In 2007, the U.S. watched in heartbreak as one of their beloved NFL players, Michael Vick, was indicted on running an illegal dog fighting operation. At the time, Vick was playing for the Atlanta Falcons as a quarterback, but his popularity and career were soon shattered once his cruel post-work activities came to light.
Just when Vick was beginning his “rookie year” as a professional football athlete at the age of 21, he started dog fighting operation “Bad Newz Kennels” with three associates — Purnell Peace, Quanis Phillips, and Tony Taylor, as the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) reports.
According to the ALDF, Vick’s operation “housed and trained over 50 pit bull dogs, staged dog fights, killed dogs and ran a high stakes gambling ring with purses up to $26,000.”
All of these dogs endured immense suffering and pain as they were trained to fight to the death in the ring. Many also met their ends by other cruel means. The investigation detailed how dogs were hung from trees, drowned, and electrocuted when they were deemed useless.
After six years in operation, Vick’s fighting ring was finally shut down in 2007 and Vick, along with his three associates, were charged with violating the federal law “18 U.S.C. § 371 Conspiracy to Travel in Interstate Commerce in Aid of Unlawful Activities and to Sponsor a Dog in an Animal Fighting Venture,” the ALDF reports.
Once this victory was achieved, Vick’s remaining fighting dogs – 49 in total — were evaluated. One of these dogs was “recommended for euthanasia because of extreme aggression,” but luckily, all others were considered suitable for adoption and rehoming.
Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah, took in 22 of the most traumatized pit bulls, where they received the love, affection, and care they needed in order to become eligible for adoption. These 22 dogs became known as “Vicktory Dogs,” for their amazing ability to overcome such adversity.
Two of the dogs have passed on, yet 10 are now living out their lives with kind, forever families and 12 still remain in the loving care of Best Friends Animal Society, as Michelle Weaver, manager of Best Friends Animal Society’s Dogtown, told the Huffington Post.
“The work we have done here at [BFAS], we have proved that if you treat each dog individually and … give them a chance, they can show how much potential they really have,” said Weaver via HuffPost. “Not only have the Vicktory Dogs had great outcomes but it proves that other dogs rescued from horrific situations such as dog fighting deserve a chance.”
Check out some of the dogs and their forever homes in the photos below!
To help Best Friends continue on with their amazing rescue and rehabilitation work, consider supporting them through a donation.
Lead image source: Best Friends Animal Society
This is why I don\’t support the nfl anymore! How can they hire a murderer who makes millions $$ its sick
boycott
Dear All:
We all agree that Vick did a barbaric thing; he caused dogs to suffer and die for no good reason. Vick may have enjoyed the “sport” of dog fighting, but that was not justification for what he did.
Why not?
Again, the answer is simple. Although there is a great deal of disagreement about moral issues, no one disagrees with the notion that it’s wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering on an animal. We need a good reason to inflict suffering on an animal. We might disagree about whether necessity exists in any given situation and what constitutes a good reason, but we would all agree that enjoyment or pleasure cannot constitute necessity or serve as a good reason. This is part of our conventional moral wisdom.
The problem is that eating animals is, as a matter of moral analysis, no different from dog fighting.
We kill and eat more than 56 billion animals a year worldwide, not counting fish. No one doubts that using animals for food results in terrible suffering. So, let’s apply the analysis that we all agreed was uncontroversial just a moment ago: have we got a good reason for this suffering? Is there anything that is plausibly considered as necessity involved?
The short answer is no.
We don’t need to eat animals. No one maintains that it’s medically necessary to eat animal foods. The conservative American Dietetic Association acknowledges that “appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.” Mainstream medical people are, with increasing frequency, pointing out that animal products are detrimental to human health. But whether or not you agree with them, there is certainly no argument maintaining that animal foods are necessary for optimal health.
There is also consensus that animal agriculture is an ecological disaster. It takes many pounds of grain and many gallons of water to produce one pound of meat. It takes a great deal more land to produce animal-derived food for one person on a continuing basis than it does to produce food for a vegan. Animal agriculture is a major cause of global warming and is responsible for water pollution, deforestation, soil erosion, and all sorts of unhappy environmental consequences. And to anticipate the objection that non-animal foods are beyond the reach of those without economic means, a diet of fruits, vegetables, grains and beans is much less costly than a diet of animal products.
So, in the end, what’s the best justification that we have for the suffering that we impose on the animals we use as food?
The answer: they taste good. We enjoy the taste of animal flesh and animal products. We find eating animal foods to be convenient. There is nothing here that remotely resembles necessity.
How is that any different from Michael Vick? The answer: it isn’t. Vick liked sitting around a pit watching animals fight. The rest of us like sitting around a barbecue pit roasting the corpses of animals who have been treated just as badly as Vick’s dogs.
It doesn’t work to claim that Vick participated directly in the dog fighting and we just buy animal products at the store. We enjoy the results of animal suffering, but, unlike Vick, we don’t enjoy the actual process of slaughtering animals. As any first-year law student will tell you, if John has an aversion to violence but wants Joe dead and hires Sally to pull the trigger, John is still guilty of murder. The fact that we pay others to produce meat and other animal products does not get us off the moral or legal hook. Although there is a psychological difference between ordering a steak for dinner and deriving pleasure from watching dogs fight, once we realize that that the torture and death of the animals we eat cannot be justified by anything other than pleasure or convenience, the psychological difference can have no moral significance.
I respectfully suggest that we need to think hard about why it is we object to what Vick did. And we then need to think hard about how those of us who participate in the exploitation of animals other than dogs are really no different from Michael Vick.
Thank you for your consideration of my comments.
Gary L. Francione
Professor, Rutgers University
I agree with the comment made by Gary L. Francine.All animal abuse and killing cannot be morally justified.However we can be very grateful that many of these dogs made to fight have gone on to have happy lives.It\’s a great shame and injustice that this is not the case for all animals.
Well Said, Prof.
Vick is "Guilty" of nothing more than what meat-eaters are responsible for Everyday.
I like to say; "I Love animals. I don\’t even Eat Them".