An alarming number of injured dogs have been dumped at Swope Park in recent weeks. The dogs, mainly pitbulls, have injuries consistent with being used either as bait dogs or having been fought in one of Kansas City's unfortunate dogfighting rings.
Conquest, one of the victims, was dumped at Swope Park the week of January 13th, and rescued by Missouri Pitbull Rescue. She is currently being treated and rehabilitated and will be available for foster or adoption. Several of the other dogs are safely in the hands of loving volunteers at TARA and Halfway Home Pet Adoptions. These amazing organizations need your help! They need donations, foster and adoptive homes for these (any countless other) dogs.
Dogfighting is a sick and heinous "sport" and is illegal. If you know anything or see anything please call the Kansas City Police Department, or any of the following organizations:
Signs of dogfighting may include (but certainly not be limited to); a large number of "pitbull" type dogs in one location, a large number of "chained" dogs in one location, as well as injured dogs and dogs with scarring. Training equipment is another indicator of dogfighting. Training equipment is used for fighting dogs and can include rape stands, treadmills, break sticks and springpoles. A rape stand is used to breed a female dog, a break stick is used to "pry" apart jaws during a fight and a "springpole" is usually found hanging from a tree. This equipment might be kept in a backyard, garage, shed or basement. Another indicator is large amount of people coming and going at odd hours (with the other signs of dogfighting).
The animal activist community is close-knit yet we need the help of the public, media, law enforcement and anybody else. Dogfighting needs to stop and dogfighters need to be prosecuted!
Stay tuned for my upcoming column on the national movement "Taking Action To Stop Dogfighting."
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