On Monday, the Senate Gaming Committee will be meeting in Tallahassee to hear public and industry reactions to gaming and gambling issues, including greyhound racing.
Grey2K USA, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending the cruelty of greyhound racing, is asking greyhound lovers, dog lovers, and animal lovers of all kinds to submit a comment asking the committee to support greyhound decoupling.
Decoupling is basically a law that forces gambling businesses to have dog racing if they're also going to be offering the other gambling options to their customers.
Basically, holders of dog track licenses are required by law to offer at least a hundred days of live racing every year. As owners of gaming businesses, they make money from other forms of gambling, but usually end up losing money on dog racing.
Bottom line, greyhound racing is a dying industry. Yet the law requires these track owners to keep the animals around for racing, which means the dogs are spending most of their time cooped up in small cages and, more often then not, living in terrible conditions.
This is hurting not only the dogs, but the business owners and even tax payers.
Moreover, just like real-life human athletes that get injured playing sports, greyhounds too often get injured during races.
Problem is, unlike real-life human athletes, these injuries go unreported. Mostly because the gaming businesses aren't required to report the injuries, which is just archaic and awful
So, the move to have decoupling is not so much a move to ban dog racing, as it is a move to have the state get rid of an antiquated law that basically forces dogs to race for no good reason.
The Senate Gaming Committee has set a deadline to hear online comments on decoupling by 5:00 p.m. Friday.
Anyone wishing to join the fight for these pooches can click here to leave a comment, to be read by the committee during their hearing on Monday.
Grey2K USA is calling on folks to ask lawmakers to support greyhound decoupling, as well as injury reporting for the animals.
You can visit Grey2K USA Worldwide's Facebook page, as well as follow them on Twitter to get in on all the save-the-greyhound action.
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