Garlic is one of the first greyhounds to be adopted from the greyhound race track in Fai Chi Kei. MPD Weekender met up with her new owners Edith Lam and her husband Roberto Wong as well as ANIMA President Albano Martins, who set the adoption in motion, in Nam Van earlier this month. 

Garlic is a five-and-a-half-year-old greyhound that was brought to Macau from Australia in 2015, where she had six races under the name Darling Princess. Garlic raced for a year in Macau under the name Dynamite Spice until in January this year Lam applied to adopt her. 

In February she asked Martins if he could help hurry the adoption along and in March Garlic was released to the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau (IACM) by Macau (Yat Yuen) Canidrome Co. Ltd. 

In Portuguese, a dog race track is known as “canídromo”. 

IACM officials were worried that as Garlic had been trained to run after small animals she might be a danger to small dogs and cats in the community and insisted that she stay with them for rehabilitation. Finally on April 7 Lam and Wong were able to take Garlic to her new forever home.

Lam said, “I have always loved greyhounds as they are very quiet dogs, extremely friendly and actually pretty lazy.” 

On Garlic’s adoption Lam said, “At first I applied to adopt a labrador but changed my mind and decided to try and adopt a greyhound, I already have two border collies. When I first applied to adopt Garlic I was told she was a male, which was obviously a mistake.”

Lam said that the first day she took her out, [while Garlic was still with the IACM] Garlic was so happy, she was smiling in the car, and when they got to Coloane she was, “so happy and very inquisitive, she inspected the fallen leaves, running water, passing cars, so much so that the walk took a long time. But Garlic enjoyed herself so much that when I put her back in the car she was really depressed”, Lam added.

Lam went on to say, “Garlic’s life used to be only about racing but when we went out she was happy about everything.” Lam added: “She is very lazy indoors and actually doesn’t need extra exercise.”

Lam said, “I have some advice for anyone interested in adopting a greyhound. They are very good pets, they don’t bark, they are curious about everything.”

Lam and Wong are so enamoured with Garlic that they have applied to adopt another greyhound from the Canindrome.

Martins said, “There are over 600 dogs at the race track and ANIMA has to date 250 applications from places like France, the UK and the US.  The Dog Trust Worldwide of the UK has a large number of people asking to adopt one of the greyhounds and the major dog adoption agency in Germany has recently been in touch with us about the greyhounds.”

ANIMA started an online petition in 2012 to get the race track closed down and as of April 17 there were 368,204 supporters that had signed the petition on https://www.change.org/p/anima-macau-please-help-us-end-the-suffering-of-our-greyhounds.

Greyhounds were originally brought to Macau from Australia until Canberra banned the export of the dogs to the city. The Canidrome now brings in dogs from Ireland, but a bill is going through the Irish parliament to ban the sale of dogs to anywhere that does not have a strong animal protection law, which apparently includes Macau.

Various overseas media have run reports about the conditions at the local race track, which was built in the 1930s. According to the reports, the dogs live in concrete cages, are frequently injured, and if they do not place in the top three in five consecutive races they are put down, despite being healthy or even only two or three years old.

However, the company running Macau’s greyhound races has routinely denied any allegations of animal cruelty. 

According to Martins, before 2015, 30 dogs a month were put down, which has now been reduced to 50 a year if they are seriously injured.  “The dogs suffer a lot of injuries, fractures, cuts and heatstroke; some even die during a race when they hit their heads on the barriers. It has been reported that dogs even race with bandages on cuts.

There have been no vet reports shown on the Canindrome website since May 3, 2016 but it also shows that 20 percent of the dogs sustain injuries at any one time. 

The Canindrome is due to close in October when its concession expires and IACM is leading the fight to make sure the dogs are adopted.

Martins said that “ANIMA would like to take all the dogs when the Canindrome closes and find them homes but to do that we need space. Hopefully the government will allow us to use the land that the Canindrome is standing on for a year or so where we can rehabilitate the animals until we can find them all homes.”

On the topic of greyhounds as pets, Martins said, “Greyhounds are the best pets. They are easy to take care of. I visited a friend in Italy who had six and they just laid around sleeping all day. He even took them to a restaurant where there were other dogs running around. The greyhounds took no notice and just slept on the floor.”

Martins also gave Lam and Wong advice on introducing Garlic to their two border collies. He told them to let the collies approach Garlic but keep hold of her and have a muzzle ready just in case she wants to bite them. Although that would be very unlikely as she is used to being around other dogs.

Lam said that getting a collar for Garlic was quite difficult as it had to be “2 inches wide” as greyhounds have such long necks and a normal collar could damage her spine. “I had to order one from the UK or Australia,” she said.

Lam said after our meeting in an email message to MPD Weekender she wanted to reaffirm: “Please let the public know adopting [a] greyhound is the best decision.  All normal things for dogs are abnormal for ex-racers, for example: falling leaves, cars, [the] washing machine and vacuum [cleaner] etc.  But they can get used to [them all] very fast.  Only a little bit adjustments are needed at the beginning.   

“One more thing is they might chase small furry animals as well as other breeds (but many retired greyhounds can live with cats when they get used to [them] for a period of time after being rescued).  The ‘mistake’ they make is: if unleashed, they chase and normally successfully kill as they are too fast.”

 Lam, Wong and Martins are convinced that greyhounds make great pets as do the thousands and thousands of other people around the world who have adopted the retired racers. 

If you are interested in adopting one of the canines from the Canidrome, Martins said, “Go to our website animamacau.org and make the application for adopting a greyhound (our services/adopt us/adoption application form)
“Insert in Anima tag number “G001” and for the pet name just write “Greyhound”.

“Please be aware that no adoption will be allowed to mainland China and to all countries that have no laws for the proper Protection of Animals! Your exact contact is very important!  All data will be kept confidential!” 

Lam sent MPD Weekender a follow-up email a few days later to inform us that “Garlic is settling down very well in my home.”  

Garlic with her 1st toy on her 1st day in her new home on April 7.