The Blue Cross's lack of honesty should be a serious red flag to those on the fence about greyhound racing

Honesty is not the best policy when in opposition 

Death, taxes and the Blue Cross jumping on the GBGB figures when they are released to renew their campaign of nonsense. 

Some things never change and once more the Blue Cross have decided to falsify the figures from the GBGB for their own ends. Their social media post claims that “Over 4,000 greyhounds died… on UK tracks between 2017 and 2024.” Reading figures can be hard though, especially when you’re blinded by your own ignorance. 

Just to help you out Blue Cross, the actual figure is 1,357 in that time. 

You know that though, you just choose not to use it as it is not large or dramatic enough for you. Breaking that down to a fatality rate of 0.03% on the track makes it even less appealing when trying to defame an industry, which is why that is never seen either. 

Of course, their retort to that will be that it’s 1,357 too many which shows just how naïve and simplistic their view on the world is. Sadly, even if the figures were reduced to a single dog in a year, the relentless drive to end the sport would show no signs of stopping. 

No doubt, no dog will have ever died in their care, not that we have any way of checking that as to the surprise of no one, there are no numbers out there on the volume of dogs that die while with the Blue Cross on a yearly basis.

The closest that has been found was a report from the RSPCA in Australia for 2022/23. In this report it says “Unfortunately, despite our best efforts to rehome dogs and help return them to their families, 15.31% (2,875) of dogs/puppies were euthanased…Of the dogs euthanased, the majority of cases were due to severe behavioural issues which made them unsuitable for rehoming (66.30%).”

15.31% V 0.03%

66.3% were unsuitable for rehoming, the very words that the greyhound racing industry get ripped to shreds by the antis for. In 2024 there was a total of 55 greyhounds put down either because there was no home found, or the greyhound was designated not suitable for rehoming. Compare that to the 1,906 that the Australian RSPCA considered unsuitable for rehoming. 

Bear in mind that this is only the RSPCA in Australia, discounting all of the other animal charities.  Plus, this is in a country where the population is less than half of that in the UK! It is estimated by Essential Dog that there are 6.4 million pet dogs in Australia. A study by the Dogs Trust (don’t feel left out, we’ll come back for you in a few weeks’ time) there are 13 million pet dogs in the UK.

No wonder that these charities refuse to publish the figures of the dogs euthanised in their care. If and this is only an IF remember, that same level of euthanasia was to happen in the UK, that would be 5,750 dogs put down by the RSPCA alone each year. 

The RSPCA could easily debunk those figures by releasing their euthanasia figures for the UK… but we all know they won’t. Losing the funding of the public would be disastrous to them. 

It was not that long ago that the Blue Cross were invited to attend the track at Oxford to see things for themselves. Naturally they ignored the invitation, and it was not until Oxford got bored of waiting and withdrew it that the Blue Cross suddenly piped up again! 

According to them, the reason that they didn’t attend Oxford was because, “We have asked the stadium several times for local figures on injuries and deaths than have taken place in the Oxford Stadium and these are yet to be provided.”

So, the same as when pro racers have asked the Blue Cross for the figures on the volume of dogs that are euthanised in their care on a yearly basis then?  

Yet to be provided.

Oxford Stadium tried to engage the Blue Cross

I spoke to Shaun Reynolds who was with Oxford Stadium at that point. 

“We’d been trying to engage The Blue Cross for months without luck. So, when The Blue Cross secured a slot on BBC Radio Oxford a year after it launched its campaign to ban racing, the production team told me and we completely surprised them on air. 

“There and then, we invited them (the same invite we’d made for months behind the scenes without response) and of course they had to accept it on reputation grounds. 

“Three times we had to chase them to organise this date. When we finally got a reply, we were told the matter was being ‘discussed internally’. We had to chase them another two times. 

“Finally, they then accepted our invitation under the condition there was no recording of the meeting, no media presence and we supplied them with Oxford’s injury data – we agreed to all these conditions and listed dates available. A month passed with no reply to this, so we chased them, and finally withdrew our offer to visit six months after the radio slot – and three months after they accepted our offer!”

In a statement last week, Greyhound Racing UK extended an invite to the Blue Cross to meet us at Towcester. As a betting man, I’d be backing an appearance from Lord Lucan in Northamptonshire to be more likely than anyone at the Blue Cross pitching up.

God forbid they might actually learn something about the breed and the sport! 

Their first social media post was quickly followed by a second. “Perrie’s world was concrete floors and the racetrack. No toys. No love. No way out.” They have these as paid adverts, wasting donations on a lost cause once more. It is estimated that circa £150,000 was wasted on this last year, and they are trying that again. 

At a time where pets are being surrendered due to a cost-of-living crisis, one would think that there are much better things for the Blue Cross to be spending money on. 

From a total gross income of 44.923 million last year, the Blue Cross spent 28.2 million on staff salary, 6.119 million on ‘raising awareness’ which is presumably where the money for these nonsense campaigns comes from and 5.124 million on raising funds.

The dangers of TikTok

They know where to target these campaigns for the maximum impact. Social media is awash with ‘experts’ on everything from animal husbandry to quantum physics and it’s to the self-righteous, virtue signallers that the Blue Cross speak.

More and more on social media (TikTok is especially bad for this) #rescuedog is seen on videos of so many rehomed greyhounds. It is a point that Floyd has made well in the past, what exactly were these dogs rescued from? Did you jump in a canal and give mouth to mouth to a drowning dog, feed it hummingbird nectar through a tiny pipette every hour until you taught it to walk again?

No?

Take nothing away from the people who give our retired athletes a home. God knows, we need you and are grateful you open your heart and home to our ex-racers, but you went to a rehoming kennel and paid them money to take a dog home with you. You didn’t rescue anything, please leave the sanctimonious nonsense to the grifters who always have another huge vet bill they can’t pay!

Unfortunately, so many posts follow the style of the Blue Cross. Captions like “It’s his first ever time at the beach,” “this is the first time she’s ever had a toy to play with”, and “he’s never had a soft duvet to lay on before” are all rife. It seems to be a competition of how big a lie can we tell without being called out. 

There was one I spotted this week that claimed, “When I first came home, I was still learning how to eat kibble. I used to be fed slop.” As with all of them, any attempt to correct them ends in a pile on from others who claim to be experts on the breed and a blocking.

It does make it amazing that with two yearly inspections from stipendiary stewards, two from vets and an SCI check for Defra every year that these people think that racing kennels would get away with even a tiny percentage of what they are accused of.

Licensing and inspections are rather different when it comes to keeping a ‘rescue’ kennel, however, but that is a story for another day!