This is always an interesting topic.

I am not sure the game or the people involved have changed all that much over the years. I think what has changed is the sheer number of people in and around the game and then the internet/social media.

I will time stamp myself and say I walked my first bulldog int he late 70's as a 10-11 year old kid. My best friend's dad had dogs and he paid us to walk dogs around a field. One of the first dogs I walked was a son of Red Boy named JR. I have been in and around these dogs for a hair over 40 years, not always active but within a rock's throw since I was a kid.

I have some incredible experiences and met some incredible people over the years. The dogs, just like every other endeavor, is a cross section of society. Whatever good and bad that is in society will also be in the dog game.

Back then there was paper hanging, stealing dogs, cheating, hustlers, peddlers just like there is today. No real difference other than the perception.

Back then for every ten dog men at least two or three of them were trash but 7 out of ten were good people. In today's game it is more like 30 out of a hundred are trash. The percentages are pretty much the same. But if one only looks at the trash group it can be said the game is ten times worse now than it was then.

Back then the word was spread my word of mouth, a magazine or publication or an actual handwritten letter. It was slow. By the time the news arrived it was either watered down, embellished or simply 'old news'. The 3 trashy people was not as impactful to the game. Today, with the internet and social media, the stories of the 30 trashy guys are all over everywhere instantaneously. And since everything on the internet is true, the stories of the 30 are far more impactful than the stories of the 3 from way back when.

I think overall it is the same just we know more of the negatives in a quick minute, and it just feels or looks different.

I think the game is the same, but the trashy parts of the game have been amplified with the internet and as a society we prefer to hear and pass on the shittiest of the news/stories.

The good stories seldom 'splash on to the internet' as they are more the non-typical news item. The dogs the same.

Today we can look for the good, it is still out there.

EWO