Illegal Wild Life Trade

[skippy]

Snide? Well, OK then, Princess (there, that's snide, for future reference).

Just thought I'd mention the elephant in the room. Surprised you've missed any mention of greyhound racing over the past month or two.

Greyhound racing probably needs to be an amateur gig, run by people who love the dogs, rather than make a living off them. It is a beautiful sport, at it's basis. Dogs doing what dogs do naturally.

What do you do with all the dogs, once they stop paying for their board, if all you're in it for is the money? Slow horses go to the knackery... slow dogs go to the pound, if they're lucky.

I agree we need to do more with animals after we've used them up and spat them out. I've had two former trotters in the past and both lived in to their twenties after their racing career. I just wanted lawn mowers and they were perfect. After the latest story from Qld Re greyhounds I'm thinking I might adopt one of them too they're not bad looking dogs and they apparently are good natured with humans. I was sitting at a table outside a cafe on Friday last week and the table next to me had what I thought was a greyhound pup I asked the girl who had it with her how old it was and she said it was two years old and not a greyhound but a whippet, first whippet I've ever seen,it just looked like a greyhound pup would.

[boxy]

Hope you've got plenty of energy and room, to keep them amused. They strike me as high maintenance/energy dogs

[Neferti]

Whippets.

The Whippet is a breed of medium-sized dog. They are a sighthound breed that originated in England, where they descended from greyhounds. Whippets today still strongly resemble a smaller greyhound.

My sister's first husband had race horses and greyhounds. He didn't drink or smoke but was a gambler.

[boxy]

They really are bred to run prey down, just like on the race track. Unfortunately, they are prone to staking themselves, in the real world, where they don't run on manicured lawns.

[skippy]

Whippets.

The Whippet is a breed of medium-sized dog. They are a sighthound breed that originated in England, where they descended from greyhounds. Whippets today still strongly resemble a smaller greyhound.

My sister's first husband had race horses and greyhounds. He didn't drink or smoke but was a gambler.

That explains why I thought it was a greyhound pup.

[Neferti]

That explains why I thought it was a greyhound pup.

You were correct.

[Black Orchid]

I've had two former trotters in the past and both lived in to their twenties after their racing career. I just wanted lawn mowers and they were perfect.

I had an ex race horse. After he was used up he was sold him off as a polo pony, they lied about his age and he was subsequently badly abused. I was driving past a banana plantation and I saw a sign saying he was being sold off for dog food so I stopped and bought him.

I had never really been on a horse before and one day we walked into a huge coil of wire that was hidden in the long grass. It could have been catastrophic but instead of freaking out he pranced around and we got untangled then he looked around at me as if to say "Are you ok?". He was a beautiful horse and was 24 when he died.

[Outlaw Yogi]

I have notice a coloration between latitude and attitude.

The warmer the climate the more backwards the population is.

E.g. Compare Northern USA with the deep south.
Compare Melbourne to north of Brisbane.
Compare cape town to central Africa
Compare England to North Africa.

I once though pretty much the same thing, but found it not quite so.
The reality is populations in cooler climates tend to be better educated.
My theory is that in a hot climate people tend t think of emediacy - "F... it's hot, lets go for a swim to cool off". And food is generally easier t obtain.
Where as in a cold climate people have to plan for the future (eg store food for winter) which encourages desire for better education.

Bet you didn't know this. In really cold places people often have brain defficiencies caused by a lack of iodine. During the ice age glaciers sucked the iodine from the soil, s without a high content of sea foods in the diet to supplement the soil based iodine defficiency the people have brain problems, and thus is the reason so many Kiwis/NZers and Austrians are sneaky weirdos.

many people see animals as a resource

Like it or not, many animals have been, still are, and probably always will be a resource - eg cattle, sheep, rabbits, fish, ect ect ect. Nature is cruel, but it's hw this world functions.

and do not think of them as living beings that feel and can have emotions.

Actually mst if not all mammals have exactly the same emotions we do, just not the intellect to reason it. IMO the best doco proving this point is 'Koko the gorrila'. She was taught sign language so she culd communicate with her handlers. Truely fascinating piece of material.

They are just resources for human exploitation until they are all gone.

Some times quite so. The Moa (large flighless bird much like an Emu) of NZ being a perfect example. The same has long been considered regarding Wooly Mammoths, but the extremely short time frame between humans entering North America to extiction of North American Wooly Mammoths suggests they died out so quickly due to disease frm dogs taken to North America by humans. The truth remains unknown.

Greed and short term thinking around our own short term lives drives this. Only the more educated can see the longer term and have a feeling we are the custodians of the planet and life.

It would probably be warm and fuzzy to believe this, but the truth is an educated person can be just as callous as an ignorant jungle bunny.

[Outlaw Yogi]

My Grand father bred Thoroughbreds (and stock horses + Hereford cattle). His best mare was an ex racer. Don't know race name but we used her stable name Trixy.

Grandad had one bull so agressive he had t put a sheet of flat gal over the bull's face so it had to raise its head to see at a distance, and put a huge chain dragging along the ground around the bulls neck to slow it down when charging.
The next bull (Specs, due to red patches around eyes) Grandad raised from a calf and was very tame. Well towards humans, but not to a neighbor's invading bull. We could pat him, ride him and let him sleep in the house yard.

My father breeds stock horses. He did breed Pole Hereford cattle but sold off in a drought.
For a while he had 6 minature horses which a woman dying of cancer gave to him, but the stock horses kicked and bit them, so gave the minatures away.

An old bloke further up my valley wanted me to house sit and mind Greyhounds while he took some of his dogs away racing, but got offended when I slagged off Labanese muslims, because it turns out his farther was a Lebanese muslim.

His dogs are usually caged separately in a garage/shed, and brings them out beiefly in separated runs, I don't know how often. I gather he loves his dogs, but I wasn't impressed with their confined life style.

[HBC] Race dogs 4 @25%.JPG

[Neferti]

Sorry, Yogi, those dogs in your picture aren't "loved".