PUPPIES IN THE PIT

Dog Fighting is always horrific to witness so imagine how Chief Inspector Jaco Pieterse and Inspector Carly Jordaan felt when they recently viewed video footage of two young pups being pitted against each other.

It’s always difficult to watch these videos but somehow, the tender age of the pups made it so much worse.  Maybe it was because it represented the innocence lost, or maybe because we were reminded of the fact that the conditioning for fighting begins so young and these dogs face an entire lifetime of cruelty and suffering.  If we didn’t find them, we knew what their future would hold;

1. Some puppies will not have a good fighting instinct, these puppies will become bait dogs, used to train those who will become fighting dogs. A bait dog may have their mouth taped shut or their teeth pulled so that they don’t cause any injury to a fighting dog in training.  A bait dog may be used many times over and will suffer lacerations and broken limbs until their short lives come to an end.
2. Fighting dogs will be kept in heavy chains to build upper body strength, they will be subjected to cruel training methods to build their cardiovascular health.
3. They may be injected with steroids or other drugs to “bulk them up” and encourage aggression.
4. They will be abused when they do not perform as well as expected.
5. They will be injured often and repeatedly and given the illegal status of dog fighting, will never see a veterinarian to have their wounds treated.
6. They will never know love and affection and will only know the company of other animals when they are being forced to fight them.
7. They will be starved ahead of a fight to encourage aggression.
8. A losing dog will be killed by their owner, and never in the kindest of ways.