Most people have never heard of something called "hog-dogging."
Once you know about it, we think you'll support banning it.
It's an event in which a trained attack dog is set on a pig. Much like dog fighting, people bet on the outcome. Some even take their children to see animals painfully injured.
Kathleen Mayer, legislative liaison for the Pima County Attorney's Office, says the dogs, usually pit bulls, are trained to go after the ears, groin and thighs of the more-or-less defenseless pigs.
The pigs don't always die. Injured animals are used over and over. In one event, she says, there were 95 dogs and 19 pigs.
Law enforcement has known about hog-dog fighting for two or three years, but little can be done to stop it. Statutes specifically ban dog fighting, not dog-hog fighting.
Sen. Jonathan Paton and Rep. Kyrsten Sinema want to change that. They have bills that would expand current statutes that make dog fighting a class 5 felony to include all animals. Basically, that means replacing the word "dog" in statute with the word "animal."
Then law enforcement could go after the organizers of these barbaric events.
Sinema's bill, House Bill 2150, passed the House Judiciary Committee unanimously. Paton's bill, Senate Bill 1115, is being held along with all other Senate bills until the budget is done.
Arizona needs to update its laws to ban this nasty form of animal cruelty.
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