Greyhound Racing – Still jackin' it in KS & OK?

 

During the summer, stories about live lure baiting of racing greyhounds broke throughout the United States.  I have personally seen video footage that captured several National Greyhound Association members participating in what many deem to be nothing but brutality and animal abuse. I know some people have no issues with hunting or letting dogs chase prey, but when jackrabbits are not even given an opportunity to outrun and escape, pure brutality is all I can think of when I watch the videos. Who decides which animals can get ripped apart and which animals cannot?

I wanted to learn more. I was not about to just take one organization's word or truncated news stories as gospel. I wanted a thorough and unbiased education about live lure baiting in the greyhound racing industry.

I contacted several retired greyhound breeders, trainers, and owners and set out to discuss with them about this thing that is termed as “jacking”. I asked if “jacking” was indeed a widespread practice years ago, I heard an overwhelming yes. I was told  "we all did it and when that Geraldo Rivera story broke, we all started sending our greyhounds to Kansas and Oklahoma where they would be “jacked” cause after all, it's only a misdemeanor. We did not speak of it; you know plausible deniability. Folks jacking would just tell us if the greyhound would chase or not." 

Personally, I always thought the term "would not chase" meant the greyhound would not chase the lure, but now I understand that it came to mean that a greyhound would not chase a jackrabbit. Lastly was told - "We (greyhound industry) brought the end upon ourselves. We knew what we needed to do to clean up our act, but we all got addicted to the money especially with what the casinos had to offer and just kept doing inhumane activities behind their back and kept getting caught. If we had cleaned up our act, those organizations would have never had anything to nail our coffin with."

Sadly, as of this writing, even though the National Greyhound Association (NGA) has had plenty of time to take a stand, take the lead and permanently divest itself of any and all membership that participates in this tradition of training, it continues to be reactive rather than proactive.

 It is difficult not to wonder who knew the secrets or why this practice continues.  Could “it's against the rules” and "we will kick anyone out caught doing so" just be pat responses to keep the public at bay? Do not greyhound owners always know what is going on with their dogs?

Perhaps the NGA has buried its head in sand. 

I have not.