This article is from the K9 Magazine archives, subscribe to our newsletter & get our best dog news, tips and articles ---->An undercover reporter has exposed a sickening trade in body parts of healthy dogs who have been destroyed purposefully so their organs can be sold onto the Royal Veterinary College (RVC).
The undercover sting is reported in today’s Sunday Times:
A CLINIC is killing healthy dogs and secretly selling their body parts to Britain’s most prestigious veterinary college for research, an investigation has found.
The Royal Veterinary College (RVC) has a financial agreement with a vet’s practice which provides the organs from dogs on a regular basis.
An undercover reporter posing as an owner found that staff at the Greyhound Clinic in Essex agreed to kill greyhounds for £30 each even though he told them the dogs had “nothing wrong with them”.
The clinic is then paid by the college, which specifically insists the dogs must be healthy before being euthanased, for each animal from which it supplies parts.
The RVC, which is the oldest and largest veterinary college in Britain, admitted that it had a number of similar financial agreements with other clinics to provide specimens.
The practice has “horrified” the RSPCA and animal welfare campaigners and even one of the heads of the greyhound racing industry itself.
The sport has been criticised for failing to explain the fate of thousands of greyhounds which retire from racing each year and then disappear without trace.
Alistair McLean, chief executive of the National Greyhound Racing Club (NGRC), the industry’s governing body, said he was “flabbergasted” by the trade in body parts. “This is completely and utterly unacceptable,” he said. “It is quite scandalous.”
The RSPCA said: “We are shocked by this evidence which appears to show an opening for greyhounds to be systematically destroyed for profit. We certainly would not like to think that there was a financial incentive to ending a pet’s life.”
Maureen Purvis, of the campaign group Greyhounds UK, compared the practice with that of Burke and Hare, the19th century bodysnatchers who killed people to provide corpses for dissection. “What this clinic is doing is the canine equivalent of that,” she said. “It is just absolute butchery.”
This disgusting trade in healthy animal parts is sure to bring pressure to all parties involved. It also leaves open to question how many other, similar arrangements may be in place around the United Kingdom.
Previously The Sunday Times revealed a builder’s merchant from County Durham was suspected of killing more than 10,000 Greyhounds for cash.
This latest Greyhound slaughter brings into disrepute the respected veterinary profession and further questions are sure to be asked as to how long this horrific practice has been going on.
Contact Royal Veterinary College
or
The Greyhound Clinic
Ockendon Kennel, Ockendon Road, North Ockendon
Upminster, Essex RM14 3PT
01708 229466
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March 2, 2008 at 9:40 am
It comes as no surprise that the racing industry, enthusiastically surrender their greyhounds for further exploitation, once their greyhounds can no longer perform for a profit. What is also disturbing is that some veterinary professionals, who we place our trust in and the lives of our pets support these appalling unethical procedures for eventual commercial gain.
As the Chief Executive of the NGRC, Mr Mclean has been quoted as being “flabbergasted” with the news, clearly the NGRC still remain completely oblivious to the fate of ex- racing greyhounds and still have no control in enforcing its rules. It therefore begs the question ‘Will the NGRC ever be able to enforce its rules and regulate the industry or will an independent body be any more successful for that matter?
The fact that such a prestigious veterinary college is aiding and abetting the racing industry with the destruction of healthy greyhounds in significant numbers, suggests that there will always be organisations willing to exploit the endless supply of retired greyhounds and utilise the near 14,000 surplus the industry produce annually, no matter who regulates the industry.
We as a nation cannot possibly sustain the re-homing of 14,000 greyhounds on an annual basis and I’m sure the public wouldn’t support this or any other inhumane disposal of this graceful and passive breed, so lets just call an end to it, period!
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March 2, 2008 at 3:10 pm
The comment from Alistair McLean, chief executive of the National Greyhound Racing Club (NGRC), saying that he was “flabbergasted” by the trade in (greyhound) body parts, just about says it all, in-so- much that the greyhound racing industry want ‘self regulation’, but apparently, they haven’t got a clue as to what is happening to greyhounds when they are of no further use !!!
Heartfelt thanks to Daniel Foggo, and the Sunday Times for another exposure of the truth behind this killing industry, and all in the name of ‘profit’.
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March 3, 2008 at 3:19 am
As if it’s not bad enough that greyhounds are exploited for their speed and endurance now they are having their sacred organs stolen from them. This is outrageous.
Please do not support greyhound racing in any way. The time has come to stop abusing man’t best friend. I am appalled and only hope that this type of expose will put an end to the racing industry once and for all. Well done Daniel Foggo for exposing this, another nail in the industry’s coffin.
Helen Stevens
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March 4, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Pathetic alround, like lots of establishment organisations, they keep their heads down until they are found out, then adopt ‘plan B’ which is to try to damage limit the mess they are in.
Total rubbish and the ‘students’ come across like a pair of mad scientists!
All this article has done is confirm my low opinion for some vets (obviously not all as many are great), like all things however there are always rotten apples in every barrel.
Please let us have some form of inquiry into this barbaric trading.
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