Fight club

Law enforcement says highly organized, underground dog fighting has come to Maine. They also say the state isn't prepared to deal with it.

by Sam Smith

FIGHTERS: professional dog fights typically take place in 20-foot-square rings with carpeting to allow the dogs greater traction. This undercover photo was taken during a fight in a Southern state.

The Androscoggin River runs about 40 miles through the wilds of eastern New Hampshire before cutting a hard left and breaking into Maine. By the time it's run another 30 miles or so and veered south, winding its way between Lewiston and Auburn, all the fight's been taken out of it; the river is clear and slow as it runs under the Bonney Park foot bridge between the twin cities.

Standing over the river, pointing about 100 yards away on either side of the bridge, Auburn animal control officer Bentley Rathbun shows where he's pulled five dead, discarded dogs from the river and two from the woods over the past year. The animals, he says, were of different breeds -- three were pit bulls, the others were mutts -- but they all had something in common: they all had very distinctive scars and open wounds around their muzzle and shoulders. The jagged lines cutting across the animals tell a story, says Rathbun, one most people don't want to hear. But what happened to these dogs has animal control officers across the state and throughout New England organizing.

The animals were involved in dog fighting, he says, but not the kind of fighting that the general public is likely to see. Over the past year, five charges of animal fighting were filed in Maine courts; all of these involved what animal control officers (ACOs), Humane Society agents, and dog fighters themselves call "street fighters," the guys walking around town with, primarily, pit bulls held back on stout chain collars.

"What you see a lot of times," says Rathbun, "is two of these guys will walk toward each other in an alley, let go of their dogs, and say, `Oops, my dog got away, and so did his. It was an accident. It wasn't dog fighting.' We have a difficult time prosecuting them for animal fighting, but we can prosecute them for other things."

Street fighters are a problem, ACOs in the state will tell you, but they're not the prime targets right now, and they're not behind the dead dogs in the Androscoggin. According to Rathbun, the animals he pulled from the river

were involved in a highly organized and underground dog fighting circuit. More precisely, they were used to train the dogs that take part in these fights, fights where the betting can run to purses -- as difficult as it may be to believe -- of hundreds of thousands of dollars, can attract enthusiasts from around the region, and the results of which are tracked and posted in underground magazines dedicated to the sport (their word, not ours). These fighters are known in the business as "professionals," and according to Rathbun and others, they've come to Maine.

"People don't believe me when I tell them," says Rathbun. "They can't believe something like this could be going on under their noses." But there is strong evidence that these fights are going on in the state, and that the problem is only getting worse as professionals are leaving Massachusetts for Maine, its rural environment, and its residents who don't want to know dog fighting is going on.

A migration north

Lieutenant Alan Borgal is the Animal Rescue League of Boston's top cop. He's been involved in that state's animal protection for the past 25 years and has been investigating organized dog fighting rings in Massachusetts for the past 15 years. He's credited with organizing the state's ACOs to mount a coordinated attack on professional fighters as well as directing Boston's successful "Dogtag" program to snub out street fighters. Borgal is now helping organize a New England taskforce, coordinated through the New England regional office of the Humane Society in Vermont, to extend the effort beyond Massachusetts and into the more rural areas of New Hampshire and Maine, where Borgal says dog fighters from his state are migrating.

"You've got a large state like Maine," he says, "very rural, perfect for these breeders who don't want to be noticed."

He says he knows Massachusetts fighters have gone to Maine because informants have told him so and, because of increased communication with Maine ACOs, they have been able to track known fighters into Maine.

"There are fighters we've had a lot of trouble with in Massachusetts who have relocated above Portland," he says. He won't be more specific than that, he says, because of ongoing investigations.

"We have been investigating breeders in Massachusetts we know to be involved in fighting," he says. "And what we've found is that when there is a law enforcement presence, when they know they are being watched, they move out, they go somewhere else. That's why it's so important to have an interstate taskforce."

This new "blood sport" taskforce has two Mainers, Bruce Savoy, the ACO from Old Orchard Beach and a trainer for other ACOs in the state, and Donald Harper, Biddeford's ACO and the state director of the 150-member Maine Animal Control Association. The newly formed group has met twice. It's primary interest is in facilitating the exchange of information between ACOs around New England about animal fighting, so hopefully if fighters move, they can be easily tracked.

"It's so easy for them to disappear off a state's radar screen," says Hillary Twining, the organizer of the taskforce from the Humane Society's New England office. "It's highly organized and structured. They're underground. We want to have a lot of people involved: humane agents, ACOs, shelter people. Right now we're just trying to get organized and start talking to each other."

As testament to dog fighting's covert nature, despite Borgal's years of experience, the impact his efforts have had on street fighters, and the simple fact that he knows who the professional fighters in Massachusetts are, he has never been able to infiltrate the underground blood sport deeply enough to bust a fight. After more than a decade of work, Borgal has never seen a fight himself. Does this mean they don't exist? No, he says, it only shows how organized the fighters are. And it's why if Maine hopes to have any impact on dog fighting it must get serious about the problem.

"We've got maybe 20 fulltime humane officers in Massachusetts," says Borgal. "And the fact is we have a more organized statewide effort and more interest from the police than you have in Maine. And it's still very difficult to find out where the dog fighting is taking place."

Maine ACOs don't take offense at Borgal's words. They agree.

"We're like the three monkeys up here [in Maine]," says Biddeford's Harper. "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Nobody wants to know this stuff is going on, and until the state gets serious about the enforcement end of this it's going to keep going on. We've got some of the best animal protection laws in the country, but enforcement sucks."

And why is that? Critics like Harper say it's because of a lack of leadership from the state's Division of Animal Health and Industry (within the Department of Agriculture), which is responsible for statewide animal cruelty investigations, as well as a reluctance from the courts and the attorney general's office to prioritize animal abuse, whether it be dog fighting or simple neglect.

"Maine is at a crossroads," says Borgal. "You have excellent laws, but there needs to be better reporting and better training. Animal fighting is new to the courts, it's new to the legislature. They're going to have a hard time with the issue if they aren't educated about it. It's good to see some of the ACOs are interested, but there needs to be more enforcement from the state."

In the ring

Although Borgal -- much less an ACO in Maine -- has never seen an organized dog fight, in our Internet age it's easy enough to find out how they're conducted. Complete rules and descriptions of matches can be found at a number of Websites, which claim they do not promote dog fighting and that the information is provided there only as entertainment (judge for yourself if it's only providing entertainment: www.sporting-dog.com or www.nyx.net/~mbur/). If you want the inside view, though, you can also talk to Eric Sakach, director of the West Coast Regional Office of the Humane Society of the United States.

Mention Sakach's name to a New England ACO and a reverential tone takes over. Sakach's undercover work in the '80s and '90s, infiltrating professional dog fighting rings around the country, is the stuff of legend in these circles, and the training he's provided in New England and elsewhere has helped spread the word.

ACO Bentley Rathbun has pulled seven dead dogs from the Androscoggin

Sakach worked from 1977 to 1996 in investigations and undercover operations the Humane Society organized against animal fighting. He says dog fighting has become more prevalent in every part of the country, and points to the increase in underground publications (there are 11 now, up from three a decade ago), the amount of traffic on dog fighting Websites, and the increase in busts that are being reported as proof. At the same time, he says, more states have adopted tougher animal protection laws; 45 states now list animal fighting as a felony, including Maine. (All states list dog fighting as at least a misdemeanor, although Louisiana and New Mexico have yet to outlaw cock fighting.)

Sakach is hard pressed to explain why a blood sport's popularity might ebb and flow, but points to the Internet and a what he sees as a greater acceptance in today's society of violence as contributing factors in the rise of dog fighting. Busts over the past year have stretched from the rural areas of the South to city lots in Philadelphia. In Galt, California, last December, Sakach helped police bust a dog fighting operation in which 55 pit bulls were seized.

The largest bust Sakach was involved in and one of the largest in the country happened in Arkansas near the Tennessee border. Sakach says although the fight was much larger than most -- there were 250 participants -- the organization and operation was typical of most professional fights -- including those here in Maine.

Sakach was on the inside; he didn't have a dog of his own, but had been selling paraphernalia to fighters, which eventually gained him access. He'd started hearing about a large event being organized, and one day, out of the blue, he received an anonymous message telling him to make reservations at a particular hotel in the eastern part of the state, to go there, and to wait.

"Virtually everybody at the hotel was a dog fighter, except in the room next to us, which was the FBI," Sakach remembers. "Everybody socialized. We had set up a leather goods deal in the room, left the door open, and players would come by, have a drink, talk dogs: whose dog is the best, what's the dog to watch. That night you could see guys running dogs in the field behind the hotel, getting them to weight."

Dogs are often contracted to fight three to six months prior to an event. During the time leading up to the fight, the owner will work the dog to ensure he stays at his contracted weight, which is usually about five to six pounds below what the dog normally weighs.

The next day, Sakach got a call in his room telling him to go into the parking lot and wait by his car. He looked out the window and saw guys already lining up, standing in the parking lot. A pickup truck pulled through slowly. Everyone got in their car and began a caravan leading into the country. They drove for about 45 minutes into a farming community and pulled over to the side of a dirt road around dusk. As Sakach and the others waited, two other caravans lined up; the hotel where Sakach was staying wasn't the only meeting place for the fight. There were nearly 100 cars lined up by the time the caravan began moving again, going about five miles down the road to a large barn. The spotters who had been circling the area keeping an eye out for the police, protecting the caravans, stayed outside the barn. It was $35 dollars to get in. Children got in free.

Once inside -- where there was BBQ and plenty of liquor -- the strict rules of the match took over. Following Cajun Rules -- the most commonly used in professional fights, and slightly different from other recognized regulations such as George Armitsee's Rules, Indian Sonny's Rules, or the United Kennel Club's Rules -- the opposing dog owners flipped a coin to get the "washing order," who will wash their opponents dog first, a way of ensuring the animals' coats have not been treated with any toxic substances that would kill their dog as it bit into the animal's fur. The sleeves must be above the elbows during washing. After this was done, the opponents put the dog's coat in his mouth, tasting for any residual toxins, as a final precaution.

After this ritual, the two dogs were taken to the ring -- a 20-foot-square plywood border with a carpeted floor, to allow the dogs to gain greater traction -- and faced into opposing corners. The judge then entered the ring and announced that if anyone was there with law enforcement to step forward.

"The idea," says Sakach, "is if they've asked and nobody stepped forward, but there was someone from law enforcement there, it would be entrapment. That doesn't work. I've got to say, though, there was a bit of a pucker factor when he made that announcement."

After the announcement the judge continued following Cajun Rules, calling the dogs to face one another.

"The dogs fire up when they see each other," says Sakach.

The judge then said to let go of the dogs, and the fight was underway, but you wouldn't have known it from the sounds of the animals. At this stage of the game, as the dogs are finding different holds on the muzzle and shoulders of their opponent, they're quiet, they don't bark or growl.

The object of the match is not to see which dog kills the other. Sakach says in the 15 or so fights he witnessed he never saw a dog die in a fight. The object is to see which dog is most "game," meaning brave and persistent. Often times dogs die after the fight from dehydration, blood loss, or shock (handlers will often carry IV kits for post-fight care), but if a dog loses a fight, the owner will more likely kill the dog himself rather than breed a weak fighter.

Under Cajun Rules, the first time one of fighters commits a "turn," making a non-attack move, the judge calls, the handlers swoop in, break the grip of the dogs' jaws with a "breaking stick" that pries the teeth apart, and pulls them to their opposite corners. There is 25 seconds to clean the blood off the dogs with a sponge and water before the judge calls the dogs again.

At this point the dog that committed the turn is released first and is expected to make an aggressive charge across the "scratch line" located in front of his corner. If the dog does charge, its opponent is released, and the fight resumes until one commits another turn, at which time they're pulled back to their corners. The fight can be stopped if one of the dogs "fangs" itself, meaning it has pierced its own mouth with one of its teeth. The fang is removed from the puncture, and the fight resumes on an imaginary line in the center of the ring.

The fight is over when one of the dogs, after committing a turn, refuses to pass over the scratch line. The average length of a fight is about 45 minutes. A legendary fight in Colorado in 1981 went on for five hours.

After the fights of the evening are completed the judges will award trophies for "best of show" and "most gameness." The fight Sakach was witnessing didn't get that far.

In all the organization for the Arkansas event, with its various fights planned out months in advance, judges flown in from all over the country, elaborate caravans, and spotter cars, the organizers had failed to keep an eye out overhead, where the FBI had planes circling. When the police busted into the barn and screamed for everyone to drop any weapons, "the sound of guns hitting the floor sounded like rain on a tin roof," says Sakach. Drugs and guns were seized along with $500,000 that had been bet on the evening's fights.

It's easy to understand why no one wants to believe Rathbun when he says this is going on in Maine.

Lack of leadership?

Bruce Savoy, Bentley Rathbun, and Donald Harper are the officials in the state concerning themselves most with the issue of dog fighting right now. Savoy and Harper have paid out of pocket for their own training in blood sports offered in Massachusetts. They will say -- some more openly than others -- that they know who the fighters are in Maine, they know where fights have taken place, and they know fighters are coming from out of state. Because of current investigations, however, they won't tell the press where fights have taken place or who their informants are.

"We know they're doing it," says Harper, "but we don't have enough hard evidence to prosecute. You have to be patient and eventually somebody's going to make a mistake."

What they will say is their efforts and the efforts of the newly formed New England blood-sport taskforce will not be enough to effectively quash underground dog fighting. One of the problems Maine faces in organizing statewide investigations is it does not have a large, statewide office of the Humane Society or the Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals -- like Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire have -- to facilitate communication. The other problem Maine ACOs will tell you is there is not enough leadership coming from the state Division of Animal Health and Industry.

During an August 24 hearing before the Agriculture Committee, some of Maine ACOs, along with Borgal from Massachusetts and Twining from the New England Humane Society, blasted what they see as an ineffective state approach to not just dog fighting but animal cruelty in general. Complaints about a lack of enforcement were heard from the public at the hearing as well.

"The [division] should be taking a leadership role, and they have failed to do so," says Harper. "The state humane agent [the enforcement arm of the division] should be looked on as the best educated, best trained in Maine, and they should assist ACOs, help sheriff and state police in enforcing animal cruelty laws and that isn't being done."

State Senator John Nutting co-chairs the Agriculture Committee and voices more tempered concern, saying the enforcement of animal cruelty laws has to be examined. He also takes a historical perspective, explaining how the influence of officials overseeing animal welfare in the state has been weakened.

"You have to realize," says Nutting, "we used to have an Animal Welfare Board that oversaw investigation and set policy. Now all we have is an Animal Welfare Advisory Committee. They don't do anything but advise."

Responsibility for animal welfare in the state falls under the purview of Shelley Doak, the director of the Division of Animal Health and Industry. Within the division is an Animal Welfare Program that includes two fulltime humane agents and six part-time agents, who are there to enforce animal cruelty laws around the state. The department is funded solely through dog licenses, which amounted to $310,000 in 1999. This structure was put in place in the early 1990s, when, according to Nutting, budget cuts forced the division to relinquish much of its enforcement capabilities and all of the financial support it received from the state's general fund.

Prior to those changes there had been the Animal Welfare Board which, in the hierarchy of the Department of Agriculture, was on level footing with the Division of Animal Health and Industry, rather than being an advisory arm of the division. In its previous capacity it could submit legislation and set policy throughout the state. It also oversaw investigations. Now animal welfare policy is set by Doak and the Division of Animal Health and Industry, which has many other responsibilities beyond just enforcing animal welfare laws.

As a result of this, say critics, animal cruelty cases are not being investigated and known animal abusers are not being given citations.

"We've created a state of repeat offenders that have clean records," says Harper. "Humane agents take somebody's animal but don't prosecute. OK, that person goes out six weeks later and gets another animal."

Doak says she has prioritized educating perpetrators over prosecuting them. "We pride ourselves on working with people," says Doak. As far as the number of citations humane agents have issued in the last year, Doak says that information has only just started to be recorded, and that she could not estimate on the number that have been issued. "To the best of my knowledge there have been citations issued," she says.

To mount the sort of statewide investigation of professional dog fighting that has been effective in running the fighters out of Massachusetts (and into Maine), Borgal says more is needed than an education campaign.

"Dealing with farmers, I can understand," he says. "Farmers don't set out to be cruel to their animals and they could benefit from education. But education doesn't always work when it comes to more serious forms of animal cruelty."

Borgal says he is currently working to secure funding from private sources to help bolster Maine's efforts in educating ACOs and other law enforcement about how to spot dog fighting.

Auburn's Rathbun agrees more education is needed. Not every town has dead, discarded dogs to tip them off. "If you're not trained in what to look for, you could walk right by a fight and not know it."

But when it comes to stopping dog fighting, to mounting the sort of effort that would be required, Rathbun, who is both an ACO and a state humane agent, doesn't hold much hope.

"Can you effectively stop drug traffic?" he asks rhetorically. "It's the same situation. I don't believe we'll ever be able to stop it. We might get a bust, but then somebody else will come in to take his place."

Sam Smith can be reached at ssmith@phx.com.