Whilst the greyhound industry may be applauding the addition of funding to improve British Greyhound breeding, welfare groups are horrified by the possibility that increased breeding is likely to take place.   How many generations and ” failed” greyhounds have got to be bred, and discarded, before breeders are satisfied that they have reared a champion.

With the industry due to announce their retirement statistics in the near future, welfare groups would have thought money to help those greyhounds already waiting for retirement homes would have been a priority for funding.

Clarissa Baldwin CBE
Chairman GreyhoundForum
Before responding to Clarissa’s letter, I would like to make it clear that I have huge respect for her integrity and record. In the last two decades we have had a couple of minor spats but I would be the first to acknowledge Clarissa’s position as a genuine welfarist – not an ‘anti’ – and her huge efforts through the Greyhound Forum have been significant in maintaining a dialogue between the greyhound industry and Government civil servants.
However, I believe Clarissa’s points are wrong, and may indeed be detrimental to welfare progress.
1) The SIS grants are exclusively for British breeding which has been in decline for four decades. In 1977, we registered 1,123 litter, going down, by the decade to 921, 779 and 571. In 2017 there were 238 litters registered. (Some were actually born in 2016, but these things level themselves out). A total of 1,460 greyhound pups born throughout Britain in one year. By comparison, the Kennel Club registered 35,000 Labrador Retrievers, 30,000 French Bulldogs, 23,000 Cocker Spaniels. The number of greyhounds would have been roughly half the 20th breed on the list and remember these figures are only ‘Kennel Club registered’ hounds.
2) How many ‘failed’ greyhounds are among that 1,460? We have carried out previous breeding surveys which would put the figure who do not contest a race at less than 10%. (The figures are there to be checked using the Greyhound Stud Book website and the GBGB results service- as we invited CAGED UK to do recently – though for some reason, they didn’t get back to us).
So let’s say there are 146 ‘missing’ greyhounds. Some of them will have died of illness or in rearing. Greyhounds have to be reared ‘free range’. For example, last week I asked Mark Keightley about Roxholme Dream’s first litter. Of the four born, only one appears as a racer. Of the other three, two collided in a nasty paddock accident, of which one had to be euthenased, the second put has brain damage and is a pet, and a third pup, has been handicapped by sickness but should eventually make the track.
Even assuming that 146 pups reached adulthood, those 14/15 month old pups are the most sought-after by homefinders. Only this week, Kinsley announced that its 58 re-homed dogs rehomed in January included pups who didn’t make the grade.
If we cannot re-home the roughly 150 ‘failed’ greyhound born in Britain every year it is a terrible indictment on our industry.
3) There are NO commercial greyhound breeders in Britain. We do not do puppy farms. The vast majority of pups born are kept and reared within the kennel. The SIS grants will not encourage the indiscriminate breeding if greyhounds per se. They are geared, as they should be, to the top end of the market. The moment you reward or subsidise mediocrity, you invite trouble. The SIS cash is hugely welcomed, but it wouldn’t get close to making greyhound breeding a profitable business.
4) British breeding only accounts for 16% of all racing dogs in the UK. Given our additional opportunities to monitor and re-home our ‘failed racers’, shouldn’t we be encouraging British breeding?
In my opinion, British breeding has no negative impact on welfare though I entirely agree with Clarissa on the drive for re-h0ming.
Thanks in no small way to Clarissa and her colleagues on the Greyhound Forum, this industry has made dramatic improvements in its welfare. It is a shame that her friends in the Home Office did not make as much effort in bringing the betting industry to heel – ie the offshore parasites – as they did in drafting and introducing into statute the Animal Welfare Act.
Should they ever do so – her wishes, and ours – that every ex-racer would be re-homed, would absolutely become a reality.
Floyd Amphlett – Editor