In the aftermath of Michael Vick’s indictment last July, gory descriptions of dogfighting culture shocked a nation unaccustomed to seeing what animal shelter employees and humane officers witness every day. Cruelty investigators and kennel care staff plagued by the bloodsport’s aftermath suddenly found themselves thrust into the spotlight. But even now, many of the true costs of dogfighting remain obscured from the public. Here’s a look at the burdens borne by shelters and law enforcement agencies around the country—and at what community activists and organizations like The Humane Society of the United States are doing to stop a crime that not only hurts dogs but infects communities.

Humane agent Jennifer Kulina seized Rita and four other animals the week Michael Vick was indicted. MICHELLE RILEY

Rita leaps across the sofa and gnaws the arm of a chair before plopping onto Jennifer Kulina’s lap for a belly rub. “How could you ever fight this dog?” Kulina asks, recalling the blood that flowed from the brown pit bull’s chin after her rescue from a property in Columbus, Ohio.

Though most of Rita’s wounds have healed three weeks later, an abscess beneath her eye still oozes. But away from the Capital Area Humane Society kennel where she bangs her stainless steel food bowl around with her jaws for attention, Rita isn’t focused on the nickel-sized chunk of flesh missing from her ear or the scars dotting her legs, chest, and face. She’s too busy playing in the shelter’s get-acquainted room, running from the Frisbee to the rope toy and back again.

The thought of Rita being forced to fight is one Kulina can barely stomach, she says, but “if you don’t think about it, then you can’t do anything about it. Dogfighting is my number-one thing I want to end.”

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