The case of the missing greyhounds

[bigdoglover]

The Arizona Republic

Michael Clancy

It is the mystery of the missing greyhounds, and it is the buzz of the greyhound-loving community.

Up to 200 dogs that were transferred by a Colorado man from Tucson Greyhound Park six months to a year ago cannot be accounted for.

Greyhound activists fear the dogs could be dead. The Colorado man, Richard Favreau, says the animals are fine. The Arizona Department of Racing, which regulates the greyhound tracks, is trying to get to the bottom of it.

"There are lots of e-mails going back and forth," said Susan Netboy of the California-based Greyhound Protection League, the advocacy group that spurred initial investigations of the matter. "Greyhound lovers are a cohesive group."

The story lines converge for much of the way.

Tucson Greyhound Park is the end of the line for racing greyhounds, advocates for the dogs say. Once a dog cannot win there, his career as a racer is over.

The purses at TGP, as the track is known, are less than a third of those at Phoenix Greyhound Park, as are track revenues and the amount bet, according to Arizona Department of Racing statistics.

The Tucson track also has a spotty record in supporting adoptions, said Mary Freeman, president of Arizona Greyhound Rescue in Tucson. She said four adoption groups in southern Arizona place several hundred dogs a year, but with an estimated 50 a month "grading out," or no longer able to race, "there is no way to absorb that many dogs here," she said.

Due to the expense of maintaining what owners, trainers and kennel operators consider an unproductive dog, many of them are abandoned at the track or donated to track operators to dispose of.

The Phoenix Greyhound Park is able to place "90 percent of the dogs that do not go into breeding," said Kari Young of Arizona Adopt a Greyhound, which works closely with the track. The remainder return to their owners, she said.

But TGP frequently has shipped the dogs out of state, where adoptive owners presumably can be found.

One group of shipments, which was sent to Colorado, was contracted to Favreau.

He hauled the dogs in several trips, apparently to his farm in Colorado. But that is where the dispute begins.

Last week, Favreau was suspended for 60 days and fined $1,000 by the racing stewards, the maximum amounts, for failing to keep proper records on the dogs. He was unable to provide documentation about the dogs at a hearing that led to the penalties. The stewards group, the first line of investigation for the racing department, referred the case to the director for further investigation and possibly harsher penalties.

"The issue is where did he go, and where did the dogs go," said department director Geoffrey Gonsher, who will hear the case Nov. 29. "The investigation is ongoing, and we are considering all possibilities."

Favreau, 37, of Calhan, Colo., outside of Colorado Springs, says the dogs are fine.

"There are no dogs missing," he said. "They have been returned to their owners."

He said the dogs were "abandoned at the track by irresponsible owners," and many had no papers - specifically, the "yellow slip" that identifies the dog along with an ear tattoo.

"I did not do anything illegal," he said. Favreau could have gotten off the hook if he had provided documentation of the dogs either from the National Greyhound Association, the official registry for racing dogs, or showed proof they were handled properly.

He has not done so.

"The dogs, where are they?" asked Joan Eidinger of Glendale, editor and publisher of Greyhound Network News. "In a ditch somewhere? Nobody knows.

Eidinger said Favreau "has a history of killing dogs." She and other activists base their claim on records that show 2,652 dogs killed in a three-year period at the veterinary medicine program at Colorado State University. She said the records showed that Favreau was the second largest provider of dogs.

Netboy of the Greyhound Protection League said the organization has kept its eye on Favreau and on Tucson Greyhound Park for years.

"It has been known as a somewhat disreputable track," she said. "It is just a disastrous place."

Calls to the track were forwarded to general manager Chris McConnell, who did not return calls.

The track has a spotty record with the Racing Department. Earlier this year, several track officials had their licenses suspended and paid fines for their roles in the loading and transport of 35 dogs to a racetrack in Juarez, Mexico. Eight of the dogs died in transit.

"This incident, from beginning to end, was very disturbing," one of the rulings said.