Animal advocates in New Mexico and across the country are outraged with Google-owned Android Market, and Kage Games, LLC. And they have every right to be. Kage Games created a smartphone app titled Dog Wars that is being sold through Android Market. The game allows players to raise their virtual dogs for fighting, encourages them to inject their dogs with steroids and sets up dog fighting as a business where the controller wins virtual cash.
By creating and marketing this app, Google and Kage Games are directly promoting the illegal and barbaric activity of dog fighting and the undeniable suffering the animals are subjected to at the hands of humans. Glorifying animal cruelty in any venue is repulsive, but particularly so in games, where violent activity becomes abstract, and removes the players from the very real misery involved in these activities.
New Mexicans have made it clear that dog fighting has no place in our state, or any decent society. In 1981, dog fighting was outlawed in New Mexico. Violators face fourth degree felony charges for engaging in the practice of raising and training dogs to fight to the death – all for the amusement and entertainment of spectators. These fights can last for hours, and dogs who are severely injured or too weak to fight are often killed by electrocution or gunshot, simply because they are no longer of value to their “owner.”
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Dog fighting causes misery, suffering and death for animals forced to participate in the gruesome activity.
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In 2007 the New Mexico Attorney General’s office joined forces with APNM to launch New Mexico’s Animal Cruelty Taskforce (ACT). The task force works to enforce New Mexico’s animal cruelty laws, such as those that prohibit dog fighting, and provides training for law enforcement, judiciaries, animal control and human services agencies and investigators. The toll-free hotline’s purpose is to take information about animal fighting and extreme cruelty to animals and convey that information to the appropriate law enforcement agencies for intervention.
The ACT hotline number is accessible from anywhere in the state at 877-5HUMANE (877-548-6263). Information will be kept confidential and rewards of up to $5,000 may be offered for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those participating in animal fighting.
Use your smartphone to HELP animals, not hurt them, as Kage Games, LLC is doing.
Contact Google CEO, Larry Pope, and ask him to remove the Dog Wars app immediately:
Larry@Google.com
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