Does Anyone Remember the Michael Vick Victory Dogs?

 Back in 2007, Michael Vick was exposed as an owner of the Bad Newz  Kennels in Virginia.  It was a place of unbelievable horror for the dogs residing in those cages.  Mr. Vick and his crew routinely tortured and killed those dogs when they would not fight with each other.  They provided dogs for illegal dog fighting venues, so if a dog would not become vicious enough, even with torture, they would kill them for sport.

When this cam to light, the Feds raided the kennels and rescued 48 Pitbull dogs from the confines of the kennels.  Mr. Vick was charged with numerous crimes and spent 18 months in prison, which ended his NFL career as a quarterback with the Atlanta Falcons.

The site was purchased in 2011 and turned into the Good News Rehab Center.

This case was the first time that the animals were not summarily destroyed, but rather they were sent to Utah and other rescues to rehabilitate them.  This had never been done before and happened in a large part because of the uproar of normal citizens and the intervention of the Best Friends Animal Rescue in Utah.

It seems that we, as a group, have a very short memory, because Mr. Vick returned to football upon his release and now is into sportscasting.  He claims to be sorry for the events in his past, but mostly it seems, he is sorry he was caught and caused his career to implode.  He has never one time expressed any concern or regret for his actions that caused such harm and injury to those dogs.  

Unfortunately, despite a large outcry by the public, he has also been allowed to own a dog again.  He now owns a Belgian Malinois despite his past crimes against dogs.

His response in an interview was as follows:

In 2019, Vick told The Washington Post that his animal rights crimes are merely a thing of the past. Water under the bridge.

“I think people have moved on. I think they’ve moved past it. It’s been 12-plus years since it all happened, so I don’t get any questions about it anymore. People don’t talk about it. They don’t ask me about it. Life is kind of normal. But I still have a responsibility, and that will never change.”

In a follow-up interview, he told the news site in 2021 he regrets it all — mainly because the case affected his chances of getting into the Hall of Fame.

'S--t, it hurt [my chances of] going in the Hall of Fame. It's going to impact everything. But it was all self-inflicted. I was young. I didn't have no guidance. I don't use this as no excuse. I could've said, 'No.' I could've made those right decisions, like, 'This ain't for me.' That's a blemish that I will never be able to erase." (https://www.greenmatters.com/p/michael-vick-dogfighting-ring).

Upon rescue, many of the dogs were able to be adopted because they showed no damage to their ability to bond with people (possible they were new recruits to the kennels).  However many of them were judged too damaged to be adopted and went to live at the Best Friends Sanctuary in Utah for the rest of their lives.  

Once there, they received constant supervision, positive reinforcement, love and affection from staff and even spent the night at various employee's homes to give them a feeling of family.  They lived a very good life while at the Sanctuary and many were able to be deemed fit for adoption, which is what many people were waiting for.

There is a book on Amazon that discusses this event in detail and is a quick read.  I highly recommend it.  Here is the link to pick it up if you are of a mind to. (I am an affiliate, so I might get a few pennies if you buy through my link)

I also recommend you read several of the posts here and here on this blog about the struggles made by the Vick dogs to be rehabilitated.

Here is a link to an article by the Best Friends Sanctuary about the dogs if you would like to see how they did.  They had the best life possible after they were rescued and they proved the resilience and the heart that these dogs possessed.

Unfortunately, all of the Vick Dogs have gone over the Rainbow Bridge and are all now together again.  What bothers me though, is that there are so many people who choose to forget Vick's crimes, choose to minimize his crimes, simply don't know anything about his crimes, or were born after the fact and no one educated them on this issue.

Cruelty to animals is a crime, period.  It is a legal crime, it is a social crime, it is a personal crime, it is an emotional crime.  When will we start teaching our children how to behave with animals so as to prevent such things from every happening again.

Unfortunately, the Vick event did nothing to stop the abuse of animals for fighting rings.  It just makes me sick.

Here is a link to read the legal charges filed against Vick and his crew.

Tuesday True Stories -- Michael Vick's dogs

 Remember these dogs?  Whatever  became of them after all the hubbub died down?  There is a new book out called The Lost Dogs that I just purchased to read.  This started me wondering about the dogs I had watched on television being rescued--so pitiful and scared.  I decided to search and see what I could find out.  Below is just some of the sites I found.
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Happy ending for most of Vick’s dogs

 By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports Sep 21, 12:21 pm ED
The resurrection of Michael Vick(notes) took another swift step forward Sunday when he led the Philadelphia Eagles to victory in his first start in more than three NFL seasons. Now he’s in the middle of a debate about who should be the team’s regular starter. It’s a welcomed type of argument for a man who spent 21 months in federal prison, lost a $100 million contract and became a national pariah for his role in a vicious interstate dogfighting ring.
Jim Gorant was less concerned about Vick’s future than that of Vick’s victims – the 51 dogs authorities recovered on Vick’s property in rural Virginia, 22 of which went to Best Friends animal sanctuary in Utah. If Vick paid his debt to society (as he did, even becoming a Humane Society lecturer), he’d no doubt get a second chance (as he should).

One of the rescued dogs hides in its shelter at Best Friends animal sanctuary, north of Kanab, Utah.
(Douglas C. Pizac/AP Photo)

But what of Michael Vick’s dogs? It turns out there’s a redemption story there as well, one that Gorant, a writer for Sports Illustrated, details in the just-released book “The Lost Dogs”.
It starts with the decision by authorities to raid Vick’s property in April 2007 and carries through the rescue of the animals, the Vick legal proceedings, the groundbreaking decision to not destroy the mostly pit bulls and eventually a series of success stories for many of the dogs.
It’s a book that’s equal parts horrifying and hopeful. And while every person and dog involved would’ve been better served if Bad Newz Kennels never existed, there are plenty of positives coming out of a story that at first seemed to contain only misery.
Forty-seven of the 51 dogs survived. While not all have fully rehabbed, a good number of them live with families. Their new owners view the dogs’ scarred bodies as loveable and marvel at the ability to put years of aggressive training and systematic torture behind them. Four even work in therapy roles – including one in California which is so gentle and peaceful he’s used as a “listener” for self-conscious children trying to work on their reading skills.
Perhaps most remarkably, if it wasn’t for the high-profile nature of the Vick case and the quarterback’s ability to pay for their postrescue care (Vick reportedly spent a court-mandated $1 million on it), each of the dogs would’ve been destroyed. Dogs which came from fighting busts had previously been considered so far gone that trying to retrain them would take a disproportionate amount of already limited resources.
“Ninety percent of the time, they would’ve been put down,” Gorant said. “Even PETA and the Humane Society recommended it. [The theory was] there are already good dogs out there who need care. Why invest time, effort and money to save these few when so many dogs are out there that need help?”
The public outcry over the Vick dogs helped change that. An attempt was made to retrain them, and the success rate was so high that “the Humane Society changed its official policy,” Gorant said.
The major change, according to Gorant, is to evaluate each dog as an individual case rather than make a sweeping ruling on all animals which come from a fighting ring.
“It’s definitely a positive,” he said.
There’s more. The Vick case drew so much public outrage that police across the country have reportedly stepped up efforts to break fighting rings. Where the crime was considered a lower priority in the past, now resources are offered – if only because it often leads to the discovery of other criminal behavior. It’s not cub scouts who operate these things.
“Law enforcement realized that this is something worth their time,” Gorant said.
The book also delves deeply into a look at the pit bull breed, making the case that it is inherently a calm, friendly dog. It was originally bred as a family farm dog. It’s the fighting rings which have ruined the pit bulls’ rep – something that surprised even Gorant.
“All I knew about pit bulls was from the headlines,” he said.

Vick missed all of the ‘2007 and ’08 NFL seasons.
(Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The book has its greatest impact in going past the headlines and detailing the recovery process of the individual dogs. The odds for success remained long, but the dogs took to the training at various levels. Seventeen have been deemed adequately adjusted. Seventeen are still in training facilities. The rest are in various spots in between.
The success stories will prove a winner for any dog lover. Consider Hector, a big, brown pit bull whose scarred chest and legs told of a veteran (and thereby successful and vicious) fighter. If there was ever a dog that at first glance would be considered too far gone to save, he was it.
Instead, the shelter found a pleasant demeanor and even a mischievous side (he loves hide-and-seek and is a klutz). He quickly passed his Canine Good Citizen tests and wound up in the Minnesota home of Roo Yori, who is known for training police dogs and flying-disc champions.
Hector now visits schools and nursing homes, offering comfort and entertainment and using his celebrity status as one of “Michael Vick’s dogs” to pound home an anti-fighting message.
Hector didn’t score any touchdowns Sunday. Yet, like Michael Vick, his life has moved forward in ways which few could’ve envisioned three and a half-year ago. Vick is back to being a football player, Hector a normal dog.

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Badrap.org

Never has a group of pit bulls received as much media attention as the dogs from former NFL player Michael Vick's yard. While it's certain nobody would've known about these victimized dogs had they not been part of a fallen sports figure's dog fighting venture, they earned celebrity in their own right by surviving two certain deaths, thanks to a large scale rescue effort led, in part, by the federal government - a first of its kind.
Public opinion fell strongly in favor of helping the dogs. In this landmark animal welfare case, federal prosecuting attorneys, federal agents, the USDA, six Virginia animal shelters, a court appointed animal law expert and several rescue organizations including BAD RAP all teamed together to reach the goal of evaluating 49 fight bust victims and then sending them to new and better lives with rescue organizations around the country.
In the past, shelters have been encouraged to put all fight bust dogs to their deaths because it was assumed that they were each going to be dangerous, uncontrollable animals. They’ve been called ‘Kennel Trash’ and accused of taking up space normally reserved for other dogs. Evaluating them as individuals revealed new information about dogs from fight busts and helped shatter old myths previously used to condemn them.



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If you visit this link http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/dogtown/3684/Overview#tab-Overview,  , you can view videos from DogTown that show all the work that went into saving these horribly abused dogs.

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• Rescue Groups Rehabilitate Michael Vick's Pit Bulls (huffingtonpost.com)
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