Looking back I don’t think I have ever written anything on this blog that could be considered controversial. It is about the change today. 


Michael Vick, once the highest paid professional football player of all time, now a convicted felon, dog fighting ring-leader and reported dog abuser is in line to potentially earn almost 7 million dollars over the next two years to resume his professional football career with  the Philadelphia Eagles. 

 

As a vegetarian, an animal lover, and dog trainer known throughout the world as someone that has no use for any kind of physical or verbal punishment for dogs, you would think I would be as outraged as everyone else seems to be about Vick’s re-instatement.  I should be screaming to “lock him up and throw away the key!”  But I am not, and it has nothing to do with the fact that I am a big football fan.

 

I admit the horrors this man bestowed upon those dogs makes my stomach turn. I was privy to the knowledge of the state of the dogs rescued from Vick’s premises. Sad does not come close to describing it.  I could not watch any of the news footage that was presented during Vick’s hearing and sentencing. It made me cry, it actually did.

 

But I am here to present the positive spin on all of the horror this man has laid upon those defenseless dogs he fought with and sometimes thoughtlessly  killed, if they did not win for him.  

 

Pit bull fight has been around a long time. It is here in Canada it is throughout the United States I imagine it is also in other parts of the world. Regardless of how disgusting, heartless and barbaric it is, it still manages to survive, some say thrive,  in the underground. 

 

Had Michael Vick come to his senses before he got caught and backed away from it all, there would be no media attention on what many find as savage amusement and this sport would continue to live on.

 

Vick has recently agreed to partner with the Humane Society of the United States in a program aimed at putting an end to the “sport” of dogfighting.   You can say this is a self-serving ploy on his part, aimed at getting back into the public’s good graces so that he can potentially earn back his “big ticket” advertising endorsements.  This may be true. None of us can really know his motives or how remorseful this man really feels, but I do know this. 

 

Having the media attention that Michael Vick draws being aimed at such a tragically wrong social pastime can not hurt the drive to stop the dog fighting rings.  So if this man is sincere, and if he does do more than lip service or the odd public appearance for Humane Society, I feel we as dog lovers should support his efforts for the good of the dogs.  

 

Vick was an idiot, he showed very poor judgement when he got involved in Pit Bull fighting, but perhaps there is a silver lining for the dogs that can be saved because this moronic jock got caught.  I believe in second chances, but more importantly I believe that letting Vick fade away as a cast off of society can not do those dogs still trapped in dog fighting rings nearly as much good as having him rise again to star status. He can keep a spot light on a worthwhile cause as he climbs that very large hill of redemption that lays ahead of him.  

 

The hell this man created for those dogs is almost unforgivable, but lets look at what good can come from his forgiveness. Yes I am an optimist. 


Today I am grateful for all of the second chances I have been extended in my life.