So suming up, more then every second dog at the LHS will be a pitbull or cross, and most likely involved in dog fights and associated treatment / training.

They LHS must be putting dogs down left, right and center. They would be mad to let a pitbull go out to adoption with what they are saying in the article - the risk to the community is simply too high.

'DOG-EAT-DOG'
Cruel, blood sport's popularity growing
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
By MICHAELANGELO CONTE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick's indictment on dogfighting charges in Virginia has shone a bright light on the underground blood sport. And the cruel sport is on the rise in Jersey City, too, city officials say.

"About 55 percent of our dogs are pit bull or pit bull mixes per year, and my estimate is about 20 percent of those dogs have fighting scars," said Arora Piacentino, shelter manager at Liberty Humane Society.

She said the dogs used in fights show "extreme aggression with other animals, often to people. I would say it has been steadily (increasing). (There are) more spontaneous fights going on, and some organized fighting."

Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said his office has gotten anecdotal information on organized fights where gambling likely was involved.

"We have heard about some of this and there is an underlying linkage between these fighting dogs and drug dealers and gang members," DeFazio said. "We see it for ourselves on the streets of Hudson County and elsewhere."

Jersey City Chief Animal Control Officer Joseph Frank said two years ago he was tipped off to an abandoned building in Greenville and when he showed up he could hear dogs fighting.

When police arrived, about eight men ran from the building where Frank found 15 pit bulls in harnesses. Later, one of the men told Frank they would put a pair of dogs into the center tied so they could just reach each other and let them fight.

"It's hard to say what their motive was, they may have been watching for fun or training the dogs," said Frank, adding that there have been a few such finds in the city in the past several years.

On another occasion, Frank watched five teens enter an abandoned building with three dogs and one of the boys acted as lookout. By the time police got there, the teens were gone. Frank said he's been getting complaints of dogfights in the parking lot of the Montgomery Gardens public housing complex.

Local dogfighters often don't socialize a dog, keeping it in a warehouse or similar place where it never sees anyone but the owner and only sees another dog at fights, Piacentino said. Sometimes owners starve a dog before a fight and often the dogs are abused, Piacentino said.

Dogs used for organized fighting are more like athletes, with special diets and training techniques. Piacentino said they don't need much training in being mean.

"They come from breeders and kennels and aggression is in their genes," Piacentino said.

"We usually get the end part," said Frank of mauled dogs found dead. "It's not only a problem of pit bull fighting, but of using fighting to toughen them up for protection."

On July 17, a federal grand jury indicted Vick and three other men. The alleged dog fighting operation, called "Bad Newz Kennels," was on property Vick owned in Surry, Va. Vick has been released pending trial in November.

The indictment says dogs from the kennel participated in fights in North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey and Virginia. The U.S. Attorney's Office Eastern District of Virginia spokesman Jim Rybick said he cannot provide more information about the New Jersey allegation, but is limited to what is in the indictment.