Biscuits and Butter: Michael Vick Is a Dick

Today must be soapbox day! Sorry, guys. Feel free to skip these posts if they don't float your boat.

But, as you know, the plight of the pit bull has been a pet cause (pardon the pun) of mine for a little bit now. I have been particularly interested in the dogs saved from Michael Vick's Bad Newz Kennels and what they are doing now. Some of you may not be aware but 13 of the 48 dogs that were able to be saved from Bad Newz wound up at BAD RAP in Oakland. You may also not be aware that this Sunday marks the first time Vick will be in Oakland since he was reinstated in the NFL three weeks ago. The San Jose Mercury News' Mark Purdy published this article earlier this week:

Frodo won't be at the Raiders' game Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles. He will be way too busy.
Probably playing with other dogs.
"To him, dogs equal good," said Kim Ramirez, who adopted Frodo several months ago. "Humans equal scary."
Frodo is a pit bull. He really doesn't know much about football. But he knows Philadelphia's backup quarterback, Michael Vick. They once had a very personal relationship.
Unfortunately.
Vick was convicted two years ago of financing and participating in a dogfighting ring. He served prison time. This is his first regular-season road game since being reinstated by the NFL three weeks ago. But what of the dogs left behind at his grotesque kennel operation in Virginia? After spending several months in shelters, most found foster homes. A dozen of the dogs have ended up in the Bay Area.
Frodo is one of them. He came to Ramirez's home through a local non-profit organization called BAD RAP, which stands for Bay Area Dog Lovers Responsible About Pit bulls. Basically, the group takes troubled rescue dogs and places them in loving homes. There, they can learn to become family-friendly.
Ramirez understands that people can be skeptical about that. But that's why BAD RAP exists. The group was founded (quoting here from the Web site) as a response to the "difficult issues facing this misunderstood breed."
And for sure, the Michael Vick case definitely qualifies as a difficult issue. Crowds in Philadelphia have been largely supportive of his comeback. But what about this weekend? How will he fare with the public here in the animal-rights-intensive Bay Area?
Donna Reynolds, BAD RAP's executive director, said she will have an announcement today about the group's plans for Vick's visit to Oakland. She has been in touch with the Eagles, so the plan potentially involves the team — and maybe even Vick.
Whatever happens, Frodo won't care much. He was five months old when cops raided the Vick property. The puppies there were chained to a partially buried car axle, left largely exposed to the elements. Frodo was taken to a shelter where he lived for seven months with little human contact.
That's where BAD RAP co-founder Tim Race, met and named him. Race flew to Virginia and assessed which of the Vick dogs might best travel back to the Bay Area for adoption. A certain dark-coated dog reminded him of a Hobbit character from "Lord of the Rings."
Hence, Frodo. He now cuddles up to Ramirez and loves to eat treats from her hand. But it's no wonder that Frodo is generally shy around people and jumpy whenever he hears an unfamiliar sound.
"Anything mechanical, the sound bothers him," said Ramirez, an information analyst at Kaiser Permanente. "We have ceiling fans at our house and he would become fixated on them, looking up at them with apprehension. If I opened a cabinet, he would shy away. Or popcorn in the microwave. I don't know, maybe the popcorn equates to gunshots for him. I don't think he witnessed any of the fights. But I'm sure he heard them."
Ramirez at first calmed Frodo the way she would treat a frightened infant, by wrapping him tightly in blankets and gently petting him in her arms for 45 minutes straight, if necessary. In the back of her head, Ramirez wonders if Vick has ever done any of this stuff — for any dog, ever. The public apologies made by the Philadelphia quarterback haven't impressed her much.
"It's not about what you say, it's about what you actually do," Ramirez said. "Just because he's done the time for what he did, that doesn't mean everything's all right now. The damage done to these dogs will last the rest of their lives."
Martina McClay is just as skeptical. She has adopted another Vick dog, Leo, through her Our Pack rescue operation in Los Gatos. She has trained Leo to be a "therapy dog" who visits elder care facilities and cancer clinics to cheer up patients. McClay watched Vick's interview on "60 Minutes" and rolled her eyes.
"I just didn't see the remorse," McClay said. "Maybe he is remorseful and he's just not good at communicating it. But it looked very rehearsed to me. You know, like a sock puppet? He just says he made bad choices and what happened was bad. I haven't heard him say a word about the dogs. What should he do to show he has changed? Why ask us? I think the NFL should answer these questions, not us."
She has a point. It would be a fine thing in our world if, when athletes commit crimes beyond the pale, fans stopped buying tickets to watch and cheer them. But it's not going to happen, at least not in the country's most popular sports league. Eleven years ago in St. Louis, a defensive tackle named Leonard Little was convicted of manslaughter for killing a woman while driving drunk. He returned to the NFL. He is being cheered every Sunday. So is Vick.
Just not by Frodo.

Turns out, BAD RAP was indeed in touch with the Eagles - they offered to let Vick come and see the dogs during his trip:

Vick refuses to meet former Bad Newz Kennel dogs while in Oakland

Late last week, Oakland based pit bull advocacy group BAD RAP invited Michael Vick to view eight of his former Bad Newz Kennels dogs from behind a window while in town for the Raiders game on October 18, but the offer was refused. The invitation was extended to allow Vick an opportunity to acknowledge the victims of the crimes he committed while running a dogfighting operation that employed torture and death as a means to punish underperforming dogs. Vick has indicated remorse for disappointing his fans, his family, his teammates and his coach, but has steered clear of mentioning his victim dogs in public statements.

BAD RAP Co-Founder, Tim Racer said: "Oakland is a town that welcomed Vick's broken dogs with open arms back in 2007. We understand Vick is trying to right his wrongs and is very interested in redemption, but you can't find redemption without acknowledging your victims. Making amends to the dogs themselves would have helped to create some closure for many of us, especially the people who worked so hard to keep them from being destroyed. It seems that Vick is not ready to go there."

Pamela Browner-Crawley, public affairs director for the Philadelphia Eagles, relayed BAD RAP's offer to Vick. To satisfy the conditions of Vick's parole that bars him from being near animals, a location was identified that would allow him to view his former dogs from behind a window, at legal distance. On Wednesday, Crawley contacted BAD RAP to decline on behalf of Vick. Ignoring the fact that legalities would be followed, she explained, "Michael is not allowed to be around dogs by a court order, so logistically and legally, your plan can't work."

"We were fairly certain that he would decline our invitation, given his continued refusal to make mention of his dogs," said Racer. "The unfortunate thing is that his new position of compassion towards animals would be so much more credible if he could actually say that he looked his victims in the eye and said, "I'm sorry."

As much as I support BAD RAP and their endeavors, I have to say the whole Vick visitation thing seems a bit wonky. Well, only in the sense that the dogs could not really care less about Vick looking them in the eye - through a glass window a legal distance away - and saying I'm sorry. ;o) And in that regard I can certainly understand why a visit with the dogs would be a strange and somewhat superfluous gesture. But I do agree that it seems like Vick should do something about it while he's here... I'm just not sure what exactly that something is. For those of us that would care to protest Vick's arrival, however, "In Defense of Animals is calling for people to join them in a peaceful protest at the Oakland Coliseum Sunday, October 18 from 12-2pm to let the Eagles know that Vick is not welcome in Oakland. Their news release."

If you are at all interested in finding out more about what happened to the dogs during their Bad Newz imprisonment, the struggles to get them to California or in how the dogs are doing now (a lot are actually therapy dogs!), check out some of these links: