Dog fighting is much more common than people think, according to experienced vet David Martin who was an expert witness in previous dog fighting cases.
"It is going on in probably every major town and city in the UK.
"It is enormous amounts of abuse and cruelty at every stage," said Mr Martin.
The League Against Cruel Sports received more than 600 reports of dog fighting since 2024, with those reports increasing by more than 50% in the past two years.
However, it says the number of dog fights taking place in the UK is impossible to quantify - the secrecy of the fights means far more are taking place than get reported.
For campaigners like Russ, any dog fight is one too many.
The BBC investigation found several UK-based dog fighting kennels, hiding in unlikely places.
In one case, the owner of a dog who had recently killed its opponent in the pit, had a kennel nestled in a busy housing estate in County Armagh populated by families and their pets.
"They want to keep their dogs out of sight, they don't want to be identified by the authorities as someone who has got dogs that are banned," Mr Martin said.
"They would have to be extremely careful if they were going to take their dogs out to the environment to make sure that their dogs didn't come across other dogs, otherwise there would be bloodshed."
[SRC] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce9r1e5j3r3o
