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Friday, November 28, 2008


2007 Investigation Reveals an Explosion of Pit Bulls in Las Vegas

Black Market Breeders
Las Vegas, NE - Given the rarity of dog bite fatalities (20-30 per year), it's important to take a closer look at cities that suffer 2 fatalities in the same year. In 2007, San Antonio suffered 2 fatalities; both attacks were attributed to pit bulls. Recently, we've been writing posts about San Antonio (Bexar County). Officials do not appear to be prosecuting under Lillian's Law, there is a sizable stray dog problem and the city shelter is headed toward a "no kill" policy even though the facility is overflowing with animals.

As this Las Vegas article describes, San Antonio may also be suffering from a proliferation of pit bulls being bred by the worse kinds of breeders: backyard, dogs bred for fighting, and greedy opportunists. A single litter from a decent bloodline can generate $3-8 thousand dollars. Unlike Harris County -- who drove the legislation after a young boy was killed by a stray pit bull in 2006 -- Bexar County has not banned roadside (and parking lot) sales of animals either, which is where many of these sales take place.

Las Vegas may have suffered its second pit bull fatality as well. Back in September, Cendi Carey was ripped from her stroller by two pit bulls and killed in North Las Vegas. As we started to do background research on the city, this May 2007 article cropped up, which reports an "explosion of pit bulls on the streets of Las Vegas." Backyard breeders were raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars by selling pit bulls. These dogs stand a high risk of being unstable, and many may wind up stray or at shelters for adoption.

Highlights of Las Vegas Breeder Article:
  • "[Pit bulls] are being bred -- and inbred-- in record numbers, and then sold like drugs or illegal weapons in clandestine street encounters. This illicit trade is a danger to public safety, a drain on public dollars, and a tragedy for the dogs themselves."
  • "With the money that's involved with them, it's easy to sell the pit bull. Chief Womble and his 12 officers handle 30,000 calls a year. About half of them involve pit bulls. Hundreds of those calls involve pit bulls that have bitten a person or animal."
  • "Pit bulls have become the dog of choice for street gangsters and wannabe gangsters. Web sites and MySpace entries that directly appeal to a street audience advertise pit bull pups that sell in Las Vegas for up to $2,000 apiece."
  • Backyard breeders also push their wares in the classified pages of the local paper. Anyone who breeds and sells dogs is supposed to have a license. Few, if any, of the ads mention a license number.
  • "Unlicensed breeders treat the dogs like contraband. Animal Control's Floyd Womble said, "They sell them out of the back of a pickup in parking lots. Won't meet at their residence."
  • "Lied Animal Shelter spokesman Mark Fierro said, "Every time a pit bull has a litter, there isn't five or six little puppies. There's ten or twelve, and they all live. As a result of that, there's a lot of money..." -Channel 8 I-Team, newsnow.com
There is a part II to this article as well. The message is that recent bad breeders have made pit bulls dangerous. DogsBite.org does not argue that unprincipled breeders greatly contribute to the proliferation of dangerous pit bulls. But the pit bull has been selectively bred since the mid 1800s for the purposes of dogfighting. The history of breeding to attain top fighting traits, such as gameness (tenacity), has been present for over a 100 years. Shoddy breeders from the past decade did not invent this deadly trait.

"Gameness" is the ability to continue fighting despite sizable levels of pain and injury. Due to selective breeding, pit bulls have unmatched gameness in the canine world. In the instances of attacks on humans, it's this very trait that results in the following scenario: 4 grown men, 2 baseball bats and a shovel could not stop the attacking pit bull.

Related articles:
11/27/08: 2008 Fatality: 2-Year Old Boy Killed in Clark County, Nevada
11/24/08: Bexar County, Texas Pit Bull Problems Continue to Surface in the News
11/16/08: Massive Dogfighting Sting in Harris County, Texas
11/03/08: Bexar County Still Has Not Brought Charges Against Dog Owners
08/18/08: 2008 Fatality: Pit Bulls Fatally Maul 4-Month Old in Las Vegas
09/18/08: Video: Cendi Kia Carey, 4-Months Old, 911 Tape

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10 comments:

Anonymous Anonymous  |  11/29/2008 11:02 AM  |  Flag  
Not only the amateurs are making a fortune on the black market selling pit bull puppies. The dogfighters make huge money selling these dogs out in the open.

Convicted dogfighter Tom Garner runsa game-dog puppy mill...take a look;

http://tom-garner-kennels.com/

He is openly advertising the bloodlines of his famous fighting dogs...notably Chinaman and Frisco. What do you think he is referring to when he says that Frisco "throws fire no matter what bitch he is bred to"? With a worthless little disclaimer that "no dogs will be sold for illegal purposes" (wink, wink), he will take your credit card number and ship a puppy anywhere in the world. Click on his puppy link and you will notice that he currently has 12 litters on the ground...his kennel usually has anywhere from 12-15 litters available all the time. Since pit bulls usually produce large litters, we can conservatively estimate 96 puppies, at $900-$1000 each. We are talking huge money here, just breeding these dogs. And Chinaman was a manbiter, so we can stop pretending that the dogmen culled manbiters....the dogmen were and are degenerate gamblers, who were only in it for the money.

Since any family who wants a pit bull as a "family pet" can find one for next to nothing at the local shelter or rescue group, any size, sex, color, age, many fully vetted, housebroken, and some even obedience trained; or they can go onto Craigslist and get one for free...what market do you think drives this business? Do you think these gamebred dogs make good family pets, if they have been selectively bred for EXTREMELY high levels of dog aggression?

The pit bull rescue groups who fight against BSL help keep the dog men in business...the are the dogfighters best friend.

Anonymous Anonymous  |  11/29/2008 6:54 PM  |  Flag  
Absolutely right!

The thing that bugs me is that the media seems completely unaware that the NON black market pit bull industry is raking in the big, tax-free money often in plain sight!

They call themselves "show dog breeders" or "pulling dog breeders" or claim they breed for the "love of the breed" but they are GAME DOG BREEDERS pure and simple.

Some are men. Some are women.

Just like the puppy mill industry.

(Vick did that for years when the questions about dog fighting came up. He just mouthed empty words about being a "show dog breeder" and laughed at the rest of us as he bred, sold, and fought dogs and raked in the tax-free cash)

And thanks to few if any breeder licensing laws they make big bucks, easily hide the income, and don't pay a cent on taxes

Where are all these idiotic legislators who are always so concerned about taxes and the rest?

The dog breeders are right under their noses robbing everyone blind

But when there are attempts to get these breeders licensed and on the record, these same legislators too often oppose regulation on behalf of these game dog breeders and let these tax cheats keep cheating away

Where is the IRS and state tax authorities? They go after some poor soul who is missing a receipt on his tax form, but these BIG MONEY dog breeders are raking in hundreds of thousands, more, and not reporting any of the income or paying a cent in taxes on it!

And when Best Friends, ASPCA, and the rest who oppose regulation get together with some of the breeder lobbying groups and help to fight bsl and breeder licensing, they are indeed playing right into the hands of these animal abusers, and helping keep the fighting dog market humming along and getting richer.

They are just tools of the dog fighters.

Anonymous Anonymous  |  11/29/2008 6:55 PM  |  Flag  
A good page to bookmark

http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=106778,00.html

Anonymous Anonymous  |  11/30/2008 12:47 PM  |  Flag  
Thanks to the anonymous poster above....the link is to the IRS website which gives information as to how to report suspected tax fraud. I would suggest that anyone being terrorized by a neighbor's pit bulls; if you know your neighbor is breeding and selling the dogs, contact the IRS. The vast majority of people breeding these dogs are not claiming the income...the dogs are also associated with other illegal activity, such as drug dealing.

Victims need to use whatever legal tools they can find to keep their families safe from dangerous dogs.....this is one more way of putting an end to the back yard breeder operations that are producing the most unstable, dangerous pit bulls.

Anonymous Anonymous  |  11/30/2008 12:50 PM  |  Flag  
Another interesting note regarding Tom Garner's kennel....his website claims he offers "volume discounts" on puppies!

I guess thats in case you want to start your own "yard" of game dogs. I have never heard of any other legitimate breeders of any other breed of dog...producing dogs for pets, hunting, conformation, performance titles, herding, etc....who sold dogs by "volume".

Anonymous Trigger  |  11/30/2008 1:08 PM  |  Flag  
Garner is sooooo bad that even the hard core pit nutters trash him! Guess only folks like Jere Alexander like him. Speaking of Garner...better hurry up and build those kennels. County just passed an anti-tethering ordinance. New ariel shot please!

Anonymous jimmy o  |  11/30/2008 6:22 PM  |  Flag  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KiFOmWbuvc

undercover video footage of inside edition expose on the fighting scumbag.

Anonymous Anonymous  |  12/01/2008 1:28 PM  |  Flag  
Tom Garner claims to make $500.00 a day breeding these dogs.

Anonymous Anonymous  |  12/01/2008 2:37 PM  |  Flag  
I am in the wrong business!

Anonymous Anonymous  |  12/03/2008 3:30 PM  |  Flag  
Job's too dangerous for me!
I'll stick to my own job relying on my talent!
I don't want to have to be armed like a Spartan to go into my own backyard.

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