m-j

Yes wastage is not nice terminology. The surplus Greys are now not"murdered" it is against the law to do so, unless a vet verifies that they should be due to injury and the vet has to do it and a report must be sent to the governing racing body of the state. A race dog has more interactions with people and other dogs on an average day than pets whose owners work. They are couch potatoes because that is the nature of the breed. They bred from because they are fast regardless of the anxiety/excitement levels. Prey drive is inspired visually or by noises or actions associated with that vision, just like the vision of ducks makes your dogs excited, the difference being the Greys get to go through the sequence of the fixed action pattern, unlike your dogs which remain frustrated, albeit with good reason.

For that very reason I (and I got strangers to) handled the pups ears, put up on tables etc before they were branded. The stewards always remarked how calm they were and afterwards I dont recall any having issues. Most came already branded and yes there were issues to be resolved, but I was fortunate that the majority were still young 3mths or so they did learn to accept it fortunately, as throughout their racing life they were going to have it done alot. The thing that used to bug me the most is the way they were generally handled, the guys were rough, not to be nasty, but just "that is how you do it, gotta show em who's boss" "gotta treat em rough or they wont cope with being knocked around in a race" That was what the guys had been taught, they believed they were doing the dogs a favor. That culture changed eventually thank goodness. Just going ot for minute have you had anything to do with corns?

Yes their social skills with other dogs are good but with many of the older pups that came to us that was where their social and other skills ended. Acceptance of and not enjoying being handled was a common problem, but as I said easily fixed due to their nature.

From the pet breeders I know the practises were worlds apart. This is why the rearing of greys has come under scrutiny with the changes that have been introduced into the industry. I changed some of our practises at the kennels years before the proverbial hit the fan in the industry by introducing aspects of the way pets are raised. According to the feedback we received the results were favourable, which is why my boss allowed me to do so.

*Sigh* probably, unfortunately.

I still would really like to know as to how many nasty greys she saw and how long for and what were the owners like. In the kennels I worked at we had dogs come from all over Australia and from many different trainers, breeders and rearers. You could tell the dogs that hadn't had the best life and one of the things that used to astound me was the great bounceback these dogs have, wallflowers would blossom, nervous wrecks would take on the world, with a little bit of encouragement and sensible handling, they are not hard dogs to train or convince they have got it wrong about whatever their issue was. I don't want to seem to be being nasty to the vet but I just still find it difficult to believe that a large proportion of her human aggro cases were greys. Maybe she was seeing a lot of dogs that had come from the same racing kennel??? One of the big revolving door training establishments, where if the dogs aren't an instant asset they're a liability and get treated accordingly.

I'm sorry to hear that it didn't work out for you, did you find a home for the grey?

I think that Greys being dangerous to small dogs cats etc does depend on what they are trained on to a great extent. I only ever used a toy and saw many dogs pass over rabbits that were closer to get the toy, one dog literally ran over the rabbits. When she saw the two rabbits her gait faulted for a couple of strides and then she continued on to get the toy which would have been easily a couple of hundred metres away and she certainly had high prey drive. Im not saying that all dogs would be like that but early learning certainly has a huge impact on how they think even with intrinsic behaviour. The crackdown on live baiting should be a good start to alleviating this problem. I know it had been illegal for a long time and was still practised but the 4 Corners report, the public outcry and the near closure of the industry has had a huge impact. I have only rehomed 20 or so dogs after they left our kennels and had gone to a trainer to race. All came straight from the track and all were easily rehomed in urban situations. I did keep in touch with the owners and not one had any animal or any other type of aggression issues. The dogs at the kennels were handled a lot though, my son who was quite young at the time was frequently with me at the kennels obviously he was always supervised when interacting with them but not once did I have any concerns when he was with them. I would NOT have allowed him to come to the kennels if I thought he may have got hurt in any way. 20 dogs is only a small sample but I handled over 700 dogs during my time at the kennels and can say there was only 1 dog who came to us with anything near what you would call an aggression issue and I would have not rehomed him even though he was great with us after a couple of weeks, my son was not allowed near him except when the dog was in his kennel, there were no issues the dog actually enjoyed my son talking to him as he would eagerly greet him when got to know him. The others I would have had no issues with rehoming as they presented while at the kennels. This why I really find it so hard to believe that people have been bitten badly enough to loose body parts or even just bitten which the vet in the article leads us to believe is a fairly common occurrence with Greys.

If what you say is the case that dogs bred to do a job can't settle into a domestic situation we shouldn't own any dogs except toy breeds which were specifically bred to be lap dogs. Actually we shouldn't own any animals at all. Many animals for hundreds of years have managed to settle into domestic bliss without suffering or disastrous outcomes. Yes GAP was an incentive of the industry but I'm fairly certain the people that invest a lot of time and effort into rehoming dogs, not of their making, would be very disappointed to hear that their efforts are a sham. I understand your concerns and also feel the "wastage" issues in the industry was disgraceful but since the reforms have been introduced, things are improving. While it isn't perfect they have some of the strictest regulations of any dog industry. Can you give me an example of a dog/animal industry that is perfect?

I agree that the dogs need to handled and exposed to life outside a kennel but to say that because they are bred to race and that makes them less able to be integrated into life as a domestic dog I feel is a bit of an exaggeration. Any breed of dog not exposed to life will react to a situation that is different and they perceive as threatening. They do have a very passive coping style and yes many people think that they arent stressed when they are, as with any dog with a similar coping style. I would love to have a dollar for everytime I been told "my dog's not stressed". When I was working at the kennels I did my best to expose the dogs to novel situations with a good outcome i.e I would put alitter the back of my car and take them to the shop to see the people cars, dogs cats etc coming and going while giving lots of treats, if the owners said I could. I would like to know what the behaviour issues these dogs are going to a behaviourist for. I just find it hard to believe that they are over represented in the stats of dogs being presented for behavioural issues. In the same ten years I worked at the kennels I was also a dog trainer/instructor and I experienced many many more dogs with issues in just the basic obedience classes than I did with the greys which way outnumbered the amount of dogs that went through the classes. @asal when I was riding trackwork we had a horse for want of a better word was mad and like you say dangerous to ride. Anyway several years later we went to the stud where his sire had stood and the stud master remembered his dam Queens Gambit well because she was as "mad as cut cat" to quote him and then went on to tell us a few things about her. The apple hadn't fallen far from the tree.

She looks like a real sweetie, Im glad she found a home. The way they are treated is so barbaric.

The Silken Windhound is lovely. These dogs arent the prettiest but their circumstances makes me want to aquire some but unless we win lotto I cant see that happening http://www.galgopodencosupport.org/galgos-podencos/

They are so astute, many times I've said how did they know that or to do that. As an instructor the amount of times I saw dogs run rings around their owners and the gadgets used to prevent whatever:-)

I started this thread after a discussion at work. Similar stories to these came up with my work colleagues as well. These stories could be spruiked as reasons why we need dogs in our lives, along with the many other benefits.

When I first got my youngest Grey I'm guessing he hadnt travelled in cars much as he would have a loose poop and release his anal glands. He did this one time on the way into town, I stopped got as much off the blanket as I could rolled it up and put it into a bag and continued on our way. In town as I was looking for a carpark in the park I noticed a small group of young boys walking around some parked cars and I thought to myself they they are casing those cars. Anyway found a park got the dogs out locked the car leaving the back windows down a couple of inches. As I was walking away I noticed the kids had started looking around the cars where mine was parked, they spotted mine with the windows down and went over to it. I was kind of hidden from their view by some bushes, they looked in the front windows, looked around to see if anyone was watching and then moved to the back window. By this stage I had my phone out ready to take a pic if they put their hand in. One of the guys must have got a whiff of the blanket turned and walked away waving his hand in front of his face, the others had a sniff and followed suit. I was standing there nearly wetting myself laughing, made sure they left then continued on my walk. Who'd have thought a pooey blanket could be useful:-)