Big Brother wants to hear from you. That is not something you get word of every day of the week. We are talking about the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs here by the way, not the G.B.G.B. in case there is any confusion. I am not sure what the welfare of racing greyhounds has to do with the environment, I am certain it has nothing to do with food and it is a fair guess most greyhounds severed their rural roots when they left the Ould Sod to race in the U.K. Be that as it may, D.E.F.R.A it is that is charged with the development and evolution of legislation governing the welfare of greyhounds in England. Cutting to the chase, they want to hear your views of the initial findings of the Review of the Welfare of Racing Greyhounds Regulations 2010.
When these Regulations passed into law on 6th April 2010 it was on condition that they would be subject to a review after they had been up and running for five years and so we now find ourselves in the thick of said review. The idea of the review is to see if the Regulations have achieved their original goals, to check that their objectives and scope are still valid and to determine whether or not regulation is still the best option for achieving these results. Carrying out some research themselves, and some more with the aid of an outside agency enlisted to help them, DEFRA initially set out to gather evidence on the effectiveness of the Regulations and on their impact on greyhound welfare. Having quizzed what they called “stakeholders from across the industry”, everyone from promoters and track vets to re-homing organisations and welfare groups, they have collated all the results into a single document with the catchy title of Exploring Effectiveness of Racing Greyhounds Legislation (2010).
They are now taking time out while all good men and true study this document, which you can access on line with the help of your favourite search engine. The idea is that you read their exploration and answer questions afterwards. The question answering business also takes place on line using what they call their Citizen Space facility. Personally this particular citizen would be only too happy not to have any space left for him by the Government and to make his feeling known in the traditional fashion using pen and paper but I suppose I have to go by the times. In fact the format is fairly user-friendly, with those responding in essence being asked to tick boxes confirming that they agree with the general tenor of the question, or disagree, or just plain don’t know. There is then a space in which they can comment on the findings, discuss future options or submit further evidence. If I can do it anybody can. When I went to uni the computer science lab was housed in Nissen hut. (Yes, it was back in the days when they still had Nissen huts.) The computer pretty much filled the hut and probably could not do as much then as the mobile ‘phone in my back pocket can do in half the time today. With that sort of grasp of IT, if I can master this anybody can.
Is this an opportunity for the wage slaves and self-employed paupers of the greyhound game to make a positive impact on the future of their industry, rather than just grumbling into their beer and sounding off to anybody who will stand still long enough? Well yes and no. DEFRA has set certain limits to what they want to hear from us. For starters they are not consulting on whether greyhound racing should be banned. That should trigger sighs of relief all round. The tree huggers have had their say apparently, and the Government does not believe that the problems identified in the first phase of the review are insurmountable so hopefully we should all have jobs to go to in the New Year. The Government also has no plans to take over the reins of the greyhound industry from the private sector, citing a possible need from new primary legislation and also a possible need for an injection of cash from the public purse as reasons for not doing so. They feel that given the small number of tracks and the steps already taken by the industry to put its own house in order, introducing a new statutory body would not be proportionate at this time. Me, I reckon what is proportionate depends on your perspective and is just one man’s view from the hill. I would have quite liked to comment of the perceived lack of transparency in the regulatory structures of the G.B.G.B. I had this gut feeling that the regulated were also the regulators and that the bookies were shouting the odds in New Bridge Street. In this, I and others found ourselves sharply rebuked by the suits from DEFRA. “To maintain UKAS accreditation” we were reminded “there is within GBGB an independent Greyhound Regulatory Board, chaired by a Q.C. as well as a separate Impartiality Committee”. “There was no evidence presented” they continued “that this system, independently scrutinised by UKAS, was not ensuring GBGB tracks were being adequately or independently regulated” Silly old me! When push came to shove anyway the G.B.G.B plays its cards so close to its chest that it proved impossible for me to get my facts straight. Who knows, maybe DEFRA’s stipulations about the limits of their review have helped to keep my neck off the block. Mind you it would be nice if the G.B.G.B didn’t always seem to have its wagons formed in a circle. We are all supposed to be kicking for the same team after all.
What does that leave for us to discuss? Mandatory veterinary attendance during racing and trials turns out to be DEFRA’s starting point. I am in favour of it. Well I would, wouldn’t I? Joking aside, I was disturbed at the number of respondents who seemed to suggest that track vets were often over ruled, for example on the withdrawal of sick or injured dogs. If true, it is unacceptable. Allowing dogs to run when they are not fit to do so is only adding fuel to the “anti’s” fire. Next on the list were the facilities for the attending veterinary surgeon. I see that my colleagues in the Association of Greyhound Track Vets tried to make a case for CCTV coverage of the entire track that the vet on duty could watch on a monitor in the vet’s room. I vote for that. At our track I can watch the video footage of the racing that the punters see. This is grand up to a point, but inevitably tends to concentrate on the leading greyhounds and the action at the front of the field, whereas what the track vet needs to see is the action among the also rans at the back of the field and what happens to the dogs who stumble or fall or otherwise disappear out the back door. There then follows a paragraph on the independence of track vets. Some respondents apparently suggested without prompting that greyhound welfare would be improved of the vet was financially independent from the track. If I knew who they were I would buy them a pint. As long as the promoters pay the wages of the vets working at their tracks, not to mention control the hiring and firing of them, they will inevitably have a degree of leverage over the track vets. Worldly-wise coffin-dodgers like me have seen enough service to be able to manage most of the situations that arise at the track but the same may not be true of the younger, less experienced and less self-confident members of the track vet team who may also need the money more urgently and may find it harder to secure alternative employment. The DEFRA questionnaire reminds readers that “all veterinary surgeons registered to practice in the UK undertake an oath to Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons to uphold the welfare of animals committed to their care”. That is undoubtedly true, and is as it should be. However the fact that you have done your level best to uphold the welfare of a dog at the track does not mean you have to carry the can if your decisions are overturned or overlooked by the racing office staff the moment your back is turned. I feel that while the promoters should be free to choose whatever local vet or practice they feel is most suitable to carry out track work for them, a good case can be made for track vets being paid from a central fund so they are not beholden to the promoters for the roof over their heads and the food on their tables. But I would say that, wouldn’t I?
Truth to tell, I am less concerned about the Regulations as they affect track vets than I am about their impact on the standards of track kennels. Five years ago when the Regulations were first mooted, there was a realization that many of the independent tracks had few if any kennels and that it might be prohibitively expensive for them to have to build enough kennels for each runner to be housed on its own. Accordingly in the initial stages tracks were only obliged to provide enough kennel space for 20% of the competing greyhounds. That seemed reasonable enough as an interim measure. Five years down the line however, it strikes me that the independents have had enough time to raise the dough to build new kennels and to apply for planning permission and so forth. Now I do not think it is in the best interests of the sport for the G.B.G.B to monopolise greyhound racing. I have a strong emotional and philosophic attachment to the independent sector and I look forward to its continued survival, if not prosperity. However the independents have to offer facilities of an acceptable standard. If they cannot afford to provide a kennel for each runner, then regrettably they will have to close their doors. Greyhounds deserve better than waiting their turn in the back of a van where temperature and ventilation cannot be properly controlled and where supervision may only be intermittent and fleeting. Each greyhound down to run on the day must have a clean dry kennel to itself, and the construction of the kennel must be such as to allow its temperature and relative humidity to be monitored and kept within reasonable bounds even on the hottest midsummer day. For me this is a red line.
Next the consultation turns its attention to injury records, the keeping of which became obligatory when the Regulations came into force. That is all well and good, but if the data thus gathered are not put to good use then there is little point in recording them. In discussions with the DEFRA Minister the G.B.G.B has committed to annually publish aggregate injury and euthanasia statistics from its injury database, beginning with the figures for the year. Whoopee-goddamn-doop. They have the figures available to them now, so why wait so long? In what they describe as a non-regulatory agreement, the G.B.G.B has also undertaken to make anonymised track injury and euthanasia data available to others for bona fide research purposes as of 2018. As long as data from individual tracks remains anonymised, how are the tracks which have unacceptable levels of injury and death to be identified so that they can be helped to get their acts together? Again, there is a lot of water to flow under the bridge between now and 2018. Why must we wait so long?
Some of the contributors to the review suggested that there should be a requirement to publish retirement records. The suits from DEFRA remind readers that, while tracks are required to record injury data, they are not required to record what happens to dogs when they leave the racing strength. Now you might argue that once a dog cease to race at a certain track, it is no longer the responsibility of the track to record where that dog goes or what becomes of it. I’ll buy that approach, but I would like somebody somewhere to record and publish retirement records. The single animal welfare issue that most tarnishes the image of the greyhound industry in the U.K. is the euthanasia of healthy young greyhounds no longer required for racing. Despite the sterling efforts of the Retired Greyhound Trust, Dogs Trust and the myriad other greyhound rescue and re-homing organisations, substantial numbers of unwanted greyhounds are still euthanased every year. I know I am a sentimental soul at heart but there is in my view an unacceptable degree of acceptance within some sectors of the industry of the disposability of racing greyhounds. Iconic greyhounds like Mick The Miller and Ballyregan Bob are the stuff of legend, but we industry insiders at times do not afford the same respect to dogs who fail to shine in races in the lower grades. There continues to be a mismatch between the greyhound industry’s perception of what constitutes acceptable animal welfare standards and that of the general public. The industry must strive to foster a more welfare-friendly culture within its ranks if it is not to continue to find itself harshly judged in the court of public opinion. The DEFRA people set great store by the fast-approaching introduction of compulsory micro-chipping into the general pet dog population as a means of monitoring the movements of retired greyhounds. For me any microchipping programme is only as good as the database on which its details are recorded. Microchipping became compulsory back home in Northern Ireland in 2012 and they tell me that dogs without microchips are a dime a dozen there and serious attempts at enforcing the regulations would leave the already full local authority pounds bursting at the seams. Besides micro-chips can be manipulated in ways that the traditional ear marks cannot. While the tattooing of their ears undoubtedly leaves pups distressed and in pain for some days afterwards, it is hard to escape the belief that earmarking and microchipping need to continue in parallel.
“At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy” Winston Churchill once said in the Commons “is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper – no amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point”. Now the greyhound industry does not exactly qualify as a democracy. That is however not a good argument for us little folk not trying to make it more democratic and seizing an opportunity to have our say in its future when Big Brother offers us one, so please get on line, read the relevant papers and start ticking those boxes. You have nothing to lose but your chains, and all that.
Twitter @GSUnderTheRadar
