"The Charlottesville area, like most of Virginia, has significant dogfighting problems that most residents are not aware of, a House of Delegates committee was told Wednesday.

In the past year, the area's animal shelter took in 37 dogfighting victims, mostly the mauled losers of fights who managed to survive, said Carolyn Foreman, executive director of the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA.

Holding up color photographs of dogs mangled in fights, Foreman told lawmakers they should "put some teeth into" the law against dogfighting.

"The loser, if it doesn't die from its wounds, is usually clubbed to death or its throat is slit," the shelter director said. She said the dogs often are fed gunpowder to make them angry and agitated enough to fight by people who train them.

"I hope you untie the hands of law enforcement" and strengthen the penalties, Foreman told the House Committee on Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources.

The committee unanimously advanced Del. Rob Bell's animal fighting bill, which creates new crimes surrounding dogfighting and stiffens penalties.

Bell, R-Albemarle County, asked the committee to amend his bill to strike the sections to prohibit cockfighting, much to the relief of a dozen or so cockfighting advocates who drove to Richmond from rural counties.

The men who appeared to defend cockfighting said they were glad to see the measure go after dogfighting but not the traditional rural pastime for centuries in parts of the Old Dominion.

"The dog thing was giving chicken people a bad rep," said Eddie Colmer, who traveled with friends from Rockingham County to oppose the cockfighting ban.

Colmer and his friends said the bill is just fine going after dogfighting, which they said is the problem.

"They think dogfighting is horrible," Foreman said after she and other advocates of Bell's bill pronounced it a stronger measure without its chicken parts.

Bell said the bill would not pass this year if he had kept the sections banning attendance at cockfights, a seldom-prosecuted activity that now is illegal in Virginia if wagering is conducted. Also gone are parts of the bill to outlaw the possession, training or transport of fighting cocks.

The Albemarle Republican's measure now would make it a felony to train or sell dogs with the intention of dogfighting and would elevate the misdemeanor penalty for attending a dogfight.

Ellora Young, an Orange County resident, echoed Foreman's testimony to the committee about the prevalence of dogfighting in Virginia.

"I know it happens, even in the city of Charlottesville," where she said a friend took in a wounded pit bull. "The dog was converted from a monster into a very nice, but big, lapdog."

An animal control officer from Norfolk and a representative of the Richmond Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said dogfighting is a big problem.

Foreman said the activity is not only cruel to the animals but desensitizes children who see it to animal cruelty, and eventually to violence against people.

Foreman said the dogfighting victims she gets at the local SPCA often cannot be kept with other animals and can chew through metal cages.

"Polite society doesn't know it's happening in their community," she said.

Foreman said that cockfighting "is animal cruelty as far as I am concerned" but is nowhere near as large a problem as dogfighting.

Del. Mitchell Van Yahres, D-Charlottesville, voted for Bell's bill.

"It's a good bill to tighten up the dog section of the code," he said. "He brought the fowl in and it just got hung up on broad areas of concern. I believe he was on the right track tightening that up as well, but I don't think he knew what he was getting into."

Delegates from Rockingham County and Reston said they received no greater lobbying effort this year than the calls, e-mails and letters on the session's animal cruelty bills.

Bell, a dog owner and former assistant Orange County prosecutor, will present the bill on the House floor Friday, where passage appears certain now that it no longer covers cockfighting. " (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, January 30, 2003)