A LEADING animal welfare officer in the city is convinced that under-performing racing greyhounds are being deliberately mutilated before being dumped and left to bleed to death or starve.
Last weekend a two-year-old greyhound bitch was rescued in Tramore after both its ears had been cut off and it was abandoned in the Priest Road area.
In the past year a number of other greyhounds have also been recovered in Dungarvan. The ears have also been cut off the dogs and they have been left for dead.
Andrew Quinn, welfare officer with the ISPCA, believes that the greyhound recovered in Tramore last week and the other animals rescued in Dungarvan were all racing dogs but they suffered the ultimate punishment of mutilation when they failed to perform for their owners and trainers.
“Racing greyhounds are tagged inside their ears and I believe the reason their ears were cut off was to hide their identity and the identity of their owners when they were abandoned,” said Andrew Quinn.
First reports of the “earless greyhound” were made to the ISPCA on Friday night by concerned residents of the Priest Road area but it was not until the following day the animal was picked up following a search that lasted some six hours.
“The animal was frightened out of its wits and obviously in extreme pain. It was also malnourished and showed signs of dehydration by the time we managed to pick it up,” Andrew Quinn told the Waterford News & Star.
The welfare officer, who has witnessed appalling cruelty to animals in the past, said he was shocked at the extent of the mutilation to “a most timid little dog.” He added that he was even more shocked that there now seemed to be a trend among some racing greyhound owners to adopt drastic measures to hide the identity of abandoned dogs.
He confirmed that there had been a similar number of cases in Dungarvan in the past year and he did not rule out the possibility that the greyhound, which has been called Aoife after the vet who cared for it, was brought from the Dungarvan area to Tramore.
The greyhound is currently being cared for by the ISPCA in the city and when it grows stronger it is hoped that some reconstruction work can be carried out to its hearing ducts and eventually it will go to a good home.
Andrew Quinn, who has expressed his thanks to the people of Priest Road, the Cliff Road and Newtown areas of Tramore, is now appealing for financial support to help “Aoife” and other dogs like her.
“We provide a fantastic service but our funding is very limited and therefore we would be grateful for all the help we can get,” he said.
