NFL star Michael Vick's guilty plea may have raised news media awareness of dogfighting, but police, prosecutors and humane officers have long battled this bloody underworld.

In Western Pennsylvania, as elsewhere, the subculture attracts a range of enthusiasts, from urban gangsters reveling in the my-dog-is-tougher-than-your-dog ethos to purists who regard the blood sport as legitimate, lucrative competition.

Kathy Hecker, humane officer for Animal Friends in Ohio Township, has described the Pittsburgh region as a "hotbed" of dogfighting.

One sign of dogfighting's growth is the increasing number of pit bulls arriving at her shelter and others.

Much of the fighting seems to have shifted away from the city, where pit bulls have been associated with drug dealers protecting their turf, to more remote areas like Fayette and Greene counties.

Arrests are not particularly high here, police say. But there have been some significant cases in recent years, including the first federal prosecution in the United States for the sale of dogfighting videos.

The most prominent local case started in 2001, when state troopers began infiltrating a six-county dogfighting network in which wagering reached $50,000 a bout and injured animals were sometimes killed.

In buying treadmills, steroids and other items related to the industry, undercover troopers also came across a device made of plastic pipe rigged with an extension cord and alligator clips used to electrocute dogs.

The following year, police arrested men from Verona, Jeannette and Bedford and three others from McKeesport, including two brothers. They all pleaded guilty to animal cruelty for their roles in staging dogfights, supplying equipment or drugs, or handling promotion.

In 2004, the second phase of that investigation culminated in the arrest of two out-of-state men who ran the Sporting Dog Journal, a national underground magazine devoted to ranking dogs and promoting fights across the country.

Agents filed animal cruelty charges against James J. Fricchione, then 34, of Westtown, N.Y., and John "Jack" Kelly, then 80, of Jefferson, Ga., the owner and editor, respectively, of the journal.

The attorney general's office said the case was the largest of its kind ever brought in Pennsylvania and shut down a major conduit that fed illegal betting.

In another dubious distinction, the region became the focal point of a unique case in U.S. District Court which sent a Virginia man to federal prison in 2005 for selling dogfighting videos here.

Robert J. Stevens, 67, of Pittsville, Va., was the first person to go to trial under a 1999 law that prohibits the sale of depictions of animal cruelty.

The statute was originally motivated by a movement in California to ban "crush videos," in which women wearing spike heels and short skirts slowly crush small animals to death for the sexual gratification of foot fetishists.

All states ban cruelty to animals, but no laws made distribution of videos showing cruelty illegal until then-President Clinton signed the law.

Mr. Stevens and his wife, Julie, advertised videos in the Sporting Dog Journal and sold tapes to undercover agents.

Mr. Stevens sold "Pick-A-Winna" and "Japan Pit Fights," both of which feature dogs mauling each other in a ring, complete with handlers, spectators and voice-over narration.

A judge sent Mr. Stevens to prison for 37 months and ordered him not to associate with dogfighting anymore.

"I'm through with pit bulls," he promised.

But as the Michael Vick case shows, lots of others are not.