Thirteen heavily scarred pit bulls were recently discovered in one semi-detached house in rural Lincolnshire. That's a winning bird, of course. Losers almost invariably die in fights, which can last anything from 20 seconds to 20 minutes. Sometimes they are pecked to death. Sometimes the heart is punctured by the sharpened spurs attached to the claws.
Fights take place in sheds, gardens, upstairs bedrooms or living rooms.
They're videoed so that owners can show off the prowess of champion birds to would-be purchasers. Here's a man in a grubby vest, on his knees in an industrial unit near Doncaster, urging on his pit bull to tear the throat out of its opponent. There a couple of rock partridges with sharpened beaks on a plastic sheet laid down to keep splashes of blood off the ghastly carpet beneath. There again, two men in a shed in Derbyshire taping spurs on to their birds to the accompaniment of background laughter. A particularly gruesome scene is suddenly interrupted by an almost surreal burst of Del Boy and Rodney in Only Fools And Horses.