ADOR denies PRR

Dear Arizona Department of Racing:

I faxed a public record request for injury reports  for greyhounds at Tucson Greyhound Park.

I received a timely response from Arizona Department of Racing:

“ Dear Ms. Zoldan:  We are unable to provide records in response to your Public Records Reproduction Request of August 17, 2012 requesting “All Tucson Greyhound Park greyhound injury reports for the period of January 1, 2012 through and including July 31, 2012” for the following reason:

The Department does not have public records in its possession which are responsive to your request.

The Department’s response to your request is complete. “

Let’s continue our dialogue . Now my question to the Arizona Department of Racing is: Why don’t you have the injury reports for Tucson Greyhound Park?

According to the Arizona Department of Racing website, “The Department of Racing regulates the Arizona pari-mutuel horse and greyhound racing industry. The Department oversees and supervises all commercial horse, greyhound, and county fair racing meetings; licenses participants; collects state revenues generated by race meetings; promotes and encourages the breeding of horses and greyhounds in the State; and enforces laws and rules related to racing and wagering to protect industry participants and the public.”

According to the Arizona Department of Racing’s Mission:

“MISSION STATEMENT
To regulate and supervise pari-mutuel racing and wagering conduced in Arizona in order to protect the racing participants and the wagering public.   . . .  .”

Just how does the Arizona Department of Racing regulate the greyhounds’ welfare?

According to this document injury reports do exist and here is proof.

How do you protect the racing participants otherwise known as greyhounds if you don’t ever ask to review the injury reports?  The above report states that “the track condition accounted for 7 of 19 injuries and the injuries cluster around fractures.   Some hock injuries can and are rehabilitated  and others are career ending.” (Does that mean the dogs have to return to racing after their hock injuries heal?)  This looks like there are problems at the dog track in South Tucson.

My question to the Arizona Department of Racing is: What kind of regulating is that?

What's so interesting?

Here’s a short roundup of serious animal news this past week.

Greyhound racing injuries in West Va.
Earlier this week, the Charleston Daily Mail in West Virginia reported on more than 3,000 dog racing injuries from 2005 to 2010 In the article, the pro-racing contingent uses the same lame excuse that dog racing is no worse than horse racing or NFL injuries. After reading the article, watch this disturbing video showing some of the injuries. Warning: it’s graphic. All the dogs in the video suffered fatalities. (Blogger’s note: When football players are injured; nobody euthanizes them.)

Animal cruelty in Ohio
This heartbreaking video portrays major animal cruelty to Rottweilers under the guise of a K9 training business. From this episode, a bill was introduced in the Ohio legislation but died in the 2010 legislature. The bill dealt with stiffer animal cruelty punishment. The bill has been reintroduced in 2011 and is called Nitro’s Law. (Blogger’s note: Let’s hope this year’s Ohio politicos have more backbone and conscience. Warning: graphic images.)

Animal bloggers rock
I received an email from five different people about the ebay protest to ban puppy mill advertisements from ebay classifieds. The problem is the ebay classifieds format is an easy way for puppy mills to sell more dogs. The day I signed the Change.org petition there were 9,144 signatures. Today I looked and there were 91,549 signatures. Animal bloggers and animal lovers rock. Read the comments which includes ebay and others. Let’s hope our voices make a difference!

(Photo: Karyn Zoldan took this photo of her greyhound Jett and his “girlfriend” Donut looking outside.)