DOG TRACKS NEED CLOSE INSPECTION

Drugged Greyhounds Only One Issue

Certainly Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist should investigate
the possible use of cocaine at Florida greyhound racing tracks. But
while he's at it, he ought to take a good, hard look at some other
illegal track practices too.

In the most recent complaint, GREY2K USA, a national greyhound
protection group, found that 119 dogs at the state's 18 greyhound
tracks tested positive for the drug from 2000 to 2003.

At the Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Track, where officials say there is
a zero-tolerance policy for cocaine, 10 dogs have tested positive for
cocaine over the past three years, tops among Florida tracks.

Crist needs to find out how and why the dogs are getting the drug in
their systems.

But he also needs to determine if regulators are doing what they
should to protect the dogs.

Here are a few cases in point:

Last May, state officials began investigating a complaint by an
animal rights group that no veterinarian was present at the The
Naples- Fort Myers Greyhound Track when two dogs were seriously
injured. One dog's leg was severed during a race and another broke its
leg in the next race. The dogs were later put down.

State law requires that track officials must have a veterinarian at
the track before, during and after the races, and the track can be
fined $5,000 if it does not.

A spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Business and Professional
Regulation, which regulates pari-mutuel racing, told The News-Press on
Friday that the investigation has not yet been completed -- one year
later.

In May 2002, Alabama officials arrested a former Florida dog track
security guard who admitted to killing thousands of Florida greyhounds
over 40 years after they had outlived their usefulness at the track.

On his farm in Lillian, Ala., just across the Florida border, he shot
them in the head for $10 per dog, about half what a vet would have
charged to euthanize them.

In Florida, it is illegal for pets to be killed by anyone other than a
licensed veterinarian. But not in Alabama.

According to the Mobile (Ala.) Register, which is covering this animal
cruelty trial, which involves Florida racing dog owners and trainers:
"Bryan Wall and Jim Barnes, investigators for the Florida Division of
Pari-Mutuel Wagering, testified that dog kennel owners and trainers
from as far away as Palm Beach County sent greyhounds that were too
old or ill to Rhodes' farm in Lillian to die.

"This case shows what was going on in the greyhound-racing industry in
Florida," said Baldwin (County) District Attorney David Whetstone
after the hearing. "It opens up the eyes to how sinister it was."

And it leaves us wondering how greyhound owners and trainers are
disposing of their dogs now. To be sure, they all are not being
adopted out to loving homes.

Which brings us back to the cocaine issue. Florida tests the
winning dogs for illegal drugs. However, the urine is sent to a lab
and the results aren't available for a couple of weeks.

An owner or trainer is forced to forfeit a drugged dog's winnings and
can be fined, but the wagerer whose pick lost to a drugged dog is out
of luck.

Obviously, the answer is to test the dogs before the race, check the
results and immediately disqualify drugged dogs before they run.

If the greyhound group's findings are accurate, they indicate a
continuing threat both to the animals' health and to the public
interest in honest racing, and suggest the whole system needs a
critical review.