Do Greyhounds make good pets?

kelli · Post by **kelli** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 7:25 am

Ive just read it -

The picture is awful - her idea of the future obviously - a man standing with son outside an old greyhound track which is now used for speedway asking "whats a greyhound dad"

thats nice isnt it - she wasnts the greyhound wiped out, Id agree if it was asking whats greyhound racing - but no whats a greyhound, greyhounds are dogs in their own right - even before racing

I am very angry over this bit:-

"If it is true that Greyhounds kill many more animals than most dogs, then this fact could be seen as unacceptable. "

you cant just make facts up like that

this is all based on one bad day - she has made greyhounds out to be the ultimate killer of all animals - I think its simply not true.

The questions we are all used to hearing about their welfare are all valid while they exsist, but for me - and for the countless owners who have lost sheep, rabbits, cats and dogs to greyhounds - these are equally valid questions that need addressing.

She has totally flamed the whole breed - how DARE SHE

where were the owner/s of these two Greyhounds - were they tatood? whose responsibilty were they, were they known to be keen? why werent they onlead muzzled if yes? Again it is the owner who has to answer - we are supposed to be the intelligent ones - it is not breed Greyhound this stupid woman should be condeming.

Josie · Post by **Josie** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 10:36 am

To be fair, she does say IF it is true, not that it definitely is.

I've been a bit upset by some of the posts elsewhere and the venom directed towards Beverley and the magazine. Dogs Today has done a lot of good for dogs, and people are so quick to forget that

Silly article by a silly woman, but it doesn't HAVE to be the end of the world.

Jo

emmabeth · Post by **emmabeth** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 10:52 am

I do agree with Josie, Beverley and Dogs Today have done a lot for dogs, one balls up does not wipe all that out, and I very much doubt ANY of us can claim to be 100% perfect, to have never made an error.

Mattie · Post by **Mattie** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 11:47 am

Many people have worked hard for ex racing Greyhounds and to promote sensible ownership of them, it has been a very long road, things are not a lot better now than they were when I got Merlin in 2003. Greyhound Gap say that all ex racers should be muzzled when off the lead and I agree with them although a dog can still do a lot of damage.

This was a knee jerk reaction, after the way Joe has been left after being attacked by 2 Weimaraners I could be the same as her, but I am not, it wasn't the dogs fault but the owner.

Beverly let an article be published in Dogs Today that she hadn't seen even though 2 people said it there would be a lot of letters about it. She was busy. The vet who didn't bother to check the age of the race horse Flockton Grey has regretted it every since and will never make that mistake again. Flockton Grey was a 2 year old race horse and a 3 year old ringer was raced in his place, the ringer won the race. Both these horses had 9 worls on their neck in the same place.

Mistakes happen but Beverly hasn't done anything to reduce the damage but only to say why it was allowed through.

This article was written be a vet, yes they are human but she should have stopped and thought before letting this article go forward to be published. She should have been attacking the owner not the breed of dog.

Everyone makes mistakes, it is how they are handled that matters, this hasn't been handled properly which is why so many people are up in arms about it.

emmabeth · Post by **emmabeth** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 1:13 pm

That is also true...

Perhaps next months Emma Milne column could be held back and a pro greyhound article AND an apology could be put in its place.

(And I am sure mattie and I between us could come up with something to fill that space!)

thistledown · Post by **thistledown** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 1:38 pm

Mattie wrote: Beverly let an article be published in Dogs Today that she hadn't seen even though 2 people said it there would be a lot of letters about it. She was busy.
.........

Mistakes happen but Beverly hasn't done anything to reduce the damage but only to say why it was allowed through.

.........

it is how they are handled that matters, this hasn't been handled properly which is why so many people are up in arms about it.

I agree with this Mattie. The blog was more of a list of excuses than a straight apology. Sometimes when one is apologising it is better to leave out the excuses or it makes the person apologising look a little sorry for themselves and I am sure that is not really the image Beverley would wish to project in the circumstances.

Post by **Victoria** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 6:49 pm

Please no more getting at Beverley on this forum. She made a mistake. I am an honorary friend of Greyhound Rescue WE and have been in constant contact with them since this happened. They say that Beverley has done so much for them and has supported Greyhound rescue for many years. She's getting battered enough as it is on her blog and other forums and I'm sure will make things right.

emmabeth · Post by **emmabeth** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 9:00 pm

Indeed - and further bashing of anyone won't achieve anything useful at all!

*puts on Mod hat.. weilds a big stick... mmmmm bashing*

thistledown · Post by **thistledown** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 1:40 am

Okay

Mattie · Post by **Mattie** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 3:48 am

I wasn't trying to bash Beverly, 'onest

, I do have a lot of sympathy for her because of the way people are.

What doesn't surprise me is the amount of people who really have attacked her, I suspect most of the worst ones, haven't even read the article but have jumped on the bandwaggon to abuse her. Some people seem to enjoy attacking others especially as a pack. Any ideas of the pack theory on people

grahamrobinson · Post by **grahamrobinson** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 5:51 am

The article is depressing for any number of reasons. Quite apart from the potential damage to the various Greyhound rescue charities (and let me be open here, and say I volunteer for one) the part that really scares me is that this column is arguing against the notion of "blame the deed not the breed". Did we really need to open the "ban dangerous dogs" can of worms again?

At the moment it looks like Milne is standing by her comments, and Dogs Today are going to apologise but keep Milne on staff, which rather negates the apology. As it stands, I'll be joining the boycott.

Cheers,
Graham

booandloo · Post by **booandloo** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 10:03 am

I have sent an email to Dogs Today but as I suspect they will get thousands mine stands little chance of being published. If you're interested here's what I wrote.

EMMA MILNE, HOW DARE YOU! After everything that has been said and written about â€œdeed not breedâ€

beverleyDogsToday · Post by **beverleyDogsToday** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 2:18 am

Sorry I've been away from here for a while, the Greyhound article has somewhat changed the axis of my world!

We are doing as much as we can to negate the Emma Milne article in our next issue and that has meant quite a lot of pages changing at late notice and new content being assembled and sourced, plus there's been the blog comments to keep on top of and talking to lots of people in Greyhound welfare to see what would be the most effective thing to do to counter the perceived dent to the Greyhound's reputation. So consequently I've not had a chance to do anything else for a while!

It would be easy to withdraw and wait till people calm down, but I've tried to face it all head on and translate the energy from negative to positive. It's a recipe for getting savaged, but it's better to get it over with and show people that you are sorry and want to pet things right.

No Emma Milne column next month, just an apology. I'm then left with a dilemma as her next three columns are already written as they're all about a special project she was working on with dogs in Africa. Just seems a shame that this charity won't get the exposure if Emma is cast out to appease the angry crowds.

Emma is a feisty vet, in my opinion she didn't properly consider the consequences when she wrote what she did. That if she had she'd have probably not changed her core views, but she'd have argued them in a less destructive way. Columnists don't have to say what the editor believes in, far from it - I like people to have their head, but she crossed a boundary with this column and I think the result was something that she didn't plan for. It was a bad article. My team thought we allow free speech so it was probably okay even though no one agreed with her stance. If I'd seen it I'd have pulled it or stuck something up against it that countered it.

Can't turn back time, can keep saying sorry. Can do my very best to turn out an edition next month that answers the points raised in spade loads and makes people in Greyhound rescue's jobs a bit easier as a result.

Interesting points re pack mentality, you really do feel the pressure to do something symbolic - but the reality is, would all this go away just by dropping Emma? Would that help Greyhounds in any way? It's closing the door after the horse has bolted.

She will have learned a lesson with this and I certainly have. She has campaigned long and hard over other issues of animal welfare, it's a shame for her that all that seems now to have been forgotten. But I can understand the anger, too. I'm trying to mediate - to try and get Emma to get involved in Greyhound welfare so she'll not just say sorry, she'll really, really mean it and feel what these people are feeling.

To speculate what would happen in a world where greyhound racing is banned is fine. The problem for me was contemplating genocide of an entire breed as the result of a bad day at work - and that's the thing that people are understandably upset about!

Mattie · Post by **Mattie** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 7:15 am

No Emma Milne column next month, just an apology.

That will go a long way to help the problem Beverly. What has fueled the outrage over this is Emma refused to accept that there was something wrong with the article and kept justified it. This made things a lot worse.

I'm then left with a dilemma as her next three columns are already written as they're all about a special project she was working on with dogs in Africa. Just seems a shame that this charity won't get the exposure if Emma is cast out to appease the angry crowds.

Put these articles in, it can test how the readers are and you can also put in something like you won't let a charity loose out because of one bad article and it will give everyone breathing space to see how things are going. Possibly a month or 2 were there was a guest writer until things quieten down then it can be reviewed if Emma does write for you again.

Emma isn't the only feisty person, both Emmabeth and I can be and there are lots of others. There are consequences to everything we do, but sometimes we forget about them.

Interesting points re pack mentality, you really do feel the pressure to do something symbolic - but the reality is, would all this go away just by dropping Emma? Would that help Greyhounds in any way? It's closing the door after the horse has bolted.

I agree, many people don't like Emma not only as a writer but as a vet and some have taken this oportunity to attack her, and with her Dogs Today.

All anyone can do is there best, and you have tried to do that. Hope you are feeling better now/
[/quote]

thistledown · Post by **thistledown** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 2:10 am

Hello Beverley,

Emmabeth has asked us to play nicely, so I will do, but it is fair to say that I am at the angrier end of the spectrum of critics. However, I don't expect I could say anything that you have not already heard over the last few days.

One thing I have to commend you for is that you have maintained dialogue throughout the furore which is more than EM has done.

EM's article was ill-considered on many levels, but her refusal to engage with her critics (think of the wording of her Setting the Record Straight comments on her website, and the feeble paragraph about a forthcoming apology tagged onto the end of her current homepage comment, lost at the bottom of the page) has compounded the outrage. As Mattie says, there are consequences to what we do.

You have hinted publicly that you are considering dropping EM as a contributor, and you seem to be thinking aloud as to whether this would do any good for greyhound welfare, or whether it would be a knee jerk reaction to appease the critics. You have actually been quite scathing of her (and absolutely rightly too IMO - you have taken a lot of critcism that she could have easily defused).

I know a couple of people who contribute articles for publication and I'm sure that if they were in the position of being able to read on open forums and your blog that their future was being considered by the editor(s) the damage to the working relationship would already be beyond repair.

I think maybe things have slid too far already .......