Pups' Ears Clipped To Aid In Fighting

Pups' Ears Clipped To Aid In Fighting

POSTED: 10:27 am MDT October 19, 2010

UPDATED: 10:45 am MDT October 19, 2010

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Police are searching for two men who are accused of selling pit bull puppies that were horribly mutilated.

“The city is looking for two Hispanic men, shaved heads, seen hanging around 98th Street and Sage Road Southwest selling pit bull puppies. All these pit bulls have their ears bobbed out, cut off roughly,” Animal Welfare Marketing Manager Rick DeReyes said.

Reyna is just a 2-month-old pup. When she arrived at Albuquerque Animal Welfare, she was in extreme pain because her ears were cut off. In addition to being painful, clipping a dog’s ears can jeopardize their health.

“They can get infections. They can die from it. This is a 2-month-old puppy. This puppy was in extreme pain. It's very, very serious,” DeReyes said.

Unfortunately, the mutilation that these puppies have suffered is not unique. Pit bull’s ears are usually cut off for a fighting.

“The reason they tend to chop off the ears is for pit bull fighting. The ears are too small to grab on to, for a dog to latch on to. That’s why you see a lot of pit bulls with their ears chopped off for fighting,” DeReyes said.

At this point, officials just want to find the other mutilated dogs that the men were selling, so they can care for them medically.

“We need to find these people to stop them from doing it and put an end to the cruelty that they perpetrated,” DeReyes said.

If you have any information about this case, call 311.

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While I find this so very sad that these pups did not have their ears cropped surgically, the inaccuracy of this news article irritates me as well. Dog men did not crop their fighting dogs’ ears because it was not practical. Cropping the ears left too much of the inside exposed which could prove fatal in combat (Joseph Colby). I think the media should do their research so they don’t continue to lead people to believe that bait dogs and cropped ears were used in dog fighting.

As for the puppies, I wish them well and hope they find their forever homes.