Australian group to adopt local greyhound

Greyhound Rescue, from Australia, is proposing to adopt Brooklyn with the help of GREY2K USA, in a test case to help Macau Canidrome’s greyhounds

The animal welfare protection advocacy group GREY2K USA sent a letter last week to the Macau Canidrome proposing to adopt a greyhound named Brooklyn.
‘Rescue Brooklyn’ is the name of the adoption campaign launched by the association jointly with Greyhound Rescue, a non-profit organisation in Australia that rehomes greyhounds.
“We have identified a specific dog, named Brooklyn, that we will try to help. We will try to send the dog back to Australia for adoption first, but if that does not work we can bring the dog back to the United States or the United Kingdom,” said GREY2K executive director, Carey Theil.
“I expect this will not be an easy task, but for us it is a test case to find out what logistical challenges humane advocates would face in helping these dogs on a more permanent basis,” Theil told the Macau Daily Times.
“I don’t know if the [Macau] Canidrome will agree to work with us, but our letter clearly states that their refusal to cooperate with us would send a troubling message to the rest of the world,” Theil added.
Charmaine Settle from the Board of Directors of GREY2K USA visited the territory recently to better understand what happens inside the Macau Canidrome. She also met with the director of the Macau Society for the Protection of Animals (ANIMA).
The two organisations agreed to join together find a second life for greyhounds that are exported from Australia to the local Canidrome, where they are put to sleep once they are unable to race.
According to estimates, a total of 383 healthy greyhounds were put to death at the Canidrome last year. Race dogs are not given a chance to live a second life beyond racing. Choi U Fai, head of the Municipal and Civic Affairs Bureau’s animal control division, had said that the Canidrome euthanises some 30 dogs each month.
Settle left Macau with the promise to contact other animal welfare protection groups in order to increase awareness of what happens in the Macau Canidrome. It didn’t take long to produce some results.

‘Unacceptable’

In the letter send to the Canidrome director based in Hong Kong, Ng Chi Sing, GREY2K USA criticises the company’s “policy of killing a reported thirty dogs each month,” labelling such procedure as “unacceptable”.
“The way greyhounds are treated in Macau, as part of the civilized world, goes against mainstream animal protection values shared across the globe,” the animal welfare association says in the letter sent last Wednesday.
The largest greyhound protection organisation in the US will cover all the logistics expenses, including the quarantine in Hong Kong. There are no laws on infectious diseases in Macau and the greyhounds would have to stay in quarantine for 40 days in the neighbouring SAR before leaving for another country, which makes it an expensive exercise.
“We recognise it will not be easy to help Brooklyn, and we are ready to address the logistics needed to return him to his home country. Because greyhounds are imported from Australia, that is the natural place for them to return,” the letter points out.
“We view this attempt to help Brooklyn as a test case of cooperation between us.”
A refusal to partner with the organisation “would send a troubling message to the rest of the world,” GREY2K USA warned.
“Brooklyn does not deserve to be destroyed when he is injured or is no longer profitable. Like all of the Canidrome greyhounds, he deserves to find a loving home,” it adds.
The organisation expects to receive “good news” within one month’s time.