The organised underworld of dog fighting is kept so tightly under wraps, even the people placing bets are often not allowed to attend.

Organisers take the bets and set a time and venue, but then often hold the fight beforehand to foil Police informers and reduce the crowd.

Director of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries John Barnes said the ruthless organisers were always one step ahead.

They will go to any lengths to ensure they were not caught, even to the extent of leaving their battered dogs to die, rather than seek help from a veterinarian.

He said: "They change the times and venues to ensure a smaller crowd of spectators and reduce risk of being caught, but the money still changes hands.

"Even if we had an informer amongst them, it does not always help us because chances are the fight will have happened way before we thought it would.

"They play a game of double blind and so they get away with it.'' Animal welfare officers have claimed they are becoming more and more aware of organised dog fights, but whether they are on the increase or whether they are just more out in the open, no one is sure.

But one thing is certain, dog fighting is big business and is taken extremely seriously by owners.

Inspector for the animal charity the Society for the Protection Against Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) Charles Whited said the seedy world of dog fighting in Bermuda was not attributed to any particular area or parish -- it was Island-wide.

He said an average fight could rake in about $3,000 for the owner of the winning dog, although he did hear the stakes for one bout was raised to $10,000.

And he said, because there was a lot of money to be made, owners would stoop to any depths to make their dogs aggressive and the best.

"They bait them up using whatever they can,'' he said.

"They might use chickens to encourage them to be aggressive towards other animals. They even steal small dogs from people's yards and use them as bait for their dogs.

"I have even had a complaint from one man who said he had refused to fight his pit bull, but came home one day and found it had been attacked while chained up in his yard.

"These people are ruthless and they will stop at nothing if they think it will make their dogs better fighters.'' Other tactics used to train up dogs are dropping them into deep water and leaving them to swim for up to 30 minutes.

Putting dogs on treadmill machines for considerable lengths of time is also a well-known trick.

But teaching dogs to be aggressive does not only result in animal fights.

Mr. Whited, Police and the Government Dog Warden are increasingly been called to incidents where people have been attacked by a vicious animal.

They fear that one day a child will be killed.

And the SPCA inspector said he was also concerned that many people who got pleasure out of abusing dogs are believed to go on to abusing people.

"It is a small Island, but I believe there are about 1,000 people involved in dog fighting in some way or another. Some people own five or six dogs that they fight.

"School kids are getting involved and who knows where it will end.

"Something has to be done to control the number of pit bulls on the Island and the people who indiscriminately breed them.'' Mr. Barnes said he believed there were only about 12 to 15 people on the Island who had fighting dogs -- but there were countless others who were involved in some shape or form.

"What we need to do is nab the ringleaders and use them as a deterrent to other people, but the problem with that is they are never there,'' he said.

"These things are highly organised. They have lookouts in place during a fight and even if Police do turn up in the middle of a fight, the whole area can be emptied and everyone away in 30 seconds.

Chairman of the SPCA and animal vet Dr. Andrew Madeiros said only about once every month or two did he have a dog brought to him that he felt had been involved in an organised dog fight.

Often, the injuries were old and had become infected because they had gone untreated, so he was a last resort for the owners.

He added that their owners were generally more nonchalant than ordinary pet lovers.

He said: "I don't know where they take them to get them treated. I know that I don't see that many and the ones I do see say it was a normal dog fight that had caused the injuries.

"I think a lot of them actually try to treat the wounds themselves and only seek a vet if they become worse.