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We advocate on all animal protection and exploitation issues, including experimentation, factory farming, rodeos, breeders and traveling animal acts.

Animal Defenders of Westchester
P.O. Box 205
Yonkers, NY 10704

Campaigns
Stop Dog Racing

Greyhounds deserve humane treatment

(Original publication: July 28, 2004) The Journal News

Thank you, Journal News, for covering the greyhound adoption event held by Greyhound Friends of New Jersey (July 18).

Animal Defenders of Westchester held a protest at a dog track in Connecticut last year; we watched them transport these beautiful animals in tiny crates to a tawdry, litter- strewn facility, while we educated the public about their lives.

Thousands of greyhounds are killed each year as the declining dog-racing industry struggles to stay alive. Some puppies are killed in the name of "selective breeding" before they ever touch a racetrack. Dogs who do qualify to become racers, at around 14 to 17 months of age, typically live in cages and are kept muzzled by their trainers at all times.

According to a May 22, 2002, Associated Press story, a former racetrack security guard in Alabama was arrested for "retiring" 3,000 unwanted greyhounds by shooting and killing them for more than 40 years. His attorney, Buddy Bracken, stated on National Public Radio, "If there's anybody to be indicted here, it's the industry because this is what they're doing to these animals. The misery begins the day they're born. The misery ends when my client gets a hold of them and puts a bullet in their head."

Few dogs make it to the nominal retirement age of 4 or 5.

Injuries and sickness claim the lives of many. Most dogs who slow down and become unprofitable are either killed or sold to research laboratories.

"Man's best friend" deserves better. Please don't support this sordid, cruel "sport."

Kiley Blackman,

The writer is spokesperson, Animal Defenders of Westchester.

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