Queensland Man Jailed For Six Months For Breeding More Than 30 Pit Bulls For Fighting

An Australian man has been jailed for six months after being found guilty of training dogs to fight.

The court was told Bradd Michael O'Keeffe kept more than 30 Pit bulls chained up in his backyard on a remote north Queensland cattle property.

RSPCA inspectors raided the property last year and found some of the dogs suffering from health issues like worms and bad scarring. A photo from the animal welfare organisation shows the dogs are individually chained up outside and kept at equal distances from each other.

Heartbreakingly, they had to euthanise one of the Pit bulls because it had been trained to be so aggressive that it was believed to be beyond rehabilitation.

Marthy/Creative Commons

Nineteen Pit bulls were seized but inspectors also discovered the 41-year-old was keeping French bulldogs, pugs, dachshunds and a chihuahua in cages.

According to AAP, O'Keeffe tried to explain to authorities that the dogs were being bred for pig hunting, however, after checking through his phone, they knew he was lying.

A few messages in particular stood out for prosecutors where the accused boasted about his 'monster' dogs that he wanted to get in the fighting ring. He would pit the dogs against each other at the Mount Norma Station to get them ready for fights, which would occur all across the country, including in Canberra, Sydney and Perth.

"I make my own matches at home and the winner gets to see the country," he said in a message.

RSPCA Queensland

O'Keeffe also spoke about the pitfalls of trying to turn dozens of Pit bulls into frenzied killing machines.

"Hard to do on your own, sink or swim, monsters will shine. ...Ok wife might have to help."

Other messages revealed that if one of the Pit bulls had a litter of puppies, not many would survive as O'Keeffe would only take the cream of the crop. The rest he would kill.

"Have thrown the last few litters in the deep end, cull them as they quit," he wrote. "I don't need every dog out of the litter."

The Queensland man has appeared in Richmond Magistrates Court. and plead guilty to illegal dog fighting. He was handed a six month jail sentence but will be eligible for parole within two months.

In addition to the jail time, O'Keeffe has been banned from possessing dogs of dogfighting breeds, or cross breeds, for life.

Topics: News, Animals, Australia

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

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