It’s not long since high-profile American footballer Michael Vick was incarcerated on account of dog fights.

Pitting any animals to fight one another is barbaric. Over the centuries in Western society we have put a stop to bear-baiting, cock-fighting and other similar activities.

Dog fighting is proving hard to eradicate though, even in New Zealand:

… the SPCA and police issued a search warrant and raided a south Auckland house fearing it was the centre of a dog fighting ring.

A dog owner at the property was issued with a written warning for pitting his own dogs against each other. …”We do take it very seriously. It’s a blood sport, it’s barbaric and it’s totally unnecessary,” says [the SPCA's Jim Boyd]

But it is a secret blood sport, which hard to expose and generally kept alive by gangs.

[Via : Dog fighting on the increase in New Zealand | NATIONAL News.]

If these guys want to prove how ‘tough’ and ‘manly’ they are then they should set up a ring and fight one another directly. I don’t care if they batter one another to death — provided that as a taxpayer I don’t end up paying for health care for the survivors. They should be ‘tough’ enough to fight their own battles and not force dogs to do their fighting for them.