One of Ireland’s most successful canine athletes has been banned from dog-racing indefinitely after three doping control tests found evidence of cocaine in his system. The run happy K9 'Clonbrien Hero' isn't to blame so what do it's owners say? “You can pass traces of cocaine by handling money. When a dog wins a race, people are walking up to the dog and patting it on the head. If they have cocaine on their hands, they can pass that to the dog and it can come out in a urine sample.”
While a 2007 study showed trace of amounts of cocaine on 100 per cent of currency in circulation in Ireland, it’s unclear how those trace amounts could be transmitted to a person’s hands, then to a dog’s head and eventually the dog’s bladder.
Clonbrien Hero is not the first dog to test positive for cocaine. This year in Florida, at least 22 greyhounds tested positive. Experts say it looks like race-fixing. There is a correlation between dogs testing positive and performance. A particular dog in Florida put up her two best times while on cocaine.
