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A few months ago I drove with my friend Deb to pick up her new 3-month-old boxer puppy. Little Maddie charmed us, of course. She was 11 pounds of wrinkles and feet, and she entertained us with her bold cat-chase attempts that lasted only a few unsteady hops before she would waddle right back to a safe lap. We took turns snuggling her close to breathe in that sweet puppy scent.

I watched with envy as, nose to nose, Maddie and Deb fell in love, and as Maddie slept, naked little belly up, all the way home in her new mom’s arms.

A few days later, at a monthly Humane Society board meeting, I heard another puppy story — a very different one that took place at a Douglas County home.

I heard a story about pit bull puppies, just Maddie’s age and older, who already showed scarring on their undeveloped bodies.

These puppies already knew about being hungry and thirsty, about harsh voices and rough hands. They knew cold and wet — not enough to make them sick, but enough to make them uncomfortable, edgy, mean. They knew a life of tethering on short leads and mounds of filth.

They knew the sounds of nearly insane adult dogs snapping just inches from them, and they were encouraged to do the same with their littermates.

Dogs like these live in yards with jaw-strengthening straps hanging high from tree limbs, treadmills with harnesses, blood-spattered bags and dead cat carcasses strewn about.

Someone evil has determined these animals’ futures. The dogs will grow up as warriors — no more than money makers for their breeders who will fight them in illegal pits around Lawrence.

It’s happening, folks. Don’t think it’s not in our town, because it is, and it’s in neighborhoods you might not suspect.

Nearly every single week, the Lawrence Humane Society rescues pit bulls — underweight animals with horrible wounds, torn flesh, stress-related mange. Some of these dogs are so vicious the staff members risk their own safety to handle them.

But it’s not the fault of the breed. This is all on the owners.

These breeders and fighters are humans with something essential missing inside them, and it’s scary to know that they live in our neighborhoods. But we need to know about them, because the fact is, multiple studies have shown that “a person who abuses animals lacks empathy for other living beings and is at risk of inflicting violence on humans.”

That person’s next victim could be any one of us. And although dog and cock fighting are felonies in our state, Kansas is one of only nine states in which animal cruelty is NOT a felony.

In a 1996 interview with the Humane Society of the United States, Alan Brantley, an FBI supervisory special agent, reported on a late-1970s research study with 36 multiple murderers in prison. By self-report, said Brantley, “36 percent described killing and torturing animals as children, and 46 percent said they did this as adolescents. We believe that the real figure was much higher, but that people might not have been willing to admit it.”

The 1983 study “The Care of Pets Within Child Abusing Families” notes the results of interviews with 53 families being investigated for suspected child abuse. In 60 percent of the families surveyed, abuse of pets had been documented.

A 1985 study reported that 25 percent of aggressive criminals admitted to having committed at least five acts of animal cruelty as children.

You get the picture. Will you help us out?

If you know of organized dogfighting events, please call us at 843-6835 or the county sheriff’s office. Let your city and county commissioners and state legislators know that you support laws giving animal control officers the latitude to stop these criminals. In 2006, the Humane Kansas Legislative Network will introduce in Congress a bill that will define the most serious acts of animal cruelty as a felony with mandated minimum jail time, a minimum fine and psychological counseling or anger management, with no probation. It also will amend current law to state that anyone convicted of felonious cruelty — not just animal fighting/training — cannot own an animal for five years. Tell your representatives that you support this.

Yours might be the call or the vote that makes the difference in keeping our community safe.