Police photos show demure animal with multiple wounds, visible trauma
Washington D.C. — Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy will grant a $2,500 reward for credible information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for using an abandoned dog as a possible “bait dog” found by Ada, Okla., police. In the world of dogfighting, bait dogs are usually smaller, weaker dogs that are tied up and used to teach larger and more aggressive dogs how to fight and attack.
Photos of the dog may be found here, the Facebook page of the City of Ada police department.
“Anyone who would do this is a danger to animals and people alike,” said Kevin Chambers, Oklahoma state director for Animal Wellness Action. “Animal Wellness Action and the Center want to help the Ada Police identify the perpetrator of this heinous animal cruelty and bring them to justice. Both Oklahoma and United States law treat dogfighting and associated activities as felonies.”
“Dogfighting is as violent a crime as there is, bound together with other criminal conduct,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of the groups. “Last week, there was a case of a 10-month-old baby dying of a fentanyl overdose in the care of parents involved in dogfighting and narcotics trafficking. The horrors of dogfighting seem to have no limits.”
Pacelle added, “It is urgent, for the safety of animals and people, that the perpetrators be identified, apprehended, and, after a conviction for animal cruelty, incarcerated and walled off from civil society,”
News accounts say it’s been one week since officers were dispatched to the intersection of South Turner Avenue and East 17th Street to find a lost dog with what appeared to be cuts, gashes, and patches of lost fur. Officers determined the dog was a stray, and — based on its injuries — had been used as a “bait dog.”
Tips may be sent directly to OKcrueltytips@animalwellnessaction.org or to Ada police at (580) 332-4466.