Animals in Sports

Humans aren't the only ones who do sports. Animals don't do the same sports as us of course but they require the same amount of work. Animals sports are a form of working animals. Many animals in commercial sports are highly trained. The most common animals are dogs and horses. In this post, i'll be writing about 2 major animal sports: racing and fighting.

Racing

Racing is the the most popular form of animal sport, especially horse and greyhound racing. Some racing events involve humans as riders while others have the animals race alone. Some racing includes harness racing, dogsled racing and chariot racing. Racing events are a common way to gamble, with billions of money spent. This is one of the reasons why some countries have made this sports illegal. Some people who race horses will dangerously drug or abuse their horses. To make things worse, many retired horses are killed. As for the greyhounds, many end up with sickness and injuries like broken legs, heatstroke, and heart attacks. They are extremely sensitive to temperature because of their lack of body fat and thin coats but yet they're still forced to race in extreme weather conditions. I don't believe in animal racing. It is cruel to make an animal do all this training and running just for entertainment. Horses ankles can't take all that running especially with people on them. It is also terrible that some people they drug them, abuse them and don't care about their well being. No animal deserves this.

Fighting

Dog fighting is one of the most common types of animal fighting but there are also others like rooster fighting. Dog fighting is a type of sport where people pit two game dogs against one another in a ring or pit for the entertainment of others. Game dogs are dogs that are selectively bred and conditioned from a young age to develop certain traits and abilities for fighting. Some of the abilities include maintaining the attack during a fight despite ripped flesh, exhaustion, dehydration and broken bones. Dog fights are between two dogs and doesn't end until another dog is declared the winner, a dog jumps of the pit, it can no longer harm the other or one dies. The loser, if not killed, is usually killed by the owner.  It has been illegal in Canada since 1892 but the current law requires the police to catch people during the the act, which is often difficult. I am against animal fighting for it is just terrible to pin to animals against each other. Especially with the goal of death. I don't get how someone could find this entertaining, I would find it disturbing. I wish Canada would change their law because finding people in the act is hard. Hopefully with time the law changes. It could save many animals lives.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animals_in_sport
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-in-entertainment/cruel-sports/greyhound-racing/
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-in-entertainment/animals-used-entertainment-factsheets/horseracing-industry-drugs-deception-death/