Help!

The Cheekiedogs are very saddened to learn that Cockermouth in Cumbria have proposed to open a new Greyhound Racing track. You can read the article here. You might be wondering what is wrong with Greyhound Racing, the dogs look happy and cared for, you may even go to the dogs yourself and have a great night but it's all very much an illusion. It is true that a few greyhounds are looked after by their owner or even owners and once their racing career has ended they may have a happy retirement with their owner for the rest of their lives or be placed in a new loving home but out of the thousands of greyhounds bred every year this fairytale ending doesn't happen for them.

Statisitics (oh everybody loves stats, how accurate they are!!) 25,000 greyhound pups are registared EVERY year but I'm more inclined to believe the number is many thousands more, pups which are killed before ever making it to the track.

It is estimated 10,000 greyhounds are killed each year as they don't live up to racing standards.
Dogs that make it to the track will most likely experience suffering during their racing careers. It's estimated that greyhounds running on British tracks sustain more than 12,000 injuries every year and that 10% of dogs that race are already suffering from injuries. Injured toes, torn muscles, strained tendons and arthritic joints are commonplace.

At least 10,000 greyhounds “retire” from racing in Britain every year, at an average age of just 2½ years old. This is either because of injury or because they are adjudged to be no longer good enough to race.Very few of these dogs manage to find good homes. This is hardly surprising, given a situation where many thousands of ordinary dogs are put to sleep every year because no homes are available for them.

The British greyhound racing industry has admitted that 500 - 1,000 retired greyhounds are put to death every year. This alone would be enough to justify a ban on greyhound racing, but the true figure for retired dogs killed is, sadly, far, far higher. Quite possibly as many as 6,000.
Many ex-racing greyhounds are simply abandoned and a large number are killed, sometimes by extremely cruel methods such as drowning or poisoning, because some owners and trainers are not prepared to pay the cost of having them put to sleep by a vet.

We are receiving an increasing number of reports of trainers shooting dogs when their racing days are over.

This and more information can be found at Greyhound Action.

Please let the people who have the authority in Cockermouth know of your opposition to a greyhound track being opened please visit this webpage for addresses to write to

http://www.rykat.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=36296&st=0&#entry643593 or email us
at cheekiedogs@hotmail.com

When it was first brought to out attention the suffering greyhounds indure in the racing industry we found it quite unbelievable and thought some of the people protesting to be somewhat extreme until we saw the suffering with our own eyes. Wether you like dogs or greyhounds or not as a human being you cannot stand by while another living being is treated and discarded like a faulty product in factory. We're not asking you to drop your lives and save all the greyhounds but 5 mins of your time to write a letter or two.

Thank you for reading.