and there is clearly a great deal of suffering caused to exported greyhounds. We and the RSPCA will use every means at our disposal to discourage and end this trade." Chief Inspector Mike Butcher of the RSPCA's Special Operations Unit said, "We found appalling suffering because basic welfare steps are ignored. The dogs...are forced to race too many times in one week, some even have to run with injuries, wearing bandages."

In October 1997 a delegation made up of O'Donovan; Butcher; Marion Fitzgibbon, President of the ISPCA; Finbarr Heslin, MVB, Independent Consultant Veterinary Surgeon, and an interpreter spent five days investigating the racetracks and holding kennels in and around Barcelona and the island of Mallorca. The investigation was prompted by hundreds of complaints from independent sources, including visitors to the tracks from Ireland and England.

For seven years Anne Finch of Surrey, England, has been the primary source of first-hand information about the conditions under which the dogs are kennelled and raced. Since 1991 Finch has made 15 trips to Spain and has rescued scores of greyhounds, most of them in deplorable condition. In addition, she has single-handedly waged a campaign to bring public and industry attention to the desperate plight of these greyhounds. The investigative team videotaped much of what they observed in Spain, including races. Finch, who viewed the tape, wrote in her November newsletter, "We, on the International Committee for Greyhound Welfare, saw this video in Dublin, which drove us to tears. We saw spectators laughing at a dog so injured it could hardly walk to the traps before it was due to race." Heslin, the veterinarian accompanying the group, was commissioned by the ISPCA to write a report on their findings. Highlights of the 12-page document, as reported in Sunday World, a Dublin newspaper, on Jan 8, stated that greyhounds: are routinely given amphetamines, caffeine, corticosteroids, anabolic steroids and cocaine; are infested with parasites; spend 21 hours a day or longer in their cages with no exercise; receive no veterinary care: sleep on concrete with no bedding; and are kept in cages 15" to 18" wide. In some cases, two dogs are crammed into the same small cage. Heslin wrote, "...it is impossible for the dogs to turn around or lie down comfortably. In some of the cages only one animal could lie down at a time ... the other dog had to stay standing or lean against the wall."

The Irish Racing Board, Bord na gCon, claims they are powerless to act against independent operators who transport dogs to Spanish tracks, despite the fact that regular shipments of greyhounds are loaded in Limerick, where Bord na gCon's offices are located. Other shipments originate in Cork and Waterford. "This is a slave trade." said Fitzgibbon, "with an enormous scope for abuse." For years Fitzgibbon has beleaguered Bord na gCon for help to no avail.

The Slave Trade:

The barbaric killing of greyhounds by hanging them from their back legs with their forelegs barely touching the ground, reported last year in the Spanish magazine lnterviu, has recently been the subject of articles in two German magazines, Der Spiegel ("The Sprinter Slave Trade") and Bravo ("Cruel Murder of Greyhounds"). Reports from Fermin Perez Martin of Sociedad Protectura de Animales, Medina del Campo, were cited in both articles. It was Perez who photographed dozens of hanging greyhound carcasses in the area of Valladolid in May 1997 after he received calls from residents who reported hearing the wailing of hounds for days on end. Perez's photographs have been widely distributed to humane groups throughout Europe.

Sources:

Sunday World: Damien Lane
Der Spiegel: Renate Nimtz-Koster
Report by Finbarr Heslin

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Write to the QUEEN OF SPAIN, who is believed to be a SUPPORTER OF ANIMAL RIGHTS, and plead for her help to stop the torture and hanging of greyhounds; send photos of your own greyhound(s):

Her Majesty Sofia
Queen of Spain
Palacio La Zarzuela
28071 Madrid
SPAIN

Salutation: May It Please Your Majesty

Call the Spanish Tourist Offices in your area and politely explain why you and your friends will not be vacationing in Spain:
New York 212-265-8822
Miami 305-358-1992
Beverly Hills 310-658-7188
Chicago 773-642-1992

In other areas, call the Spanish Consulate and express your disgust:
Boston 617-536-2506
New Orleans 504-525-4951
Houston 713-783-6200
San Francisco 650-922-2995
Los Angeles 213-938-0158

For all interested... This is the letter that Mr Cohen personally composed and sent to Queen Sofia of Spain

Don't forget to send pictures of your greys at their cutest!

(Today's date), 1998  

Re: The horrors in the Greyhound Racing Industry

May It Please Your Majesty:

I have been reading the atrocities that people in your country have been committing against the lovely Greyhound. Hanging Greyhounds and leaving them to die or leaving them tied to trees so they may starve is a barbaric act which goes beyond the meaning of cruel and inhumane. What was the crime of these beautiful, majestic dogs? That theydid not run fast enough? These dogs are the sweetest, most lovable companions, and theydo not deserve this sort of treatment. Here, in Canada and the United States, as well as in many European countries, this practice would never be allowed to continue at such an alarming rate (Hundreds of Greyhounds were hung in SPAIN in 1997, as documented by the German media). We support the adoption of retired Greyhounds, but in the best case scenario, we think the sport of Greyhound racing should be outlawed because of the inability to properly regulate humane conditions for the dogs.

Your Majesty, I am talking to you as a fellow animal lover please do not allow this Greyhound holocaust to continue.

Sincerely,

(Your name, signature and address (address optional)

Oh, and on that note, guess the newest place to be getting involved in Greyhound racing? Answer Vietnam The dog eating capital of the world. The dogs are coming, again from where else? Ireland. At time of writing Mr. Cohen was writing a nice letter to the Irish embassy in Canada, as well as giving the local Irish tourist bureau a nice call. His express wish is please, for the sake of these sweet innocent dog everywhere, tell everyone you know that would be sympathetic to start writing those letters of disgust and protest to the Queen of Spain, your local Irish, Spanish and Vietnamese embassies, and the tourist offices of these countries.

If that were not enough to swallow, this happened very recently

This news just came to me: The decomposing carcasses of 43 "retired" racers were found in various stages of decay on the site of a utility company outside of St. Louis recently. Missouri is surrounded by racing states. What did they find on the top of the heap? The carcasses of two rabbits, and a cat.
LIVE LURE TRAINING IS ILLEGAL.

Please do not hesitate to contact Mr. Cohen in private for any information he can give you, or just to commiserate.

Sincerely,

On behalf of

David Cohen & Sasha (The Wonderhound)

Greyhound Rescue of Montreal

(All material on this page is copyright to David Cohen)

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