A series of white papers by the Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds provide the first insight into how poorly industry rehomers (GAPs) are performing compared to community-run rescues.
These papers collate annual data which show that the national rate of greyhound breeding continues to be about six times the racing industry’s capacity to rehome via its rehoming arm GAP. This reveals how lazy the industry is about rehoming all of its greyhounds. Sadly, the resulting overpopulation leads to the euthanasia of thousands of healthy, unwanted greyhounds every year.
Greyhounds as Pets (GAP) is the dog racing industry’s rehoming body in each state, except Queensland. Incredibly, the Queensland GAP is funded by taxpayer dollars. The racing industry uses GAPs to give the public the impression it cares about its greyhounds, but never reveals that it rejects the majority of dogs offered by trainers and owners.
Many greyhounds fail the GAP entry test because they’ve not been properly socialised by racing industry owners. The truth is that the GAPs only take the greyhounds that are easy to rehome because they don’t have racing injuries, aren’t timid, are younger and/or don’t have behaviour problems due to lack of socialisation.
Many of these neglected greyhounds end up at community-run rescues where they are introduced to living as a pet, retrained if necessary and/or nursed back to health. Despite the racing industry’s big profits, rehoming by community volunteers leads the way in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania.
Evie visits a local palliative care hospital with us, her calming and gentle nature providing welcome respite to staff, patients and their families.
This is an incredible achievement given that community-run groups operate without kennels – with one major exception – and rely on volunteers to take ex-racers into their own homes to be fostered. Without the hundreds of wonderful foster carers around this country, thousands more discarded ex-racers would be dead.
- public and charity-run animal shelters,
- community-run animal rescue groups,
all across Australia, instead of the dog racing industry caring for its own. Council shelters are funded by taxpayer dollars, while rescue groups are funded by donations. Yet, despite the dog racing industry’s profits, it still dumps discarded greyhounds on these overburdened facilities. Some find homes this way, some do not.
The only real solutions to this situation are non-industry greyhound sanctuaries and breeding limits (referred to as breeding caps) which must be set by each state government. Caps on breeding must be introduced to ensure that all dogs bred by the industry are able to live out their lives as pets at the end of their racing career. It’s also important that state governments stop the racing industry’s practice of giving away greyhounds for free on Gumtree – see Buddy’s story here.
Some related media coverage:
- November 24, 2023 – Crikey – $20,000 a dog: dodgy greyhound industry rehoming can’t keep up with overbreeding, Bernard Keane
- September 16, 2022 – Drive Show ABC Radio Newcastle (NSW) – CPG Director, Fiona Chisholm, talked to host Paul Turton about greyhound racing and its consequences in Australia, including
- August 27, 2022 – The Guardian (AUS), Taipei Times (Taiwan) – Australian racing industry ‘failing miserably to rehome greyhounds as adoption flatlines, Donna Lu