Puppy auctions
This article follows the first article regarding the greyhound puppy auctions in Ireland. More...
In the meantime…
Under the guise as a potential greyhound racing dog owner, we kept in touch with one of the Irish racing people. It transpired that his business was to buy greyhounds cheaply in
PETERBOROUGH STADIUM
GOOD FRIDAY 9th April 2004
First Impressions
On arrival at the stadium car park, it was cleaner and more professional looking than Harold’s Cross. It was different from
My ‘disguise’ was as someone who had become interested in greyhounds and was looking to buy one to run at Shawfield stadium. We met up almost immediately with our contacts who were selling on the greyhounds that had been bought at Harold’s Cross. We managed to obtain quite a bit of information about what goes on behind the scenes.
The crowd
Again this was completely different to
The people present, like
We were introduced to a guy called Willie who, like our Irish contact, came over from Ireland and his business was to buy in Ireland and re-sell in England. All of the greyhounds auctioned were described as ‘direct from Ireland’ therefore they had all been brought over in the previous days, specifically to be auctioned to race at UK tracks.
Trials
The difference here was that at no time did we ever get close enough to the greyhounds to see the condition of them. The trials commenced with 52 greyhounds in the brochure. However we did hear that one of the greyhounds listed in the sales catalogue had died a few weeks previous at Longford track after it broke multiple bones.
It was quite upsetting scoring that dogs name out from our catalogue Similar to Dublin, some of the greyhounds trialled with four dogs in the trial where other trials were with only one dog. It depended on times and distances that the greyhound reached its maximum potential. Trials are the only time that you will see a greyhound running to its full potential - because there is no betting or race-fixing involved, unlike normal races.
The Auction
The trials over, after a break for lunch, the auction began. Unlike Dublin, the auctioneer came to the front of the restaurant and the greyhounds were brought out onto the track therefore you could only view them from a distance. The auction itself appeared more humane than it did in Dublin, but that may have been because we weren’t close enough to see the greyhounds fear.
The first greyhound I was looking out for was our Bo. If need be I was prepared to bid for her. However as she had vastly improved, she was bid for and sold at £400. I was relieved. Although she will now enter racing, she is safe for the next year or so. My main fear was that she would be ‘disposed of’ if she wasn’t sold. In sterling, Bo had been bought at Dublin for £100, which means a 300% profit was made on her sale. The seller had around ten greyhounds for auction that day and managed to sell all of them.
Our Irish seller had put word out that I was a new greyhound owner and was looking for a greyhound to race in Scotland. The other Irish seller, Willie, approached me. He said to me that he had a black greyhound bitch that would be ideal for the Scottish tracks – in particular the flapping tracks. He said she takes the bends well. It turned out that she had been up for auction but no one had bid for her. He was your traditional Irish charmer and he said he would let me have her for £150. I said I would think about it. He came to me a few times before the auction ended and asked if I had thought about it – at one point practically sitting on my knee to ‘charm’ me into buying her. I tried to act non-committal.
We asked our Irish seller what happens to the greyhounds that don’t get sold. He said that if they had potential, they would be taken back with him and auctioned after some work had been put in to improve their performance. He didn’t answer what happened if they had no potential. However we did get back to that subject and he admitted that they would be destroyed, probably by shooting before they boarded the ferry. He told us that Willie would do the same. He claims that it costs 250 Euros to have a greyhound put to sleep in the South so it would simply been too expensive to take a ‘useless’ greyhound back.
Prices
The highest priced greyhound sold for about £3500 and the lowest about £130 with varying prices in between. Three guys sitting in front of us bid for and bought several of the higher priced hounds.
The Sale Ends
Two of the greyhounds that hadn’t met their reserve bids went back up for auction. Neither reached the price that they had previously been bid at and rejected. The sellers began to debate with the auctioneer who simply ended the sale. My own impression of that scenario was that the auctioneer was unhappy at their last ditch attempt to sell these greyhounds rather than take them back to Ireland. I felt they were just greedy. At the end several people hung around to pay off what they owed for the greyhounds.
The Kennel Block
At the end, I managed to get inside the kennel block. When the individual kennel was opened it appeared that there was no lighting or natural light at all inside the kennel that measured about 3 foot by 4 foot. The kennel had ‘paper’ bedding for the hounds to lie in. Although I wasn’t expecting high quality kennelling, I did expect there to be some kind of lighting for the dogs although it does explain why one of my rescued racing dogs hates being in the dark.
My Little ‘Purchase’
Willie came after me as we were walking to the van in the car park. He brought with him this little black greyhound bitch. He turned on the charm and again said to me £150. I bartered with him and managed to get him down to £100. To be honest I would have paid ten times that amount for her because I knew her alternative was certain death. I also managed to negotiate the collar and lead, as I didn’t have a spare one.
I realise that I was potentially funding him to continue with his trade in greyhounds. But I would have found it impossible to walk away as most non-racing greyhound people would.
He asked me back to the kennels to pick up her stud card that lists her races, age and all other relevant information. He said that I would need a ‘change of ownership’ form. As a ‘greyhound racing dog owner’ I said I did. He went off again and returned with a form, which was all folded up saying that he’d filled it in and signed it.
Willie said to me that she’s a good little runner – yes it was a DOG he was referring to, NOT a car. He said if I sell her then make sure I got a good price for her. He also said she’d make a good brood bitch once she’d finished racing. I nodded and smiled at him thinking how much I would like to tell him what I was doing there and that this little bitch had run her last ever race and would be neutered by the end of the week. But I held my tongue, smiled sweetly and we drove away.
We looked at the change of ownership form in the van – it was blank! I’m not really surprised that he did that but I wished I’d checked it before we’d left. I also looked at the stud card and discovered she wasn’t coming up 2 as was in the auction catalogue, but actually coming up for 3 and nearing the end of her career. Having been in a situation before similar to this I know that greyhound owners aren’t always honest with their paperwork.
When I got her back to the hotel, she didn’t do much other than look frightened. I saw that she was dirty and there appeared to be flea dirt on her. She was very frightened and lay down against the wall. She seemed to be watching me all the time but she obviously didn’t trust me one bit. I phoned home and we came up with a name – Saorca that is Gaelic for ‘freedom’. It seemed appropriate!
The next day I left Peterborough. On route was a lady who I know and trust implicitly. She runs a greyhound rescue and I have a huge amount of respect for her and her opinion as well as the work she does with ‘rescued’ greyhounds. I refuse to call any of them ‘retired’ now, because how can you possibly ‘retire’ in your prime? I dropped in to show my friend Saorca for her to check her over for any obvious illness or injury. However my friend had kennel space so offered to take her in. She knew that if Saorca came home with me as a foster she wouldn’t go any further – I fail badly at fostering greyhounds and they always end up staying! So we agreed that she would stay and be rehomed from there after being neutered.
Meanwhile my friend renamed her Brenna as the pronunciation of Saorca down there sounds like saucer! As it happens Brenna found a new home within only ten days in the North of Scotland! In contrast my friend has another bitch who has been there eight months. Some greyhounds find homes quickly, others take forever. Brenna was and is lucky – but what happens to the next one where there isn’t someone like me to take her away and someone like my friend who took her in and found her a forever home where she can be shown unconditional care?
Conclusion - Peterborough
We followed through from the auctions at Dublin to the Peterborough sales. As far as I know none of the greyhounds bought at Peterborough would be taken back to auction, but they would begin their racing career from then. I decided that this was as far as I could take it. I am finding it increasingly difficult to be ‘undercover’ and smile sweetly when in reality I have violent thoughts towards these people. I have all the auctioned greyhounds racing names and I will be tracking them in coming months to see where they are racing.
My one relief is that one of them has escaped from the awful world that is greyhound racing. I also recognise that these dogs are commodities and ‘worthless’. I do believe that it’s these people that miss out on what the real qualities of a greyhound are. I struggle with these dogs that have the fear or dead souls through their eyes. They have no reason to trust any human after the lives they have led which may not be physical abuse in a broad sense of the word, but neglecting a dog until it has no soul in her eyes is surely just as bad – isn’t it?
Amanda Wells
Greyhound Action Scotland