Dog fighting causes severe welfare harm and is illegal in most countries, but persists globally. Enforcement, victim rehabilitation, and community engagement are the primary tools for addressing it.
Dogs used in fighting suffer multiple overlapping welfare harms: physical injuries from fights, psychological conditioning through fear-based training, social deprivation from isolation, and neglect of veterinary needs. Many rescued fighting dogs have been successfully rehabilitated into companion animals — challenging the assumption that fighting experience makes dogs irremediably aggressive. Rehabilitation programs that assess individual dogs honestly and provide appropriate rehabilitation change outcomes for both dogs and the communities they enter.