US banker Sonia Dias hides her clandestine cargo, Zena the pit-bull terrier, in the back of her SUV in a desperate quest to save the dog from city officials and a possible death sentence.
The professional from Denver, in the western state of Colorado, is part of an "underground railroad" intent on secretly ferrying the dogs -- blamed for a string of savage and sometimes deadly attacks on people -- to safety before local officials can impound and euthanize them.
Denver was one of the first of a growing number of US municipalities to ban the beasts from its city limits, a move that has infuriated pit-bull lovers, raised cries of canine racism and spawned a string of canine "safehouses."
"I don't have any two-legged children, but I have two four-legged children," Dias said of her dogs, including Zena the brindle-colored pit bull.
"It's the equivalent, to me, of saying, `You have to give up your children,'" she said.
Since Denver's city council renewed its 1989 ban on the dogs on May 9, at least 260 pit bulls have been put to sleep in the Rocky Mountain metropolis, spurring a network of pit-bull lovers into illegal action.
Volunteers of the pit bull "railroad" take illegally harbored pit bulls and drive them to shelters like Mariah's Promise Animal Sanctuary in the southern mountain town of Divide, about 160km away.
The railroad urges those who run such shelters to hole up inside with the flurry of fearsome dogs, not open the door to animal control officers and force authorities to obtain a search warrant.
Following a flurry of US pit bull attacks, Denver's tough ban has reignited the debate over whether the dogs or their human handlers are to blame for vicious behavior, and who should pay for their misdeeds.
"The problem is when you have a specific breed used for dog fighting and to protect drug premises and they're trained to be rough," Councilwoman Carol Boigon said of the dogs.
Denver moved to ban the dogs after 20 reported pit-bull attacks on humans between 1984 and 1989.
They included the 1986 death of a three-year-old boy and the 1989 mauling that left 59-year-old Reverend Wilbur Billingsley with over 70 bites and two broken legs.
But the ordinance ran up against state law last year, when Colorado Governor Bill Owens signed a bill prohibiting local governments from regulating a specific breed.
The city suspended its enforcement of the ban but reinstated it three months ago, after it successfully challenged the state with a lawsuit arguing that the city had a right to regulate its own borders.
While it is difficult to estimate how many pit bulls live in Denver, the number of impounded pit bulls has been steadily rising over the past few years, from 103 in 1999 to 652 in 2003.
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