They just want to make sure the dogs get a chance.
"They need to know what love is and what life is and how to run around the yard," smiles Jamie Hillman.
She's one of the many people fighting to save the pit bulls seized from a dog fighting ring that stretched through Ingham and part of Eaton County.
They want to make sure every dog gets evaluated to see if they can be re-homed, and people like Chelsea Vancamp want to make sure an expert does it.
"It's troubling to me that the five dogs were already put down without any decompression or outside evaluation," Vancamp describes, "and I'd just like to see the rest of these dogs be given a fair chance at life."
Another issue comes with the legality of rehoming the dogs. John Dinon of the Ingham County Animal Control says it's a felony to put any dog involved, trained, or bred for fighting up for adoption.
That's why both the shelter and the group advocating for the dogs are backing a senate bill that would allow for all dogs involved in fighting to be evaluated.
"We're there to save the animals," Dinon states emphatically. "I mean we're proud of the fact that we haven't had to euthanize an adoptable animal in the last five years, I mean our goal is to get animals out alive."
The group advocating for the pitbulls says there's case law that should let all the dogs be evaluated, but until the county's attorney says otherwise, the shelter's hands are tied with most of the dogs.
