A Polk County couple was arrested Wednesday on charges they were operating two dog fighting rings.

Hewitt Grant II, 47, and Nickie Sanders, 44, are facing multiple charges of animal cruelty.

According to the Polk County Sheriff's Office, one of the rings was at a property in Fort Meade, while the other was behind a home in Bartow.

Investigators said 20 dogs were found at the Fort Meade property, and seven of those dogs were chained with heavy logging chains, which is normally done to strengthen the dogs' necks for fighting.

"He’s got dogs chained out with log chains in the yard," said W. J Martin, Polk County Sheriff’s Dept. Chief. "They’ve got them in crates and boxes all over the place. If you’ve seen the pictures they got all kind of injuries they’ve been fighting these dogs.

Forty-one dogs were found at the Bartow home, with four of the dogs wearing heavy chains, deputies said. Thirty-seven dogs were found in wooden kennels and crates along the east side of the property.

"Mr. Grant has created fighting machines out of these dogs and made them even more dangerous," said Martin.

Deputies said they also found treadmills used specifically to run dogs.

At least one of the dogs at the Bartow home had severe head and face wounds from a recent fight, and those wounds had not been medically treated, officials said.

In addition, investigators said they found dog fighting rings at each location, and that blood was visible in each ring. Pieces of carpet and blood samples were collected from each ring.

The dogs were taken into custody by the Polk County Sheriff's Office Animal Control.

Grant had an injunction preventing him from owning dogs in place since 2006 after nvestigators said they found him with 138 dogs and a dog-fighting ring.

Grant’s neighbor and friend Willie Howard says he denied fighting dogs after his last run in with the law.

"He told me that he wasn’t fighting them," said Howard. "I talked to him over the fence and he told me that he wasn’t. He heard people saying that he was fighting dogs but he wasn’t fighting dogs no more."

Officials said the fate of the dogs that were confiscated doesn’t look good because they’re too dangerous.

"We’d like to think that we rescued these dogs but the reality of it is this guy created dogs that are dangerous," said Martin. "So for the most part our hands are tied because these dogs are dangerous and they’re not dogs that people want to take home."

The couple are also facing drug charges after deputies said they found paraphernalia that tested positive for marijuana in the master bedroom of the Bartow home. 

Grant is facing additional charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm after deputies said they found two handguns in the house.