Tiller- (Skansen's- Ira in the M
I DO Exist...To- Drive You Batty | 
 | | Barked: Fri Mar 8, '13 5:14pm PST |  | |  | | It's not odd to me. I have been rather avid against the whole pit fighting thing since the 80's, and it took me a really long time to get past that more gut reaction that this is HORRIBLE (which it is), but sometimes you need to press. You can't get to the solutions through indignation.
As far as this, those who participate in this do have a passion for a good dog. Ok, it is sick way to source out a "good" dog. And certainly in the inner city culture, it goes even more shades of all wrong than the southern boys, for then you have all this ghetto wrath falling upon these dogs. It is really ugly stuff. But they'll brag on their dogs, they will "love" them in some way. Seems twisted, but if I am to be honest, seeing some protection and bite sport people talking about weak nerved dogs, or the shy dogs people on this site love, would turn your stomach. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, the stuff I have heard. Or hunters with a poor prospect playing around with high voltage on an ecollar and watching the dog scream. It's just ugly. It's that side of the working dog we don't want to hear, and pit fighting embodies it at its worst, because you are dealing with blood and violence to start with. Those dogs are seriously doomed, leaving in the mess of our own human existence and what it exposes them to, so defenseless and prone.
The part with Michael Vick, with any fighter, that is the huge block of cement between themselves and decency is that you must START with love. Dogs don't need to earn your love. They love you as you are. Appreciate the beauty of that and reward them with the same. I know what they do is horrible. But I also think it is horrible for a breeder to bring a puppy that came out the wrong color to be euthanized. They could just find a pet home, for crying out loud. On the street, you have violence and ugliness, and that is what they do. I'd never say they are "misunderstood." Plenty of people in the inner city DO NOT DO THIS. But of course plenty of kids in the suburbs don't resort to crack or vandalizing houses, either. There are kids who are more lost, more amoral, and trek down the worst alleys their communities have to offer. Michael Vick fought dogs, messed with drugs, and for all I know ran with a gang. Probably so, from his overall record.
So Vick, I surmise, is still drawn to that "real" dog. That impressive animal. So he'll drift there. Ego is attached. I am not going to judge that, but I am going to judge that he has a long way to go to "get it." As I cannot prevent him from getting a dog, the best I can do is hope one day he has that epiphany. All those dogs did was wanted you to love them. That's it. And look at what went down. Look at what you did with that sort of purity.
Who knows. I don't care. He is within legal rights to have a dog and has one. I am not tossing and turning over it as I doubt he will abuse his pet. Maybe he'll be the same old same old and not like the dog for not being what he imagined. Hopefully his kids will love the dog....maybe they can teach him something. Who knows.
I don't read more into this than there is. He did have dogs in his life for a very long time. Some of them I presume he admired, or he wouldn't have spent a decade doing this. I do believe he feels like a pile of crap for getting arrested....he had already established a foundation for inner city kids, and now he himself was a national revulsion. Those kids mattered to him somewhere, and then all of a sudden, he, their example, was a national pariah. He deserved that fate. Now it's up to him to be responsible for his own life and decisions. Good or bad, rise or fall, that's all on Michael Vick.
He's there with his Milkbones, his chain leash, etc. Selecting PetSmart? Good word. He doesn't know what the hell he is doing. Maybe one day he will, and equally within that, all that he has done.
For me, I am still worrying on tortured dogs condemned to a horrible fate that the nation doesn't care nearly enough about. I really don't want them forgotten in all this. They suffer these every day.Edited by author Fri Mar 8, '13 5:15pm PST
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No one could have been THAT much of an idiot to think it wouldn't have upset "those pet people." So the only answer is that we as a group don't come off as all that strong of an interest. That's sort of like Obama who said he'd get a shelter dog and obviously didn't. I know a lot of people were upset by that, but it doesn't seem to me that his advisors told him that would be "inadvisable." I consider these sorts of things wake up calls. How are we viewed, what is considered the power of our voice? Not much.
