Forever Ellen & Leo - Farewell Angels

Ellen:  Michael Vick Dog Fighting Survivor Euthanized

One of the rescued pit bulls, otherwise known as the Vicktory dogs, saved from the dog fighting ring bankrolled by Michael Vick in 2007 was euthanized after coming down with an unknown illness.

11-year-old Ellen was living at Best Friends Animal Society in Utah. Sadly, she began rapidly, and inexplicably, losing weight and muscle leaving her caregivers with humane euthanasia as the only choice after exhausting all other options.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/michael-vick-dog-fighting-survivor-euthanized.html#ixzz20RzBXA31


Leo, Former Michael Vick Dog Dies

Leo, one of the dogs brutalized in Michael Vick’s Bad Newz kennel, died last week of a seizure disorder. Gaining fame as a therapy dog, Leo was a shining example of how animals can heal if given the chance.

In 2007 Leo became one of fifty Pit bulls rescued from the dog fighting kennel owned by Vick. He went to live with Marthina McClay, founder of Our Pack Pit Bull Rescue and under her guidance earned his mark as a superstar therapy dog. Together the duo worked in hospitals to bring comfort to cancer patients.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/leo-former-michael-vick-dog-dies-slides.html#ixzz20S0cck1C.

Transform Vick's Bad Newz Kennels

Transform Vick's Bad Newz Kennels to the DDB Good Newz Rehab Center for Chained and Penned Dogs

What football star Michael Vick and friends did to Man's Best Friend at the Bad Newz Kennels in Smithfield, Virginia was beyond comprehension to most of dog-loving America.

The dogs all lived chained or penned, and then were forced to endure fighting and possible death in the name of entertainment for man.

Now Dogs Deserve Better, a nonprofit organization working for chained and penned dogs, wants to rehab this property and transform it to the Good Newz Rehab Center for Chained and Penned Dogs.

Every dollar that's given for DDB to buy this property sends dog abusers a message: We don't like what you do and now we as a nation will show you how animals DESERVE to be treated.

Every dollar that's donated for this project purchases one fenced square foot of the property. Can you help us today?

Stand with us to make this center a reality.

Take back power not only for the dogs who died there, not only for the fifty chained and penned dogs who called that place 'home', but for you, for me, for every dog still chained, still penned, still living outside and ostracized from the family in America.

Take back power for the pitbulls, for the labs, for the shepherds, for the mutts that pepper the landscape of this great nation.

Take back power for every single person with a conscience who resides on this planet and is able to judge for him or herself right from wrong.

For more information or to donate from the website, visit this link.

http://www.dogsdeservebetter.org/ddbcenter.html

Let's raise $30,000 toward the center to give the Dogs Deserve Better foster dogs a place to call home, a place to be loved, housetrained, socialized, and vetted. And a caring, supportive environment to thrive, excel, and even find their own new, inside, home and family.

They deserve all the best this world has to offer.

Michael Vick confronted by dog owner

My favorite "SLEAZE" Michael Vick is confronted by Richard Hunter, who adopted one of the dogs that was rescued from Vick's dog fighting ring.

So sad that this scum bag is back out on our streets, living the good life, making millions once again with his football career... and apparently ignoring his past bad deeds.

Now, some would argue that he paid his debt to society. However, for all those dogs that suffered and even died because of his cruel and inhumane, deliberate actions... a few months behind bars certainly doesn't seem to be a befitting punishment for such an ill-tempered, down right mean and dangerous person.

Nope, a few months in jail certainly doesn't excuse or exonerate his behavior. Nor does giving him back a multimillion dollar career with the NFL make much sense either. Just exactly where is the incentive to grow up and become a responsible human being?

People like Michael Vick have ruined the reputation of these dogs. What was once a noble and revered breed is now feared, banned, and killed daily by almost every city in our nation.

So for all you big sport fans and supporters of the NFL... is it worth the lives of an entire breed just so you can sit in front of a big screen TV watching Michael play football?

Perhaps, if the sport fans in this nation paid a little more attention to what's going on in our country instead of being glued to their televisions watching sports, we wouldn't be in such a sad state, nor would we be killing off an entire breed because of the "Michael Vicks" out there who continually exploit these dogs for their own greedy purpose.

Once again, it is not the breed but rather the idiot human that causes the problem. Punish the DEED and not the BREED.

As far as I'm concerned, it's a waste of time and taxpayers' money to give people like this a trial. He should have been shoved in the pit with the dogs. Now that's a much more befitting punishment than a few months in jail with the reward of another multimillion dollar NFL contract waiting for him. Somehow, I find it very difficult to believe much was learned by that experience.

What’s Next for Michael Vick?

What’s Next for Michael Vick? - Wayne Pacelle: A Humane Nation

Personally, I'd like to see Michael Vick spend a whole lot more time behind bars for his horrific acts. However, I guess some people do "Live and Learn"... and hopefully that will be the case with this guy.

Yes, he could become a strong voice against dog fighting and reach young men in urban communities telling his own story of what dog fighting and animal cruelty has cost him... the loss of a great career in pro football, lots of money for ad endorsements, not to mention his FREEDOM after being convicted. However, I certainly hope all of this will be a non paid, volunteer position.

Ban Michael Vick from the NFL

CARE2 Petition

Michael Vick has openly admitted to the fighting, torture, and murder of many pitbulls on his land in Virginia. These dogs were not only fought but murdered in some of the most brutal ways-beating, drowning, hanging, and even electrocution.

For the horrible crimes that Michael Vick has committed, he was sentenced to a mere 23 months in prison, and now his lawyers are announcing that he should be out of prison and in a halfway house by Jan. 20, 2009.

This petition is to encourage the NFL to not reinstate Michael Vick into the NFL EVER! As we all know, famous athletes are supposed to be role models, setting a good example for America and its youth. Michael Vick should never be allowed to play professional football again.

If you agree with this, please sign the petition.

For more information on how the dogs lives have been affected please visit http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/07/vick.dogs.rehab/index.html.

Vick's dogs win hearts, homes

Here is a WONDERFUL article that appeared in the Sunday, July 13, 2008 edition of The Columbus Dispatch. To view the article with photos, please click here.

Vick's dogs win hearts, homes
Half of football star's fighting pit bulls were fit for fostering

By Brigid Schulte
The Washington Post

When football superstar Michael Vick pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to run a dogfighting operation, we knew he had kept about 50 pit bulls on his 15-acre property in rural Virginia. We knew the dogs were chained to car axles near wooden hovels for shelter. And we knew the dogs that didn't fight were beaten, shot, hanged, electrocuted or drowned.

But we didn't know their names. Headlines described the dogs as "menacing." Some animal-rights groups called for the "ticking time bombs" to be euthanized as soon as Vick's case was closed and they were no longer valuable as evidence. That's what typically happens after a dogfighting bust.

Instead, the court gave Vick's dogs a second chance. U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson ordered that each dog be evaluated individually, not judged by the stereotype of the breed. And he ordered Vick to pony up close to $1 million to pay for the lifelong care of those that could be saved.

Of the 49 pit bulls animal-behavior experts evaluated, only one was deemed too vicious to warrant saving and was euthanized. (Another was killed because it was sick and in pain.) More than a year after being confiscated from Vick's property, Leo, a tan, muscular pit bull, visits cancer patients as a certified therapy dog in California. Teddles takes orders from a 2-year-old. Gracie is a couch potato in Richmond, Va., who lives with cats and sleeps with four other dogs.

Of the 47 surviving dogs, 25 were placed directly in foster homes, and a handful have been or are being adopted. Twenty-two were deemed potentially aggressive toward other dogs and were sent to an animal sanctuary in Utah. Some, after intensive retraining, are expected to move on to foster care and adoption.

How can this be? Reports of gruesome pit bull maulings make international news. Pit bulls are one of the few canine breeds thought to be so dangerous that they are banned in some places. The answer, says Frank McMillan, a veterinarian who is studying the recovery of some of the Vick dogs, is that we don't know. "We've assumed all pits are the same, and we've never let this many fighting dogs live long enough to find out," he said.

Classic fighting pit bulls, part bulldog and part terrier, were bred to be friendly to people and aggressive with other dogs. Their ability to withstand great pain and keep fighting is a quality prized as "gameness."

But with an explosion in urban street fighting, some pit bulls are being trained to go after animals and people. Evaluators said that when they walked into the kennels where the Vick dogs were being held, they weren't sure what to expect.

"I thought, if we see four or five dogs that we can save, I'll be happy," said Randy Lockwood, an animal behaviorist with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Instead, they found dogs with behaviors that ran the gamut. Some would lick human hands but lunge at other dogs. Some almost immediately went into play mode with other dogs, wagging their tails and crouching down on their front legs in a play bow.

Some of the dogs were scarred. All were sick and malnourished. Once it became clear that the dogs might be allowed to live, evaluators gave them names: Iggy, Zippy, Cherry Garcia, Hazel, Little Red, Uba, Squeaker, Big Fella, Handsome Dan.

"One of the things that struck us immediately was that these dogs were more like the dogs we see rescued from animal-hoarding situations," Lockwood said. "Their main
problem was not aggressiveness but isolation." Loud noises startled them. A light coming on made them jump. All that the dogs seemed to know about people was that they were to be feared.

We don't know what names Vick, who is serving a 23-month prison sentence in Leavenworth, Kan., called most of his dogs. One of the few names that appeared in court papers was Jane, one of the first pit bulls Vick bought in 2001 to start Bad Newz Kennels.

Jane is now called Georgia. Her jaw is crooked, having been broken at least once, and her tongue sticks out. She is covered in scars, and her teeth have all been pulled. By court order, she will live out her days in Dogtown, at the Best Friends Animal Society's 3,700-acre sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. So will Lucas, a tail-wagging, 60-pound dog who evaluators suspect was Vick's grand champion fighter.

They are two of 22 dogs who were deemed worth saving but who showed enough animal aggression that they could be held only in a tightly controlled sanctuary. At Best Friends, McMillan, the veterinarian, has developed an "emotional rehabilitation plan" for each dog and measures how they exhibit such traits as aggression, fear, calmness or friendliness. All but two of the Vick dogs are on "green collar," meaning they are open and friendly to human visitors. The remaining 25 Vick dogs were given to seven animal-rescue organizations, which placed them in experienced foster homes. A number have since passed the American Kennel Club's 10-part Canine Good Citizenship test. Many are being adopted.

Sharon Cornett, a member of the Richmond, Va., Animal League's board, agreed to foster Gracie and is adopting her. "I adore this dog. She is just a love bucket. She loves people and animals unconditionally," Cornett said. She has four other dogs. All of them sleep together at night. "Gracie is not what the public perception has been of a fighting pit bull."

Still, Cornett and other pit-bull rescuers say that they never leave the dogs unsupervised with other animals. And rehabilitating a fighting pit is not for everyone: You have to know what you're doing, they say.

John Goodwin, a dogfighting expert with the Humane Society and a proponent of euthanizing fight dogs, is skeptical of the emerging reports of the Vick dog recoveries. Fighting is in their blood, he said. "The behavior is bred into them," he said. "These groups are not rehabilitating these dogs. They're training them to behave in a more socialized manner. But these pit bulls should never be left alone with other dogs, because you never know when that instinct to fight another dog is going to surface."

Tim Racer, one of the founders of Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pit bulls, or BAD RAP, who before taking in 10 Vick dogs had evaluated and retrained 400 pit bulls over the past 10 years, disagrees. Yes, there are pit bulls who have attacked other animals and people. But so have other breeds. And incidents almost always have been traced to negligent or abusive owners, he said.

Racer said it is not surprising that many of the dogs get along so well with other dogs. Just as the urge to fight is in their blood, so, too, is the need to get along. "You have 150 years of man trying to produce an aggressive dog. But you have tens of thousands of years of Mother Nature preceding that," he said. "Dogs are pack animals. They survived because of their pack. … It's hard-wired into their genes that they do no harm to each other."

New HSUS Dogfighting Hotline

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is helping to put an end to the bloodsport of dogfighting with its new 24-hour hotline.

You can help get the word out about the new dogfighting hotline by contacting your local media. By visiting http://capwiz.com/yo-demo/dbq/media/ you can send up to 5 messages at a time to your local TV and radio stations and newspapers.

You can also help by publishing the following information on your blog, forums, or print out the information and post in public areas:

• The Dogfighting Hot Line (1- 877- 847- 4787) is sponsored by the HSUS.
  
• You can receive an award of up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a dogfighter.
  
• All information is kept confidential; no one will know you've called.
  
• The line is answered 24/7.
  
• You can leave a message, talk to an investigator, or get their e-mail address and leave your own.
  
• If a dogfight is in progress, immediately call the police, 9-1-1. Then call the hot line.

Learn more about the HSUS's new dogfighting hotline by reading the press release on their website.

See how the HSUS is already helping to put an end to the cruelty by watching the video below: