the color of dog fighting

There was some chat on the Net today about a Today Show piece that highlighted a program to end dog fighting. The report was peppered with formula clips of dogs engaged in bloody battles mixed in with young black guys who've changed their ways. It was a schizophrenic five minutes as far as the dogs were concerned: dogs acting scary, dogs climbing agility equipment, more dogs acting scary, finished with a cute dog who wowed the show hosts with cute tricks.

The report raised eyebrows from people who've been watching this campaign work its marketing pitch on the general public. (Yes - of course the campaign is marketed. Every well-funded campaign is marketed.) We noted the audible silence of our colleagues as well as the predictable shock and horror reactions from the public: "Dog fighting is so so mean and someone needs to stop those thuggy people from doing it." Right - Okay.

But let me tellya my fine white friends: Young black guys in select neighborhoods in select cities are - proportionately - not a particularly big threat to the state of pit bulls in this country. And as far as we've noted in our work with municipalities near and far, dog fighting is not nearly the epidemic it's been made out to be. It's out there, it's awful and we want authorities to stop it - but it's not a so-called epidemic, worthy of juxtaposing violent images of dogs being slaughtered next to the faces of repentant young black men on the Today Show.

America believes differently though. Last weekend a student reporter came to our shelter-based training class, hungry to write a report on dog fighting. He chatted excitably about the epidemic that's everywhere. Did we have any former fighters we could point out to him? His buddy stood by with a camera, ready to grab images. I scanned the 40 or so dogs doing drills in front of us and did a quick inventory. Hmm. Not today. Maybe next week. "How about that one with the scratches on his face?" "Yeah - he's a Dogo Argentino and there's no telling what scuffle he got into." Explaining, "Dings on dog's faces don't necessarily point to organized dog fighting - or street fighting for that matter." I think I disappointed him, but frankly, we're like most cities with shelters crowded full of dogs who've simply lost their homes for a variety of unfortunate reasons.

No doubt there are way too many unemployed urban youth with too much time on their hands embracing the gore sport. However, historically dog fighters in this country have been - and quite literally still are - snowball white.

The bad guys can be counted as white high school science teachers, white female dog trainers, and even white humane investigators exposed on video for all to see. They're dotted around the country in pockets here and there, they're organized, and they're getting caught - as they should.

The difference is, only one color of dog fighter is being coached on how to show compassion to animals and paraded on the Today Show.

Overstating the problem of dog fighting, directing it at young black youths and flashing America with images of dogs engaged in battle might work from a marketing perspective, but it can actually work against the cause by deepening fear and stereotypes. This is especially true in communities that have BSL. From a big picture perspective, the larger threat to the dogs is much more insidious and mainstream than the guy in the ghetto: It's the unforgivable prejudice that forces families to surrender their dogs to a shelter because no property owner will rent to them -- even to a hero dog. It's the obstinate librarian in an affluent suburb of San Francisco who believes children should be shielded from short squatty dogs with fat heads. It's a city attorney who's leading others to believe that dog fighters are actually funding the fight to end a BSL-massacre in Denver

End Dog Fighting - of course. But a broader battle call should be to End the Ignorance before it infects policy makers in your town and sends untold numbers of dogs who've never been near a dog fight to their untimely deaths.

EDIT - The HSUS has since ended its "End Dogfighting" campaign and replaced it with the much more realistic and productive "Pets for Life" campaign. Bravo to them for recognizing that the 'guy in the ghetto' is not the enemy of the pit bull!