I really should have edited in their racing footage with this, next time! One of them had a good race but stopped halfway through to try to get a judges coffee.

I totally agree. I watched this and got a headache from the barking and.............no windhounds running.

I love Vizslas! My friend wants to get a Vizsla pup and I can't wait for Silken playdates with them! The frustration is very real for the races haha.

One of them won't even run is the funny thing. He follows the lure then takes off to go drink coffee or explore.

🦷

Yeah I should have thought about that before posting and edited in some running. I got half of a run of one of the dogs and the other one didn't even finish because he wanted to visit the judges! Hindsight, that would have been pretty funny to include.

Racing *is* cruel. This isn't racing. This is letting the dogs run after a lure. Dog racing leads to extreme injury and death. Even if it doesn't happen during a race, dogs who are raced (especially greyhounds) get put down after just a few years of life. It's only been relatively recent that there have been pushes to get racing greyhounds put into retirement rescues. Racing, fighting, and any other dangerous exploitation of animals for human entertainment shouldn't be supported at all

This is lure coursing, which is a casual sport. When people talk about cruel dog racing, they are referring to the greyhound racing industry. The part that is cruel is not the running itself, but the inhumane conditions that the industry creates. The intensely competitive and high-stakes nature of the industry highly incentivise competitors to prioritise winning at all costs, resulting in mass production breeding, mass discarding of not-ideal racers, illegal steroid use on dogs, use of live baiting, zero socialisation or housetraining (since usually mass-produced litters are housed in rows of kennel cages), and poor quality of life. The dogs that do make the cut to use as racers only have a very short span of time to race while they're in their prime, and are considered retired by the age of only 2-5 years. The lifespan of a greyhound is 10-14 years, and competitors don't keep the dogs beyond their prime years, meaning that every single racing greyhound you see is destined to end up in the pound with about three quarters of their life still ahead of them, without ever being socialised or housebroken at all, making them basically unadoptable by pound standards. It's only because of greyhound rescue societies that take these dogs in and spend a great deal of time, effort and love teaching these grown dogs all the socialising they should have had in puppyhood that these dogs have a chance of adoption at all, otherwise they would all be doomed to euthanasia. This is the fate of EVERY greyhound in the racing industry, even the winners. On top of that is the fact that actual laws governing how these dogs are treated in the industry are incredibly lax, so it's really only the industry code standards which have any authority to ban competitors if mistreatment is suspected - which, you know, good luck getting them to do anything about. Remember, the abusive conditions happen for a reason - they maximise profitable greyhounds. These are the industry's bread and butter. If they cared to crack down on animal mistreatment, they'd be out of their best supplicants of the sport. This means that as things currently are, ethical conduct of competitive greyhound breeders is effectively totally unenforceable. And all this hasn't even touched yet on the business of international trade exporting greyhounds, where the countries in most demand are the countries with the LEAST animal protection laws, sending these dogs to suffer far worse fates. This is why greyhound racing is known as a cruel sport - not because there's anything with dogs running (which most would be happy to do anyway), but because of the corruption of the industry. Racing pet dogs in local sport events is completely fine.

@@sandyposs2693 "which, you know, good luck getting them to do anything about." Which is really the sad part, as you said it isn't the running itself that's cruel. I do feel like additional rules or even just aspects of the competition could be changed to make it more appealing to the general public and more humane for the dogs, while keeping the sport competitive and interesting. For example, have the dogs spends 2-4 hours with each other before the race, observed by professional dog behaviorists. Make "socialibility" a required, pre-race contest with rewards for sending the best behaved dogs, and disqualify those that violate basic training (recall, etc) or act too aggressively with other dogs for both this contest and the upcoming race. If they are adoptable that's already huge, make having the _most_ adoptable dog a contest unto itself, and disqualify the untrained from racing. Ban private breeding and have owners purchase a dog they perceive to be a winner from the institution itself. Perhaps they can request pairings or something but once a dog leaves the facility where their wellbeing is closely monitored, they can no longer be raced. Of course, they will be allowed and expected to do the training, and they may choose to keep the dog or not after retirement. Maybe not this exactly, perhaps too utopian. But it just seems like such a tragedy to me also because, as you said, the running isn't itself the problem. I feel there a lot of much smaller things that could be done to at least make it better than it is at present. Frustrating that a sport that could be cruelty free, or at least easily a lot less cruel isn't being improved significantly afaik.

@@ikkirr wtf do you think racing is?? The dogs all run after a lure! It's just hooked onto a mechanical device like ALL lures and goes down a rail on a track. Going by the rest of your comment your real issue isn't the racing but what's done with the dogs at retirement. That doesn't make racing bad just the shitty owners who don't treat their dogs right. You're going to find that in every walks of life not just in the racing world. Not all racing dog owners treat their dogs like crap at retirement.