SI Answers: What Happened to Michael Vick's Dogs? Includes Photos

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This Sports Illustrated article is worth reading. While Michael Vick is a monster who does not deserve to the light of day ever again, the story has a largely happy ending. MargaretSee the full article below and also by clicking on this link:http://tinyurl.com/a7lypxThere is also a photo gallery of the dog's rescued from Vick's clutches: http://tinyurl.com/77smckThank Sports Illustrated for this fantastic cover story by emailing: letters What happened to Michael Vick's dogs ...By Jim Gorant

Photo Gallery: What Happened to Vick's Dogs

Since

being rescued 20 months ago from the dogfighting ring financed by

Michael Vick, all but a few of the abused pit bulls have been

recovering in sanctuary, foster care and adoptive homes. Now even the

most traumatized of them can have a happy new year.The dog

approaches the outstretched hand. Her name is Sweet Jasmine, and she is

35 pounds of twitchy curiosity with a coat the color of fried chicken,

a pink nose and brown eyes. She had spent a full 20 seconds studying

this five-fingered offering before advancing. Now, as she moves

forward, her tail points straight down, her butt is hunched toward the

ground, her head is bowed, her ears pinned back. She stands at maybe

three quarters of her height.She gets within a foot of the hand

and stops. She licks her snout, a sign of nervousness, and looks up at

the stranger, seeking assurance. She looks back to the hand, licks her

snout again and begins to extend her neck. Her nose is six inches away

from the hand, one inch, half an inch. She sniffs once. She sniffs

again. At this point almost any other dog in the world would offer up a

gentle lick, a sweet hello, an invitation to be scratched or petted.

She's come so far. She's so close.But Jasmine pulls away.PETA

wanted Jasmine dead. Not just Jasmine, and not just PETA. The Humane

Society of the U.S., agreeing with PETA, took the position that Michael

Vick's pit bulls, like all dogs saved from fight rings, were beyond

rehabilitation and that trying to save them was a misappropriation of

time and money. "The cruelty they've suffered is such that they can't

lead what anyone who loves dogs would consider a normal life," says

PETA spokesman Dan Shannon. "We feel it's better that they have their

suffering ended once and for all." If you're a dog and People for the

Ethical Treatment of Animals suggests you be put down, you've got

problems. Jasmine has problems.They began in 2001, about the

same time Vick started cashing NFL paychecks and bought a 15-acre plot

of land at 1915 Moonlight Road in Smithville, Va. The property sits

across from a Baptist church. A bright green lawn surrounds a white

brick house that has a pool and a basketball court in the backyard and

is bordered by a white picket fence. When Vick bought the land, the

house didn't exist and wouldn't be built for a few years. It wasn't a

priority. The Atlanta Falcons' new quarterback never intended to live

there.Beyond the house, shrouded by trees, were five sheds

painted black from top to bottom, including the windows and doors. Past

them were scattered wire cages and wood doghouses. Farther still, where

the trees got thicker, two partly buried car axles protruded from the

ground. This was the home of Bad Newz Kennels, the dogfighting

operation that Vick and three of his buddies started a year after Vick

became the first pick of the 2001 NFL draft. When local and state

authorities busted the operation in April 2007, 51 pit bulls were

seized, Jasmine among them.By most estimates Jasmine is around

four years old, which means she was most likely born into Bad Newz, and

her life there fit the kennel's name. A few of the dogs, probably pets,

were kept in one of the sheds. The fighters and a handful of dogs that

Bad Newz housed for other people lived in the outdoor kennels. The rest

-- dogs that were too young to fight, were used for breeding or were

kept as bait dogs for the fighters to practice on -- were chained to

the car axles in the woods.The water in the bowls was speckled

with algae. Females were strapped into a "rape stand" so the dogs could

breed without injuring each other. Some of the sheds held syringes and

other medical supplies, and training equipment such as treadmills and

spring bars (from which dogs hung, teeth clamped on rubber rings, to

strengthen their jaws). The biggest shed had a fighting pit, once

covered by a bloodstained carpet that was found in the woods.According

to court documents, from time to time Vick and his cohorts "rolled" the

dogs: put them in the pit for short battles to see which ones had the

right stuff. Those that fought got affection, food, vitamins and

training sessions. The ones that showed no taste for blood were killed

-- by gunshot, electrocution, drowning, hanging or, in at least one

case, being repeatedly slammed against the ground.It's

impossible to say what Jasmine saw while circling the axles deep in the

woods, but dogs can hear a tick yawn at 50 yards. The sounds of the

fights and the executions undoubtedly filtered through the trees."Multiple

studies have shown that if you take two mammals, say rats, and put them

in boxes side by side, then give the first one electric shocks, the

reaction of the second one -- in terms of brain-wave and nervous-system

activity -- will be identical," says Stephen Zawistowski, a certified

applied animal behaviorist and an executive vice president of the

ASPCA. "The trauma isn't limited to the animal that's experiencing the

pain."In a sense, then, whatever atrocities any of the dogs

suffered at 1915 Moonlight Road, all of them suffered. So one would

think that April 25, 2007, the day law-enforcement officials took the

dogs from the Vick compound, would have been a good one for Jasmine.Zippy

is not a big dog, but she's a pit bull, one of the Vick pit bulls, and

she's up on her hind legs straining against the collar, her front paws

paddling the air like a child's arms in a swimming pool. The woman

holding her back, Berenice Mora-Hernandez, is not big either, and as

she digs in her heels, it's not clear who will win the tug-of-war.

"Watch it!" she says to the visitors who stand frozen in her doorway.

"Be careful. Sometimes she pees when she gets excited, and I don't want

her to get you." And just like that Zippy whizzes on the floor. Twice.

What happened to Michael Vick's dogs... (cont.)Berenice's

six-year-old daughter, Vanessa, disappears and returns with a few paper

towels. The spill absorbed, Zippy is set free to jump up and lick and

wag her hellos before she leads everyone into the family room, where

Berenice's husband, Jesse, sits with the couple's five-week-old son,

Francisco, and two other dogs, who rise in their pens and start

barking. But Zippy has no interest in them. Instead she leaps onto the

couch where Vanessa's nine-year-old sister, Eliana, is waiting. Vanessa

joins them, and over the next 15 minutes the two girls do everything

possible to provoke an abused and neglected pit bull who's been rescued

from a dogfighting ring. They grab Zippy's face, yank her tail, roll on

top of her, roll under her, pick her up, swing her around, stick their

hands in her mouth. Eliana and Zippy end up nose to nose. The girl

kisses the dog. The dog licks the girl's entire face.Zippy is

proof that pit bulls have an image problem. In truth these dogs are

among the most people-friendly on the planet. It has to be. In an

organized dogfight three or four people are in the ring, and the dogs

are often pulled apart to rest before resuming combat. (The fight

usually ends when one of the dogs refuses to reengage.) When separating

two angry, adrenaline-filled animals, the handlers have to be sure the

dogs won't turn on them, so over the years dogfighters have either

killed or not bred dogs that showed signs of aggression toward humans.

"Of all dogs," says Dr. Frank McMillan, the director of well-being

studies at Best Friends Animal Society, a 33,000-acre sanctuary in

southern Utah, "pit bulls possess the single greatest ability to bond

with people."Perhaps that's why for decades pit bulls were

considered great family dogs and in England were known as "nanny dogs"

for their care of children. Petey in The Little Rascals was a

pit bull, as was Stubby, a World War I hero for his actions with the

102nd Infantry in Europe, such as locating wounded U.S. soldiers and a

German spy. Most dog experts will attest that a pit bull properly

trained and socialized from a young age is a great pet.Still,

pit bulls historically have been bred for aggression against other

dogs, and if they're put in uncontrolled situations, some of them will

fight, and if they're not properly socialized or have been abused, they

can become aggressive toward people. It doesn't mean that all pit bulls

are instinctively inclined to fight, but there is that potential. Bad

Newz killed dogs because it couldn't get them to be aggressive enough.

The kennel also raised at least two grand champions, dogs with a

minimum of five wins apiece."A pit bull is like a Porsche. It's

a finely tuned, highly muscled athlete," says Zawistowski. "And just

like you wouldn't give a Porsche to a 16-year-old, you don't want just

anyone to own a pit bull. It should be someone who has experience with

dogs and is willing to spend the time, because with training and proper

socialization you will get the most out of them as pets."The pit

bull's p.r. mess can be likened to a lot of teens driving Porsches --

accidents waiting to happen. Too many dogs were irresponsibly bred,

encouraged to be aggressive or put in situations in which they could

not restrain themselves, and pit-bull maulings became the equivalent of

land-based shark attacks, guaranteeing a flush of screaming headlines

and urban mythology. Some contend that this hysteria reached its apex

with a 1987 Sports Illustrated cover that featured a snarling pit bull

below the headline beware of this dog. Despite the more balanced

article inside, which was occasioned by a series of attacks by pit

bulls, the cover cemented the dogs' badass cred, and as rappers

affected the gangster ethos, pit bulls became cool. Suddenly, any thug

or wannabe thug knew what kind of dog to own. Many of these people

didn't know how to train or socialize or control the dogs, and the

cycle fed itself.Three pit bulls attacked 10-year-old Shawn

Jones near the Hernandezes' town in Northern California 7 1/2 years

ago, tearing off the boy's ears and causing other injuries, but

Berenice stood up for the breed then and still does. "It's almost

always the owner, not the dog," she says, who's responsible for

aggressive behavior. Her family has been "fostering" pit bulls --

minding them in their house in Concord until they can be adopted -- for

nine years and has never had a problem with one. "These girls have

grown up with pit bulls their whole lives, and they've loved every one

of them."

Posted: Tuesday December 23, 2008 8:20AM; Updated: Wednesday December 24, 2008 9:35AMWhat happened to Michael Vick's dogs... (cont.)That

wasn't hard to do with Zippy. When she arrived from the rescue group

BAD RAP (Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls) in October

2007, "she was afraid of her own shadow," says Berenice. Loud noises

made her jump, and when she entered another room she'd crawl through

the doorway on her belly. That lasted about six weeks, but once Zippy

got comfortable she took over the house. She races from room to room,

goes for runs with Berenice and plays in the yard with the other two

dogs: the family's big blue pit bull, Crash, and another foster dog,

Roller, a bulldog-pit mix.As the girls run out of energy, Zippy

moves on. She pops up from below the tangle of limbs and black hair

that are Eliana and Vanessa and prances over to Jesse, who's still

holding his infant son. Zippy noses up to the baby, takes a few sniffs

and then licks his foot. Taste test concluded, she shoots over to the

side door, pushes down the handle with her snout and disappears into

the side yard. "You see that?" Berenice says. "This one's so smart. I

never had another dog here who figured out how to do that." Moments

later there's a little rap at the door. Berenice pulls it open and in

comes Zippy, ears up, tail wagging.Eliana, meanwhile, has pulled

a spiral-bound notebook from her book bag. It's late November, and she

wants to read a Thanksgiving essay she wrote at school. As her little

voice takes hold of the room, Zippy curls into a circle beside her. The

last lines of the story go like this: "Zippy is one of a kind. I named

her Zippy because she is really fast. I don't want any of my dogs to be

adopted."After being taken from the Moonlight Road property,

Vick's dogs were dispersed to six animal-control facilities in

Virginia. Conditions differed slightly from place to place, but for the

most part each dog was kept alone in a cage for months at a time. They

were often forced to relieve themselves where they stood, and they

weren't let out even while their cages were being cleaned; attendants

simply hosed down the floors with the dogs inside. They were given so

little attention because workers assumed they were dangerous and would

be put down after Vick's trial. The common belief is that any money and

time spent caring for dogs saved from fight rings would be better

devoted to the millions of dogs already sitting in shelters, about half

of which are destroyed each year.What the pit bulls had going

for them was the same thing that had once seemed to doom them: Michael

Vick. They were, in a sense, celebrities, and there was a massive

public outcry to help them. Letters and e-mails poured in to the

offices of Judge Henry E. Hudson and of Mike Gill, assistant U.S.

attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. In the aftermath of

Hurricane Katrina, Gill had worked on several animal-related cases and

still had ties to the rescue community. He reached out to, among

others, Zawistowski. Could the ASPCA put together a team to evaluate

the animals and determine if any of them could be saved?Around

the same time Donna Reynolds, the executive director and cofounder,

along with her husband, Tim Racer, of BAD RAP, sent Gill a seven-page

proposal suggesting a dog-by-dog evaluation to see if any could be

spared. The couple, who have placed more than 400 pit bulls in new

homes during the last 10 years, knew it was a long shot. It's faster

and easier to judge the entire barrel as rotten. Zawistowski put

together a team composed of himself, two other ASPCA staffers, three

outside certified animal behaviorists and three members of BAD RAP,

including Reynolds and Racer.On Aug. 23, 2007, Vick appeared in

U.S. District Court in Richmond, and Judge Hudson accepted a plea

agreement in which the former quarterback admitted that he had been

involved in dogfighting and had personally participated in killing

animals. The agreement required him to pay $928,000 for the care and

treatment of the dogs, including any humane destruction deemed

necessary. "That was the landmark moment -- when he not only gave the

dogs the money but referred to it as restitution," says Zawistowski.

"That's when these dogs went from weapons to victims."On Sept.

4, 5 and 6, under tight security and a court-imposed gag order,

Zawistowski's team assembled in Virginia. It quickly agreed on a

protocol for testing the dogs that would show their level of

socialization and aggressiveness. Among other things, the dogs were

presented with people, toys, food and other dogs. Their reactions and

their overall demeanor were evaluated. In those three days the team

assessed 49 dogs at six sites.It didn't help that the assessors

had no idea what to expect. Besides their time at Bad Newz, the dogs

had spent four months locked up in shelters with minimal attention.

That alone could push many dogs over the brink. "I thought, If we can

save three or four, it will be fantastic," Reynolds says.Adds Racer, "We had been told these were the most vicious dogs in America."So

what they found in the pens caught them off guard. "Some of them were

just big goofy dogs you'd find in any shelter," says Zawistowski. No

more than a dozen were seasoned fighters, and few showed a desire to

harm anything."We were surprised at how little aggression there

was," says Reynolds. Many of the dogs had all but shut down. They

cowered in the corners of their kennels or stood hunched with their

heads lowered, their tails between their legs and their feet shifting

nervously. Some didn't want to come out. As far as they knew bad things

happened when people came. Bad things happened when they were led out

of their cages.

Posted: Tuesday December 23, 2008 8:20AM; Updated: Wednesday December 24, 2008 9:35AMWhat happened to Michael Vick's dogs... (cont.)One

dog was so scared that even the confines of her kennel offered her no

comfort. Shelter workers used a blanket to construct a little tent

inside her cage that she could duck under. Remembering that dog,

McMillan says, "Jasmine broke my heart."Jonny Justice likes to

lie in a splash of sunlight that stretches across the floor of the

living room in the San Francisco split-level of Cris Cohen. Head

lolling back, eyes closed, legs sticking up in the air, he lets the

rays warm his pink belly. Comfy as this is, Jonny doesn't have long to

linger. He's on a tight schedule. He's up every day at 6 a.m., out for

a 45-minute walk, making sure to avoid the garbage trucks, which freak

him out. After that it's back home for a handful of food, some

grooming, a quick scratch-down and then into his dog bed with a few

toys and food puzzles. At lunchtime he's back out for a quick trip to

the yard, some play time and a little lounging in the sun, followed by

a return to the kennel until around 4:30. Then it's another long walk

-- an hour this time -- dinner, a game of fetch in the yard, quiet time

and sleep.After the ASPCA-led evaluations, the dogs were put

into one of four categories: euthanize; sanctuary 2 (needs lifetime

care given by trained professionals, with little chance for adoption);

sanctuary 1 (needs a controlled environment, with a greater possibility

of adoption); and foster (must live with experienced dog owners for a

minimum of six months, and after further evaluation adoption is

likely). Rebecca Huss, a professor at the Valparaiso (Ind.) University

School of Law and an animal-law expert, was placed in charge of the

dispersal.Jonny was a foster dog that was taken in by Cohen, a

longtime BAD RAP volunteer who owns another pit bull, Lily, and had

cared for seven previous fosters. "When he first came, I could see he

was dealing with some serious stress," Cohen says of Jonny. "Everything

scared him: running water, flushing toilets, rattling pots. He was like

Scooby-Doo seeing a ghost -- he'd jump straight in the air and take

off. We dealt with that by putting him on a solid routine. Everything

the same, every day. Dogs thrive on that. If they know what to expect,

they can relax.""You ease their fears by building confidence

through simple everyday tasks," says McMillan. "We have to show them

that the world is not out to harm them. It's a peaceful, trustworthy

place."After about two months, Jonny began to chill out, and

Cohen started working on his manners. "His original name was Jonny

Rotten," Cohen says, "because he was such a little monster. He'd never

lived in a house before. He didn't know his name. He had no clue what

stairs were or how to go up them. He'd tie you up in the leash every

time you took him out. He'd just flat out run into stuff." Jonny

responded to weekly obedience training and to Cohen's personal

training, and in a few months his name was changed from Rotten to

Justice.During a walk in Golden Gate Park one day, Jonny was

mobbed by a group of kids. Cohen wasn't sure how Jonny would react to

all those little hands thrust at him, but the dog loved it. He played

with the children, and Cohen realized Jonny had an affinity for them.

He enrolled Jonny in training for the program Paws for Tales, in which

kids who get nervous reading aloud in class practice their skills by

reading to a canine audience of one. Jonny was certified in November,

and now once a month he sits patiently listening to children read.He's

not the only one of Vick's former dogs lending a hand. Leo, who lives

with foster mother Marthina McClay in Los Gatos, Calif., is a certified

therapy dog who spends two to three hours a week visiting cancer

patients and troubled teens. Two other dogs are also therapy dogs, and

two more are in training. A total of six have earned Canine Good

Citizen certificates, issued by the American Kennel Club to dogs who

pass a series of 10 tests, including walking through a crowd and

reacting to unexpected sights and sounds. "It's great to show people

how much these dogs have to offer," says Cohen.Jasmine runs in

the yard of the small suburban Baltimore house, jumping on Sweet Pea,

another pit bull, and nipping at the back of her neck. Sweet Pea spins

and leaps into Jasmine, and the two tumble together for a minute, then

pop up and continue their romp. When they roll around it's difficult to

tell one from the other, because they are the exact same color. Sweet

Pea is a few years older and a little bigger, and she has markings that

Jasmine does not: a series of scars on her snout and head indicative of

combat. Still, Sweet Pea loves to be around other dogs. She and Jasmine

have a special connection and have brought each other a bit of peace.

The people who know them best think that Sweet Pea is probably

Jasmine's mother. That's why their families try to arrange play dates

for them twice a month.

Posted: Tuesday December 23, 2008 8:20AM; Updated: Wednesday December 24, 2008 9:35AMWhat happened to Michael Vick's dogs... (cont.)Jasmine

wound up in the hands of Catalina Stirling, a 35-year-old artist who

lives with her husband, Davor Mrkoci, 32, an electrical engineer; her

children, Nino (4 1/2) and Anais (2 1/2); Rogue, a spunky spaniel-lab

mix; Desmond, a three-legged foster basenji-lab mix; and Thaiz, the

family cat. The fenced yard is big enough for running, and the

living-dining area, which contains almost no furniture, has a

smattering of dog beds and water bowls. Catalina and her children have

painted angels on one wall.In her evaluation Jasmine was

considered for sanctuary with Best Friends, but when volunteers from

the Baltimore rescue group Recycled Love went to see the pit bulls at

the Washington (D.C.) Animal Rescue League, a volunteer was so moved by

the sight of Jasmine hiding under the blanket that she crawled into the

cage and began massaging and whispering to the dog. Jasmine seemed to

respond. So Huss sent Jasmine and Sweet Pea to Recycled Love, which

subsequently turned Jasmine over to the woman who had crawled into the

cage: Catalina Stirling.Despite a promising start, Jasmine had a

long way to go. For months she sat in her little cage in Stirling's

house and refused to come out. "I had to pick her up and carry her

outside so she could go to the bathroom," Stirling says. "She wouldn't

even stand up until I had walked away. There's a little hole in the

yard, and once she was done, she would go lie in the hole." It was

three or four months before Jasmine would exit the cage on her own, and

then only to go out, relieve herself and lie in the hole. Sweet Pea,

who's better adjusted but still battles her own demons, was an hour

away, and her visits helped draw out Jasmine. After six months Stirling

could finally take both dogs for a walk in a big park near her house.Jasmine

has come far, but she still has many fears. Around people she almost

always walks with her head and tail down. She won't let anyone approach

her from behind, and she spends most of the day in her pen, sitting

quietly, the open door yawning before her. Stirling works with her

endlessly. "I feel like what I do for her is so little compared with

what she does for me," she says, welling up.In the end, 47 of

the 51 Vick dogs were saved. (Two died while in the shelters; one was

destroyed because it was too violent; and another was euthanized for

medical reasons.) Twenty-two dogs went to Best Friends, where McMillan

and his staff chart their emotional state daily; almost all show steady

improvement in categories such as calmness, sociability and happiness.

McMillan believes 17 of the dogs will eventually be adopted, and

applicants are being screened for the first of those. The other 25 have

been spread around the country; the biggest group, 10, went to

California with BAD RAP. Fourteen of the 25 have been placed in

permanent homes, and the rest are in foster care.Still, it's

Jasmine, lying in her kennel, who embodies the question at the heart of

the Vick dogs' story. Was it worth the time and effort to save these 47

dogs when millions languish in shelters? Charmers such as Zippy and Leo

and Jonny Justice seem to provide the obvious answer, but even for

these dogs any incidence of aggression, provoked or not, will play only

one way in the headlines. It's a lifelong sentence to a very short

leash. PETA's position is unchanged. "Some [of the dogs] will end up

with something resembling a normal life," Shannon says, "but the

chances are very slim, and it's not a good risk to take."Then

there are dogs like Lucas, who will never leave sanctuary because of

his history as a fighter, and Jasmine and Sweet Pea, who will never

leave their Recycled Love families. "There was a lot of discussion

about whether to save all of the sanctuary cases," says Reynolds, "but

in the end [best Friends] decided that's what they are there for. There

are no regrets."BAD RAP works out of Oakland Animal Services,

where above the main entrance is inscribed a Gandhi quote that dog

people cite often: the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can

be judged by the way its animals are treated."Vick showed the

worst of us, our bloodlust, but this rescue showed the best," Reynolds

says. "I don't think any of us thought it was possible to save these

dogs -- the government, the rescuers, the regular people -- but we

surprised ourselves."Jasmine doesn't know about any of that as

she sits on the back deck of Stirling's house. Stirling kneels next to

her, gently stroking the dog's back. "I used to think any dog could be

rehabbed if you gave it food, exercise and love," she says, "but I know

now it's not totally true. Jasmine's happy, but she'll never be like

other dogs."It's quiet for a moment, and the breeze blows a

shower of brown and red leaves off the trees. Then Jasmine turns, looks

up, and licks Catalina's face. It is the sweetest of kisses.To support animal-care groups cited in this article, go to their respective Web sites: www.aspca.org, www.badrap.org, www.bestfriends.org,www.recycledlove.organd http://www.ourpack.org/.