{"id":761031,"date":"2020-07-27T08:04:17","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T12:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=761031"},"modified":"2020-07-27T08:04:17","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T12:04:17","slug":"a-culture-of-cruelty-an-exclusive-look-inside-the-secret-world-of-greyhound-dog-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=761031","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A culture of cruelty\u2019: An exclusive look inside the secret world of Greyhound dog training"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t

Pete Paxton: Part of the reason it was so tough for me to watch wasn\u2019t just that the rabbit was suffering. It was the sheer joy that these men had for what they were doing.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n

JIM DE FEDE:<\/strong> Hiding among a stand of trees and overgrown bushes in eastern Oklahoma, Pete Paxton waited patiently for a myth to become reality. An animal abuse investigator for nineteen years, Paxton has gone undercover in puppy mills, slaughterhouses, and factory farms. He was the first person to get video of the barbaric practice of strangling sick hogs, by wrapping a chain around their necks and then hanging them with a forklift as the animal kicks and cries for help. That undercover video led to criminal charges against the farm owner. On this day in early March, Paxton was hoping to document another example of animal cruelty \u2013 the use of live jackrabbits to train greyhound racing dogs.<\/p>\n

For years there have been rumors that some kennels and dog owners were training young greyhounds to race by first allowing them to chase live jackrabbits. Within the industry, it is known as \u201clive lure training\u201d and \u201ccoursing.\u201d The idea is that before the dogs chase a mechanical rabbit around the racetrack, they first need to literally develop a taste of what it is they are chasing. Some trainers believe it gives their dogs an advantage over the greyhounds trained by only chasing the mechanical rabbit around the track…<\/p>\n

Since August 2019, Carey Theil, the executive director of Grey2K, traded Facebook messages with a whistleblower who claimed to have worked for one of the largest kennels in the country. \u201cI worked in the greyhound industry for thirteen years,\u201d the initial message to Theil began. \u201cI have a lot of info I\u2019d like to get off my chest.\u201d The man claimed he not only knew kennels and dog owners were still using live jackrabbits to train their greyhounds, but that he done it himself. And he was able to pinpoint the exact location of where one training facility was located. Keota, Oklahoma. Population 549. \u201cWe receive confidential tips all the time,\u201d Theil told CBS Miami. \u201cAnd sometimes they turn out to be accurate. Sometimes they don\u2019t.\u201d This tip, Theil thought, seemed worth pursuing. \u201cAt that point we reached out to Pete,\u201d he said. Paxton was eager to go…<\/p>\n

Over the years, however, leads dried up, insiders fell silent, and they were left chasing a ghost. Then came last year\u2019s Facebook message. \u201cNot only did he claim that all of the dogs that went through his farm had been live lure trained,\u201d Theil said. \u201cHe claimed he did it himself.\u201d Paxton arrived in Keota in early March… \u201cOne of the worst things that I\u2019ve seen is that one of the men would go up to the rabbit and he would take a rope tie it around the rabbit\u2019s legs or midsection and drag the rabbit on the ground,\u201d Paxton said. \u201cI could see that even if the rabbit was bloody, and dogs had already pushed the rabbit down. The rabbit would start bouncing and [the trainer] would start spinning the rope around his head to entice the dogs to finish the rabbit off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd part of how I knew the rabbit was alive was that I could from eight hundred feet away. I could hear the rabbit screaming.\u201d Paxton said it was one of the hardest things he has ever had to watch. \u201cThere\u2019s not a lot that makes me grit my teeth when I see it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut this was one of them. And part of the reason it was so tough for me to watch wasn\u2019t just that the rabbit was suffering. It was the sheer joy that these men had for what they were doing.\u201d After a few minutes, the men would drag the rabbit\u2019s lifeless body back to their truck. \u201cWell, once the dogs had completely killed the rabbit, they would just throw the rabbit in the pile [on the hood of the truck],\u201d he said with a grimace. \u201cAnd then the bodies would pile up. It was rabbit after rabbit after rabbit. And the pile will just grow and get bigger and bigger until they had no rabbits left in their boxes to use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grey2K provided CBS Miami with all of the raw video Paxton shot for us to review and use as we saw fit on our story. The same video was also provided to law enforcement in multiple states… Florida\u2019s Department of Business and Professional Regulation \u2013 which oversees the greyhound industry \u2013 confirmed it has opened an investigation into the Keota operation. It is against the law in Florida to race Greyhounds that have been trained using live jackrabbits. On March 4, Paxton returned to the training facility. Only this time he saw something even more disturbing. He believed the man who was training dogs on this day, was the former police chief for Keota, Jason Martin, who is now a Haskell County deputy sheriff. According to state records, he raises greyhounds and has been licensed to race dogs in several states including Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he does the same thing as with, you know, that the other guys did,\u201d Theil said. \u201cHe drags the dogs off to the starting gate and he brings the rabbits out. The only difference was that, you know, he made sure none of his dogs were muzzled. They tore all of the rabbits apart alive.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s not a thing to them. It never has been. They grew up with it, right. It\u2019s what I call a culture of cruelty”… With two days of footage, Paxton packed up and left Keota. Back at the Boston offices of Grey2K, they drafted a complaint, outlining everything they found, including all of the video footage, and on April 6, sent it to both the United States attorney in Eastern Oklahoma and the District Attorney for Haskell County.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an industry that has been torturing animals for years and now for the first time we\u2019re able to show it,\u201d said Christine Dorchak, president and general counsel for Grey2K \u201cOur undercover footage shows that both federal and state laws against cruelty to animals is being violated by the greyhound racing industry, particularly the mutilation of rabbits that are being moved in interstate commerce,\u201d Dorchak said, noting the jackrabbits are brought to Oklahoma from Texas. \u201cWe are seeing actors from various states involved in this scheme. It\u2019s a terrible act”… Grey2K has turned the Texas and Kansas video over to the authorities in those states and they are waiting to see what if any action is taken. SOURCE…<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

RELATED VIDEO:<\/p>\n