Interesting news report with info on urban thug pit bulls:
"Authorities say the pit bull fighting subculture encompasses not only dog men with their training kennels and scheduled matches; it also includes less organized dogfighting that frequently takes place in poor urban neighborhoods, including in the District.
Although in both types of fighting the dogs maul each other in a frenzy of blood and saliva, inner-city fights usually are spontaneous. One gang member strutting with his nasty pit bull sees another, egos swell, and soon they're in a vacant building, the dogs ripping into each other while still on leash chains. "Street fighting," these impromptu bouts are called.
Unlike a dog man's pit bulls, most street maulers aren't carefully bred from fighting stock. They aren't put through weeks of pre-fight cardiovascular training on treadmills and in swimming pools. They're not steroid-enhanced. Their jaw muscles aren't pumped from a regimen of "bite-and-shake" exercises. Their teeth haven't been sharpened with electric grinders while they're sedated.
Pit bull fighting emerged as a popular betting pastime in the mid-1800s. As laws against it were enacted, it moved underground. By the mid-20th century, it was mostly a rural pursuit.
About 15 years ago, after it became fashionable in the urban thug life to be seen with a menacing pit bull, spur-of-the-moment street fights became common.
In this realm, to train them, owners often whip their pit bulls, burn them with cigarettes, feed them gunpowder and jalape?o peppers until they turn unremittingly vicious. Authorities said a dog man's pit bulls normally are safe for people to handle, while a street dog usually will attack anything that moves, except the "alpha male" who abused it.
A dog man's pit bulls are taught to be human-friendly because, under fight rules dating to the 1950s, each side handles and washes the other's dog before a match, in case the opposition has coated its animal with a poison or sedative.
In time, street-fighting pit bulls -- scarred and missing ears, racked by infection, their teeth broken and legs mangled -- will cease to look menacing.
"We get them left in abandoned buildings, thrown in Dumpsters, severely injured," said Chris Schindler, a Humane Society officer in the District. "We had an incident where somebody threw a trash bag out of a car, and it was one dog that was alive and one that was dead -- all fought up, really bad injuries. Just threw them out the window."
In a field near the Rhode Island Avenue Metro station in Northeast Washington, Schindler said, "there are some old train tracks, and for about a year straight, we were constantly finding dogs tied to the tracks out there and left to die."
Researchers say organized pit bull fighting is less prevalent in the Washington region than in states farther south, although a dog man in Richmond was sentenced to four yeas in February. The FBI keeps no records on dogfighting arrests nationwide. The Humane Society has counted about 150 in the past two years, including eight in Virginia, two in Maryland and one in the District.
Because urban pit bull fights usually are spontaneous, police said, making arrests is difficult unless owners are caught in the act. Based on the dozens of battered and scarred pit bulls abandoned or seized in the Washington area every year, however, animal-protection advocates say street fighting is common."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/21/AR2007082101997.html
Not knowing the status of the dog, I would treat it as a mortal threat and act accordingly.
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