A giant billboard will remind Canning residents of the toll racing takes on greyhounds, with advocacy group Free The Hounds [FTH] taking their campaign to the next level.
Last year in WA 16 racing dogs were killed, with nine of those 16 dogs dying at the Cannington track.
FTH president Melissa Harrison says the billboard shows dogs that have not retired from racing, but rather survived racing.
“Nine of those 16 track deaths last year happened at Cannington, so that’s why we’re ‘planting the flag’ with the billboard first in Canning,” she said.
“We want to mark each of those deaths, as well as the greyhounds that suffered 834 racing injuries last year in WA, with 157 of those being major ones.
“The Canning billboard shows three greyhounds that raced in WA – Georgia, Tinker and Smokey – while Grace survived the notorious Macau Canidrome and Paddy came from racing on the east coast and the Northern Territory.
“Smokey suffered a left hind leg toe fracture due to racing, while Paddy had to have an eye removed after being surrendered to a rescue group.
“This counters the racing industry’s jargon about ‘retiring’ a dog from racing, when in fact they are discarded for being too slow, or they are injured too badly to continue racing.”
Ms Harrison said the image of the five rescue greyhounds will run for one month near the Cannington track and will be seen by more than 260,000 people.
Free The Hounds will also hold a protest at Cannington track on Friday April 14 against the 2023 Sandgroper race which will be held that night.
“We invite the public to join us there in calling for an end to the hobby of dog racing in Western Australia. They can contact us via our website,” she said.
“As far as animal lovers are concerned, the Sandgroper race memorialises a greyhound killed last year at Cannington.
“Poor two-year old greyhound Sandgroper was euthanised on May 4, 2022, after he fell and fractured his left front leg.
“We feel RWWA gave little thought to the naming of the Sandgroper race event.”
This year, racing at Cannington has resulted in 12 broken right hocks, one broken left hock and one right ulna/radius fracture
Last Friday, greyhound Pauline Keeping suffered an open fracture to her right forearm due to a collision in the catching pen and just shy of her third birthday, she was euthanised by the on-track vet.
“There is nothing entertaining about watching dogs get injured and die,” Ms Harrison said.
“We want it shut down as do most Australians. Research shows they don’t want it subsidised with their tax dollars.”
