ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that there are many lessons to be learned from doping in animal sports that can add perspective to the debate about human doping. Drug use in animal sports relates to both performance-enhancing and performance-impairing measures and it has dissimilar ethical implications and is also more complex than doping in human sports. Sporting organizations today, such as the World Anti-Doping Agency, assert that they aim to preserve legitimate sport and prevent disreputable practices. The successful doper makes an instant profit, whereas doping positives may not affect the earnings of individual dopers who are not found out. The example of pigeon racing exposes the futility of the anti-doping enterprise in animal sport from a health protection perspective. The relative ineffectiveness of doping in sled dog racing can be put into perspective by comparing it to human athletics. Anti-doping in animal sports is a peculiar practice that has little to do with protection of animal welfare.
