Crackdown on illegal sub-culture made possible by tipsters

By JESSICA DAIGLE

Staff Reporter

LULING — The lady at the animal shelter said she owns pit bulls, and she spoke fondly of them.

“They are couch potatoes,” she said, “They eat ice cream, they love sausage. Their favorite TV show is on Animal Planet, they’re afraid of cats, and one is allergic to grass.”

Three recent arrests in St. Charles Parish involving dog fighting of pit bull terriers has demonstrated to the local public that dog fighting may be more common to the area than once thought.

According to Lee Ann Matherne, supervisor at the St. Charles Animal Shelter, the residents of St. Charles are pulling through, dispatching numerous calls to the shelter concerning the mistreatment of pit bulls.

“We depend on the neighbors, and they don’t disappoint us,” she said.

However, Matherne also feels there is a public perception of pit bulls is that disappointing, because pit bulls are not vicious dogs by nature.

“There’s always some breed people can pick on,” Matherne said. “It was Rottweilers for a while, before that it was Dobermans. It’s that these pit bulls are just great fighters, but you can take a poodle and make it mean.

“You can starve it, torture it, exercise it, and you can make it mean.”

A St. Charles Parish Ordinance states that all pit bull owners must have their dogs registered. In recent weeks, at least 26 dogs have been seized which were not registered.

Matherne said the ordinance was originally created to protect owners when the shelter began retrieving many stray pit bulls. People came in to the shelter to try to claim them, but there was no proof.

“There was a lot of commotion going on, and people would get upset if you wouldn’t give them the dog, and so we decided there had to be a way to permanently identify these animals.”

According to Matherne, very few parishes in the state have any ordinances regarding pit bulls, but they soon found the ordinance is a good tool for identifying situations of abuse.

The ordinance also requires owners to keep pit bulls in a pen even within a fenced yard, due to the high rate of theft and because they make break away if hindered only by a chain. Registering a pit bull does not cost any money, and to microchip the dog costs a one-time fee of $20, and the chip lasts for the dog’s lifetime.

“If you’re an honest person, and have a pit bull as a pet, then you are going to abide by these for your own protection,” Matherne said.

Of the dogs recently seized, most of them had to be euthanized. Dr. Sophia Hudson, veterinarian at the Animal Shelter, said pit bulls brought in with evidence of dog fighting will usually have to be put down due to temperament or health conditions. However, they may be euthanized because many of the dogs are not vaccinated and afflicted with parvo, a highly contagious viral disease.

Those working in the shelter can develop some intense emotional pains when seeing the dogs in such distress.

“When we haul them up in here, they can be more scarred up than you can imagine and still wagging their tail,” Matherne said.

“It’s hard on us, because 90 percent we have to euthanize and it’s not easy when they are wagging their tail at you despite the way they have been treated.

One animal control worker, who asked not to be identified, said the dogs are very fiercely loyal, which may enhance their fighting ability because they will love their owners no matter what is done to them.

The pit bull owner at the shelter said those with fears toward pit bulls need to go on the Internet and read up on the breed.

“It infuriates me to see what these people do to these animals, and then even after all of it, they are still affectionate,” she said. “They may be hostile toward other dogs because that’s what they are trained to do, but they still love people.”

The control worker said statistics show violence toward dogs and violence toward humans goes hand in hand.

Matherne agrees, saying violent criminals begin with animals and children.

“They don’t think of animals as pets, or have feeling for them, she said,” they think of them as a property a possession, and a tool that is disposable and easy to replace.”

“They are strictly business, and most of it has to do with gambling and drugs.”

Matherne said dog fighting was “always swept under the rug before,” but she is feeling somewhat better about the recent media coverage.

“The more news we make from it the better,” she said, ” Just from that bust the other day, we had an entire street come down and register their pit bulls because they were informed.”