greyhound who has recently had a dental which has turned out to be very

serious. As a result of this we have asked permission to highlight this as

it could be yet another possible case of a racing greyhound suffering due to

previous neglect and poor nutrition. For legal reasons we cannot identify

the kennels or name the dog involved, however please see photos of this dear

greyhound's mouth after the operation. The pain must have been immense due

to the extraction of 38 teeth from a recent routine dental. (Some forums do

not receive photos so if you would like to see the greyhound please send us

your personal email address and we will forward the photos on to you).

When this

greyhound was taken from a rescue kennels in the Westcountry in the summer

of last year it was flea-ridden and full of sores and scars all over its

body. We have come to learn that it is not uncommon for this particular

kennels to have flea-ridden dogs. One of the photo's shows a sore at the

dog's rear end and we suspect that this could have been a previous cigarette

burn which is a common way for greyhound trainers to train their dogs to run

faster when leaving the traps. SDGA took photos of the greyhound as soon as

we were alerted to the condition of the dog which was several weeks after

the rescue had taken place. We were told that the dog had resided in the

kennels for several months.

The greyhound is only five years old and it is a tragedy that her eating

habits will never be the same again. All her food has to be softened and she

can no longer eat biscuits or bones. The greyhound had to endure an

unusually long procedure and was under anaesthetic for 2 hours and had to

have several stitches. She was suffering from Periodentitis which is a form

of gum disease. The Veterinary surgeon informed our greyhound buddy that

this type of disease can be hereditary, but can also be caused by neglect

and poor nutrition. We will leave it up to you to decide which one you think

it is however, considering many greyhounds suffer from this problem we can

only assume that it must be due to poor neglect as we have rescued several

greyhounds that always seem to have very bad teeth. A vet at this practice

(which we cannot name), mentioned that they had previously worked with

racing greyhounds and said that it was common for trainers to rub pure

glucose on the gums of the dog to give it an energy boost just before a

race, this in turn obviously would rot the teeth and gums at a faster pace

than normal.

Consequently this lovely greyhound has been given anti-biotics, anti-

inflammatory drugs and painkillers. We have been informed today that she is

now doing well. God bless her.

SDGA will always endeavour to highlight and expose any cruelty and neglect

of greyhounds and as a matter of interest we recently sent a press release

to several papers about another greyhound that had 20 teeth removed due to

previous neglect. The teeth were sent to us in the post.

We hope that this email yet again provides evidence that greyhound racing

should be abolished due to the majority of people involved in the industry

who simply do not care for their dogs and use them for their own personal

gain!! see www.greyhoundaction

.org.uk for further details. This story will

be published on the Greyhound Action website soon and also Action for

Greyhounds in Norfolk- www.actionforgreyhoundsuk.org.uk

Best wishes SDGA team

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing

(Edmund Burke)