Dog fighting is a corrosive evil that deserves prosecution

Ugliness is in the eye of the beholder.

But some things are so ugly that they deserve universal repulsion and condemnation.

And one of those things is dog fighting. It is an activity bereft of any social value. Its fighters die cruelly. The dogs’ handlers and those who bet on and cheer the outcomes of fights forfeit their humanity.

And that’s what makes a story by John Goodwin Jr. in last Sunday’s Vindicator so disturbing. The first paragraph reported that on virtually every weekend and more often in warmer months, there is an impromptu dogfight being conducted somewhere in Mahoning County.

There are more serious crimes being committed on a regular basis in the Mahoning Valley, and we all know that there are not enough police to go around. And yet, when the cumulative evil of dog fighting is contemplated, it’s difficult not to wish for more enforcement, more prevention and more prosecution of those who breed and train dogs to be killing machines.

As we said, dog fighting is the source of unspeakable cruelty for the animals thrown into the ring. But it also produces packs of cast-off dogs that have the potential of creating havoc in neighborhoods.

There are city and state laws that prohibit the keeping of vicious dogs. Some attempts to combat the problem have been breed-specific, especially those aimed at the pit bull dog. But the dogs would not be a problem without the people who turn man’s best friend into something horrible. And, it should be noted, all keepers of vicious or potentially vicious dogs are not in the dog-fighting game. Some are simply in over their heads, trying to control dogs that aren’t amenable to control.

Needed: An engaged public

Besides, laws are only as good as the resources society has to enforce them. Last Sunday’s story made an important observation. One of the best tools in combating dog fighting is an alert public that is willing to report the suspicious activity that surrounds an event.

In some other sections of the country, dog fighting is much more organized than here, where abandoned houses have become the staging areas for dog fights. And the abandoned houses that dog-fighters choose are as isolated as possible.

Still, people are in a position to notice unusual traffic headed down abandoned streets. They see things and they hear things that they know aren’t right. It is only when ordinary people with a reasonable suspicion about wrongdoing take the time to call the police that dog fighting will be abated.

A few successful raids on ongoing fights, a few arrests and convictions of those who abuse animals for their fun and profit will put a crimp in the dog-fighters style.

Dave Nelson, deputy dog warden for Mahoning County, said most fights in the county are impromptu events. Meanwhile, Janette Reever, deputy manager of animal fighting for the Humane Society, noted that there are an estimated 40.000 people involved nationally in professional dog fighting.

Better to attack this problem here and now, when it is unorganized, than to allow it to get a deeper and more poisonous grip on the area and the people — many of them young — who are being attracted to its brutality.