Monday, September 03, 2007

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Dog irony

I wasn’t going to say anything at all about the Michael Vick dog-fighting thing. Enough media attention’s been paid to it, and there’s been plenty of blogging about it without my having to say anything. But there’s an irony about it that I just have to comment on, briefly.

Michael Vick will do prison time for, in part, killing dogs. That’s as it should be. But what will happen to the dogs he didn’t kill? Most likely, most of them will be killed:

Vick, who has been suspended indefinitely by the N.F.L., and the others pleaded guilty to federal felony charges for their involvement with the dogfighting. The first of their sentencing hearings is Nov. 30. The fate of the dogs, however, is all but sealed.

After the behaviorists make their recommendations, Kilgore said, he can try to have those few that are suitable put up for adoption or put them down.

“One of them may make a nice pet for someone that is an expert in pit bulls and knows exactly what they were doing with it,” he said while providing a tour of the kennel Thursday to a reporter and a photographer from The New York Times. “But the majority of people that want dogs like this want them for all the wrong reasons.”

Michael Vick is only the most famous member of a subculture that breeds and trains dogs to kill each other, or anything else that gets in their way. I can only hope that this high-profile case helps move us to do what we have to to kill the subculture, so we no longer have to kill the dogs.

1 comment:

Ray said...

most of them will be killed

Which is very sad, but almost inevitable, given they were bred and trained to hate other dogs on sight.

I volunteer for a dog rescue organisation [plug] www.nebcr.org [/plug] and even we occasionally have to euthanise dogs that come into rescue - usually because they were the product of a puppy mill and were never properly socialised when they were puppies. Having exposed Vick and his obnoxious proclivities, it would be nice if the puppy mill "industry" would also receive similar coverage, since they are responsible for far more dog misery and deaths.

In any case, at least the Vick dogs will be humanely euthanised, rather than being torn to shreds in a fighting ring. It isn't much consolation, but it's better than the alternative.

I think a fitting punishment for this person and his criminal gang should be a long prison term, and the garnishing of his fortune to support rescue organisations. (I also think more severe monetary punishments are appropriate in many other types of crime, by the way.)