JACKSON, Miss.-- More than 40 dogs were seized Tuesday as part of a federal investigation that turned up a large fighting dog breeding and training operation in Pass Christian, Miss.

Harrison County Sheriff George Payne Jr. said the operation was discovered when warrants were being served on two men as part of a Drug Enforcement Agency investigation. Payne said 41 dogs were confiscated in Pass Christian and an animal protection organization said six more were taken in Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish.

"Our information is ... Mississippi was where they were keeping the animals and training the animals and south Louisiana was where they were doing the fighting," Payne said.

Laura Maloney of the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said her organization was among groups assisting authorities. She said the dogs showed signs of fighting with both "old and fresh wounds."

"The dogs are scarred to quite an extent," she said in an interview.

Five dead dogs were to be exhumed for evaluation from burial locations on the Mississippi property, Maloney said.

Dr. Melinda Merck, who specializes in forensic medicine for animals, was documenting the medical condition of the animals and was to help the SPCA prepare evidence, a news release from the organization said.

In addition to the dogs, the sites had dogfighting paraphernalia including scales for weighing before a match, breed stands used to mate aggressive dogs, treadmills used to prepare dogs for matches, the dogfighting magazine Sporting Dog Journal and other dogfighting related books, and extensive records noting successes and losses in dogfighting contests.

"They were what are called `keeps,"' Maloney said of the raided sites. "It's a place for a training regiment to get the dogs ready for fights."

The Harrison County Sheriff's Department was planning to charge those arrested in Mississippi with felony counts of dogfighting. In St. Bernard Parish felony charges were under consideration, Maloney said.

The Humane Society of South Mississippi was working to make room for the dogs seized in Mississippi, spokesman Joe Elmore said. The organization's Gulfport facility holds up to 200 dogs and 100 cats.

Authorities will hold the dogs in quarantine until a decision is made about their future. Elmore said they face options ranging from euthanasia to adoption, depending on the outcome of the case and evaluations of each dog.

The shelter has housed seized fighting dogs before.

"Dogfighting is very much an underground activity but it's prevalent throughout the nation, particularly in the Deep South," Elmore said. "It's on the increase in the nation. What we hope to see is stronger anticruelty laws because it is a form of animal cruelty certainly."

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Associated Press writer Mary Foster in New Orleans contributed to this story.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)