The Dog Fighting, Animal Cruelty Farce

 Most animal cruelty takes place out of sight, out of mind. Nothing is done about the overwhelming majority of animal cruelty. 

Animal cruelty, including dog fighting, that is in criminal codes and therefore enforceable by public law enforcement is rarely enforced. Unlike almost all other crimes, it is often left to the discretion of individual law enforcement personnel as to whether or not they want to enforce animal cruelty and dog fighting laws. 

This lack of a police response, let alone a proper one, first observed decades ago by a cop that worked a high crime area where dog fighting and animal cruelty were common and ignored, was brought to the attention of a number of animal organizations and individuals. Rather than fight for an appropriate and widespread police response to these crimes, these organizations and individuals did everything they could to capitalize on animal cruelty and dog fighting to benefit themselves and their organizations. 

This included, among other things, plagiarizing, creating self serving documentaries with plagiarized photos, creating misleading and deceptive media and public relations campaigns,  investigating dog fighting and animal cruelty, even though their investigations were often toothless at best, and frequently did nothing more than give dog fighters and animal abusers opportunities to move their animals to new locations. No crime, especially crimes of violence, which includes dog fighting and animal cruelty, should be investigated by token police teams or by nonprofit entities. There is no excuse for any animal organization to ask for money to investigate animal cruelty when there is already public law enforcement entrusted this responsibility. What has been completely lacking is advocacy to get the police to respond appropriately, and for a number of animal organizations and animal advocates to stop exploiting these crimes for their own gain.

The farce persists that animal cruelty and dog fighting are lessened by certain animal organizations and animal advocates, when in fact they achieve the opposite.  Despite the best efforts by that cop, dog fighting and animal cruelty continue to be minimally enforced by public law enforcement. Dog fighting and animal cruelty continues to be heavily exploited and manipulated by a variety of individuals and organizations. 

Dog fighters continue to have greater chance of getting struck by lightning than ever getting arrested for dog fighting.