The pit bulls, which were seized by investigators when Vick's Surry County house was first searched in April, are in the custody of several local animal shelters, said Surry County Administrator Tyrone Franklin.

Eventually they will likely be taken as property by the federal government, which has taken over prosecuting Vick and three other defendants in the case. Then, Franklin says, he's not sure what will happen.

"Whatever they decide to do would be entirely up to them," he said.

Vick was indicted on conspiracy charges related to dogfighting last month. The April search of his house unearthed evidence of dogfighting, including the dogs — some injured and scarred — and equipment used to train and breed them.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Richmond said the dogs are part of an ongoing investigation. She declined to comment on what would eventually happen to them.

Typically, animals involved in dogfighting are euthanized, said Ann Chynoweth, director of the Animal Fighting and Cruelty Campaign for the Humane Society of the United States. They spend their lives being taught to fight, and then they're too violent to be adopted out, she said.

"They're too much of a risk to people and to other animals," Chynoweth said. "They're trained and bred (to be aggressive)."

Franklin said he didn't want to specify where the dogs were being housed because they've attracted so much attention. In 2000, four dogs involved in a dogfighting case were stolen from an animal shelter in Isle of Wight County. The cost of caring for the dogs while the court process is carried out will be covered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he said.

That these animals, even if they survive the dogfighting, often have to be euthanized afterward is one of the less obvious and sad elements of dogfighting, said Dale Sprenkel, who owns the Noah's Ark Veterinary Hospital in James City County.

Sprenkel said that when he worked as a fill-in veterinarian in Chesapeake in the early 1980s, owners would bring in badly hurt dogs from North Carolina for care.

"You could tell they had been in fights," he said. "Their injuries weren't recent either."

With the dark cloud of the Vick dogfighting case swirling around their daily work, animal care devotees said the silver lining in this case was the raised awareness of cruel treatment of pets and dogfighting in particular.

"I don't think there's any group more upset about this than veterinarians," Sprenkel said.