Vick Pit Bulls Rehabilitated

[Guest guest]

The Monday, July 7 Washington Post has a wonderful front page story headed "Saving Michael Vick's Dogs Pit

Bulls." The subheading is, "Rescued From the Football Player's Fighting

Ring Show Progress in an Unprecedented Rehabilitation Effort."The reporter, Brigid Schulte, writes: "Of

the 49 pit bulls animal behavior experts evaluated in the fall, only

one was deemed too vicious to warrant saving and was euthanized.

(Another was euthanized because it was sick and in pain.) "More

than a year after being confiscated from Vick's property, Leo, a tan,

muscular pit bull, dons a colorful clown collar and visits cancer

patients as a certified therapy dog in California. Hector, who bears

deep scars on his chest and legs, recently was adopted and is about to

start training for national flying disc competitions in Minnesota.

Teddles takes orders from a 2-year-old. Gracie is a couch potato in

Richmond who lives with cats and sleeps with four other dogs."Schulte

notes the great work of groups such as the Utah based animal rescue

group Best Friends (www.BestFriends.org) and the wonderful San

Francisco based pit-bull rescue group BAD RAP -- an acronym for Bay

Area Doglovers Responsible About Pit bulls (see www.BadRap.org )The

heartwarming article is well worth reading, and is accompanied by

touching photographs. As papers note which articles get the most

clicks, please check it out athttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/07/06/ST2008070602429.htmlor at this Tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/6zecqm

and then spread the word by sharing the link (or forwarding this email

with the link) rather than cutting and pasting the whole article.It

is vital that those in the media who do animal friendly articles get

positive feedback, so please send reporter Brigid Schulte a thank you

for this animal friendly story, athttp://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/brigid+schulte/And,

importantly, please keep open the discussion of animal adoption, or

pit-bull rehabilitation, or any other loosely related animal issue, by

sending a letter to the editor appreciative of the front page pit-bull

story, then making whatever you are inclined to make about animals. The

Washington Post takes letters to the editor at lettersAlways

include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending

a letter to the editor. Remember that shorter letters are more likely

to be published. I send thanks to Lawrence Pinsky for making sure we saw this article. Yours and the animals',Karen Dawn(DawnWatch

is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the

media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media

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