Victory for Greyhounds! Colorado Bans Dog Racing

This week marks a wonderful victory for Colorado’s greyhounds – they can now be safe forever from the threat of racing! GREY2K USA reports that Colorado’s Governor John Hickenlooper recently signed a bill prohibiting greyhound racing in the state. Hooray!

Colorado is the 39^th state to make dog racing illegal, following more recent additions such as New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and the U.S. Territory of Guam in 2010 and Pennsylvania in 2004.

Colorado’s legislation was drafted by GREY2K USA President and General Counsel, Christine Dorchak, and was supported by a variety of animal protection groups from Colorado Voters for Animals and Colorado Citizens for Canine Welfare to the ASPCA and the Humane Society of the United States, in addition to the bill’s leading co-sponsor, Representative KC Becker (D-Boulder).

According to a GREY2K USA report on Colorado’s dog racing industry, greyhounds “endured lives of terrible confinement and were kept in warehouse-style kennels, in staked cages that were barely large enough for them to stand up or turn around.”

What’s more, injury was frequent at the tracks. The greyhound protection nonprofit states that 2,636 greyhound injuries were reported at the state’s dog tracks between 1993 and 2007.

Colorado’s greyhound racing industry has not existed since 2008, as an Associated Press article reports, yet it has remained legal and open to pursue.

Thankfully, the state’s new law outlaws this cruel form of entertainment for good. Eleven more states will still need bans to make greyhound racing illegal in the U.S. once and for all, including Oregon, Connecticut, Kansas, and Wisconsin, who have closed live racing tracks but have not yet enacted a “prohibitory statute,” and Arizona, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Iowa, and West Virginia, where dog racing is both “legal and operational.”

Colorado’s victory is certainly a happy one, but the fight is not over, and GREY2K USA is already planning their next campaigns to bring about more dog racing bans in the U.S. Help them decide where to focus on next by taking their online poll. You can also help greyhounds through adoption, donations, or by taking direct action. We can win this battle!

Image source: Ronnie Macdonald / Flickr