PETA is apparently more concerned about some frightened animals than thousands of dead human beings.

An international animal rights group called on Sri Lanka’s separatist Tamil Tigers to “leave animals out” of the armed conflict, two weeks after a grenade attack blamed on rebels at the island’s main zoo. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, said in a letter dated Feb. 15 to Velupillai Prabhakaran, the reclusive rebel leader, that “the explosive device that was set off near the zoo’s bird enclosures terrified many animals at the zoo.”

[...]

The Feb. 3 grenade explosion at the Dehiwala zoo on the outskirts of the capital of Colombo wounded at least four people, the government said. Attacks including bomb explosions blamed on Tamil rebels have killed about 90 civilians so far this year, according to the military.

[...]

Tamil Tiger rebels have fought the government since 1983 to create a separate homeland for the country’s ethnic minority Tamils. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

Bruce McQuain wins Headline of the Day honors for his piece on this, “PETA pleads with rebels to stick with murdering humans.”

Granted, PETA is in the animal rights business, not the concern for humans business. But you’d think they’d at least put in an offhand disclaimer that, of course, some frightened zoo animals aren’t a bigger tragedy than four wounded innocents and 70,000 human dead.

Photo credit: zappowbang

Good news for some of Michael Vick’s dogs. Ten of the dogs have been taken in by a dog rescue group in San Francisco called Bad Rap. All ten dogs on well on their way to transitioning from a short brutal lives as warriors under a brutal and sadistic man to lives as happy family dogs.

His back resting comfortably against her chest, Hector nestles his massive canine head into Leslie Nuccio’s shoulder, high-fiving pit bull paws against human hands.

The big dog — 52 pounds — is social, people-focused, happy now, it seems, wearing a rhinestone collar in his new home in sunny California.

But as Hector sits up, deep scars stand out on his chest, and his eyes are imploring.

Hector ought to be dead, Nuccio knows — killed in a staged fight, executed for not winning or euthanized by those who see pit bulls seized in busts as “kennel trash,” unsuited to any kind of normal life.

Instead, Hector is learning how to be a pet.[...]

The animals barrel around the house, with 4-year-old Hector leading the puppy-like antics — stealth underwear grabs from the laundry basket, dashes across the living room, food heists from the coffee table — until it’s “love time” and he decelerates and engulfs the women in a hug.

Here is a video of the dogs at Bad Rap,

Each dog was evaluated as an individual. Huss recalled the good-natured-but-quiet Rose, whose overbreeding had led to mammary tumors. In the end, needing surgery but unable to tolerate anesthesia, Rose was mercifully put down, just days after being transferred to a foster home.

[...]

Weekly “canine good citizen” classes are correcting his social ineptitude. And he’s taking cues on good manners from patient Pandora, a female pit bull mix who’s queen of the household’s dogs. Once Hector graduates, he’ll take classes to become a certified therapy dog, helping at nursing homes and the like.

From the sounds of it, these dogs would have all died rather quickly as none of them sound like ideal fighting material. An American Pit Bull Terrier that is dog friendly isn’t going to make a good fighter, and will either be put down during testing, after losing a fight or worst of all used as bait dogs, and we know how sadistic Vick’s methods of disposing of “undesirable” dogs were.

In what’s becoming an all-too-common story, a D.C. area couple had their dog killed by police who were at the wrong house.

An Accokeek [Maryland] couple is demanding an apology after Prince George’s County Sheriff’s Deputies burst into their home and killed their dog – all because deputies went to the wrong address.

Pam and Frank Myers were tucked away in their home Friday night watching a movie when the warrant squad pounced. “All of a sudden I hear, bang, bang, bang, ‘Open the door, police, open the door,’” said Pam Myers. “They wouldn’t let me go to the bathroom which is like seven feet down the hall,” said Frank Myers. “it was terrifying. I can’t sit on my couch at night any more. I’m looking over my shoulder the whole time,” said Pam Myers.

The Myers say the deputies knew immediately they had raided the wrong home. They say it could have ended with an apology, until the couple heard two shots from the yard. “And I said, ‘You just shot my dog,” said Pam Myers, through tears. “I just wanted to go out and hold her a bit. They wouldn’t even let me go out.” The couple’s five-year-old boxer Pearl was killed. The deputy says he feared for his life. They say the dog would bark but was no danger to the deputies.

ABC 7/NewsChannel 8’s Brad Bell reports that a search of court records shows a warrant for a suspected drug dealer who lives two doors away at 14610 Livingston Road. The address is clearly displayed on that house.

“It’s just not right that people have to worry about – police have their jobs to do, but the house is marked over there. All they had to do was go look,” she said. “I want the sheriff to apologize to my family for killing their dog.”

A video report of the incident is here.

According to a WTOP radio report, the police have apologized. Obviously, it’s rather late for that.

Mistakes happen in any endeavor and arresting violent criminals is dangerous work. Still, one would think police engaging in high stress raids would ensure that they are at the right address. Further, it’s not unreasonable for them to know who they’re after and expect some restraint.

Radley Balko, who tracks these sort of incidents, links to a map from earlier this year that’s already “about three-dozen incidents out of date.”

A woman in Washington was badly injured when a pit bull type dog and a pit bull mix breed dog got into her house and attacked her dog, the neighbors dog she was watching and then her. In the ensuing attack Ms. Gorman suffered extensive injuries to her face, arms, breast and upper body.

Apparently the dogs got into her house through a sliding glass door she left open during the night to allow her cats to go in and out. She forgot to secure the door so that it wouldn’t open wider thus allowing the pit bulls to push the door open and gain entry.

Again we can see how people have once again acted irresponsibly and have made it harder for those who own stable pit bull type dogs and take precautions to ensure that their dogs are properly contained.

The details aren’t very specific but it is clear that these dogs were roaming off their property. Further, that the pit bull, Betty, has had prior instances of aggression where animal control had to intervene. This type of dog is atypical for the breed and should have probably been euthanized once she showed signs of human aggression.

The problem here isn’t the breed of the dog as there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of pit bull type dogs and pit bull mixes that live with families as the family pet with no problems at all. The problem is two fold:

1. Bad owners,
2. A lax legal system that does not prosecute bad owners, or a lack of laws to prosecute bad owners.

Bad dog owners abound. A bad dog owner is somebody who has a blind spot to their dogs inappropriate behavior. For example, if the dog growls at a person while on a walk the owner might blame the person walking by instead of their dog for an inappropriate display of aggression. Even worse is if the owner then “comforts” their “baby” because of that “nasty person who was probably up to no good anyways.” This kind of thing would simply reinforce the dogs inappropriate behavior. There is a saying, “There is only one perfect dog in the world and every dog owner has that dog.”

Owners need to evaluate their dogs behaviors from an objective perspective as possible. For example, I know that my Rottweiler does not like to have even me crowding her when she is lying down and sleeping. Hugging her while she sleeps is not something that she wants me or anyone else to do. So when she is sleeping I don’t crowd her and I tell others not to as well. Also, she can be quite territorial and when somebody comes to the house unannounced I have to make sure she is calm before opening the door. My American Pit Bull Terrier (APBT) on the other hand simply loves people and any and all types of attention, but she wants to attack every other dog other than my Rottweiler. As such my APBT never goes anywhere off leash, she is not allowed to socialize with any other dog, and dog parks are simply out of the question.

The legal problem is also quite serious in that it allows the bad owners to often get off with a slap on the wrist. Even if the victim goes after the owner in civil court if the owner has few or no assets even that might not allow for much of a punishment. And lets face it many of the people who own APBTs and other pit bull type dogs these days are not what you call pillars of the community. In this case though it looks like the owner of the dogs will be facing some serious charges including a felony charge that carries with it a maximum jail sentence of 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

I think this is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be put in place everywhere. If you own a dog and it is human aggressive or trained to attack people you, not the dog, should be the one who is held largely responsible. Often times all that happens is the person pays a fine, allows the dog to be euthanized, and that is about it. Putting in place laws that would hit these irresponsible owners with felony charges that included serious jail time might actually induce people to be more careful in what dogs they choose to own and how they train and treat them.

In short, laws like the one in Washington single out the deed and not the breed and put irresponsible owners on the hot seat. Focusing on the breed is wrong-headed for two reasons. First it can create a false sense of safety when it comes to fatal dog attacks or even severe non-fatal attacks. Second, the real problem are irresponsible owners and a breed ban does not address irresponsible owners, but it does harm responsible owners.

Jim Henley, Julian Sanchez, and Megan McArdle debate whether one can be a libertarian and simultaneously favor laws against animal cruelty.

While there are many theories and many stripes of libertarianism (as anyone reading Henley, Sanchez, and McArdle on a regular basis would soon discover) it seems to me that at the core of all of them is the Harm Principle, as articulated by John Stuart Mill:

That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right… The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others.

It would seem, therefore, that any libertarian case for preventing cruelty to animals — or, more correctly, as Sanchez notes, the particular classes of animals we find cute and cuddly — would have to be built around its impact on other humans, not the animals themselves. Presumably, the chief harm to others in torturing animals that are the property of the torturer is psychic.

Can libertarians justify using the coercive power of the state to take away the liberty of a few on the basis that the thing prohibited creates severe emotional distress among a great many people? Or is that a slippery slope towards justifying any law based solely on societal norms?

UPDATE: Julian Sanchez rejects my suggestion that the Harm Principle is purely libertarian:

While it may be most frequently invoked by libertarians, I think the Harm Principle, at least as a strong presumptive default, has pretty wide appeal in American culture. We’re all Millians now, and the most dyed-in-the-wool paternalists today will earnestly tell you that all they’re really trying to do is prevent some externality or another. What’s more particularly characteristic of libertarians is that we tend to want to stay pretty close to Mill’s rather narrowly constrained concept of “distinct and assignable” harms, excluding all sorts of purely psychic harms, costs “imposed” on the public system by people who make unhealthy choices, and so on.

I agree that the Harm Principle has adherents among non-libertarians. I’d argue, though, that its embrace as the only rationale for state coercion is libertarian.

Bruce McQain argues that animals are property, pure and simple, and that any attempt to legislate that they be treated otherwise is a clear violation of libertarian principles. Commenter Robb Allen sees this is an inherent flaw in the philosophy: “[P]ure libertarianism is like pure communism. Really pretty in Power Point, but useless in real life. Like it or not, we live as a society, and there’s always enough people willing to use the state that you have to just deal with it.”

Of course, the fact that people have not fully internalized a theory does not make it flawed; people are not purely rational creatures, after all, and we often act against interests out of emotionalism. Most of us would prefer to a meal of chili burgers and curly fries to poached salmon and broccoli; that doesn’t render the former a healthy diet.

Meanwhile, Bill Quick can’t quite reconcile his libertarian beliefs with his instinctual desire to commit violence against animal abusers but he’s working on it.

Looks like Michael Vick will face additional charges as the Virginia Commonwealth Attorney Gerald Poindexter says that he will be submitting his case to a grand jury on Sept. 25th.

He has not determined which charges he would file but said he would aggressively prosecute based on previously acquired evidence and some of the evidence presented in the federal case. Dogfighting and animal cruelty are felonies in Virginia with animal cruelty charges holding penalties of up to five years in jail for each animal killed.

“The execution of these animals — and the manner in which they were executed — is startlingly offensive and demanding of prosecution,” Poindexter said.

Statements made in the guilty pleas reached by Phillips and Peace that they accompanied Vick in the execution of eight dogs this April and fought dogs on Vick’s Surry County, Va., property solidified Poindexter’s decision to move forward with prosecution.

Well, let me see, we know that 8 dogs were killed so it is possible that Vick could be facing upto 40 years in prison. Now I’m not familiar with the law nor am I a lawyer, so that is an upper-bound and depending on what charges are actually broght and how many could radically change that number.

This article brings up an interesting point: one can be banned from the NFL for life if one is either gambling or associated with gambling. Again, I’m not familiar with this rule and if gambling on dog fights would be sufficient to trigger this kind of discipline.

If this article is accurate in the claims by Vick’s co-defendants then Vick might be a bit more worried about what will happen with the NFL than with the prosecutors and judicial system.

Specifically, they say that the Bad Newz Kennels dog fighting ring’s “operation and gambling monies were almost exclusively funded by Vick.”

The animal cruelty angle of the Vick investigation is the reason it has drawn so much public outrage, but it’s the gambling angle that could easily cost Vick his NFL career. The NFL’s rules couldn’t be clearer when it comes to gambling: The contract that Vick and every NFL player signs says that “Associating with gamblers or with gambling activities in a manner tending to bring discredit to the NFL” can lead to a lifetime ban.

Whoops.

Michael vick might be taking a plea deal. According to the article the deal has Vick serving a year in prison, and supposedly Vick is waiting to find out how such a plea deal would affect his NFL career.

The other people charged in the case along with Vick have already accepted plea deals and are waiting for the judge to approve the deals or have already plead guilty and are working with prosecutors.

Co-defendants Purnell Peace, 35, and Quanis Phillips, 28, are due in court Friday to seek approval for their plea deals. A third co-defendant, Tony Taylor, 34, has pleaded guilty July 30 and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

That leaves only Vick to negotiate for a deal.

According to the article Vick’s involvment in the dogfighting venture was from the begining and significant.

According to documents filed in court last month, Taylor said he and co-defendants, including Vick, decided to start a dogfighting venture in early 2001 and that Vick paid for the property in Smithfield, Virginia, used for the operations.

Update: Vick and his legal team still negotiating with prosecutors.

An associate, Tony Taylor, of Michael Vick has copped a plea and has reportedly admitted that the Virginia dogfighting operation was funded almost entirely by Michael Vick. Taylor admits to his role in the dog fighting operation, and in exchange for his cooperation he is looking to get a lighter sentence. Further, that the operation was started in 2001 and that Vick was one of the primary individuals involved in starting up the operation. Moreover, Taylor claims that Vick was indeed involved in testing dogs for fighting during 2002, but does not indicate that Vick killed any dogs that didn’t pass such tests. Details of numerous dog fights in which Vick where a dog from his kennel fought are also included.

One of the issues I sometimes have with Libertarianism is when it is taken to an extreme. They take the either/or view when it comes to many intelligent animals. Consider this post by Skip Olivia over at the Misses blog. In that post and many of the comments we get variations on the “animals have no rights, they are simply property.” In short treating an intelligent animal like a dog just like a table is just peachy with them, or if it isn’t then they have a serious consistency problem. Most people would not flinch if I dragged my dinner table into my drive way and chain sawed it in half. If I dragged one of my dogs into the drive way and did the same thing, all of my neighbors would likely view me as somebody who is profoundly disturbed.

What about children? Children can’t vote, and it isn’t at all clear that the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness even apply to children at least to the same level as with adults. I sure know that my son would argue that making him do his homework constitutes and infringement on both his liberty and pursuit of happiness. If he were really precocious he might also argue that my sending to his room for some infraction violates due process and constitutes some sort of illegal confinement. So, are children the property of the adults? If so, how come I can’t treat my son like a table or a car? If a child is not the property of the adult, then how does one reconcile the lack of full rights for children?

One could argue that a child’s mentally faculties are still forming and as such the parents should act as custodians and do things that often have a short term cost but long term benefit (education, teaching responsibility, etc.). Fine, but why not something similar to animals like the dog or other intelligent animals? I admit that there isn’t some clear cut line here and that some could argue that this is possibly a slipper slope, but it seems clear that wantonly killing an animal for enjoyment and profit and doing so in a grisly manner (dog fighting) is different that killing an animal for profit an to feed others and doing so in as pain free a manner as possible (killing a cow for food).

Who cares what happened to this dog, it was just a piece of property…like a table

Clearly there is some sort of spectrum here, and is it unreasonable to consider that animals “lower” than humans, but that still possesses some level of intelligence be given some moral consideration such as not being tortured to death, forced into fighting, and summarily executed for failing to fight/fight well? Radley Balko, whose comments on the Michael Vick case sparked the post by Skip Olivia writes,

My approach to animal cruelty laws would be about the same as my approach to the abortion issue. Most people would agree that many animals deserve more moral consideration than, say, a table. Exactly what animals have what rights, and how those rights should be protected, are matters of line-drawing–police powers. And police powers are best left up to as local a jurisdiction as possible, so they can write laws that best reflect each state or community’s values.

Skip Oliva also writes,

This is really a case where a majority is trying to punish the minority–which includes the people who watch and wager on dog racing–for holding an unpopular economic preference.

I find this just ridiculous. Suppose we have an individual who decides that there is a lucrative market in trafficking in child pornography? He doesn’t make, he doesn’t like it, but he likes the money he earns from selling it. Are we to turn a blind eye to this fellow and argue, “Hey, this is just a case where the majority is trying to punish the minority for holding an unpopular economic preference. He isn’t actually making the pornography. He isn’t even victimizing the children.”? Seems like a stretch. Further, this might actually be a case where even having federal laws might be a good idea. Granted, there might not be language in the Constitution to currently cover such laws, but the Constitution can be changed.

Note: I don’t intend to hide the picture of Gypsy below the fold. I want everyone to see the results of dog fighting.

Michael Vick, the quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, has been indicted on dog fighting charges. This follows news that dozens of pit bull type dogs were found at a Virgnia property owned by Vick and tips that Vick had been involved in dog fighting for several years and was one of the people involved with the Bad Newz Kennels. The Smoking Gun has a copy of the indictment and it is pretty damned disgusting.

The indictment claims that Vick and his codefendants killed no less than 8 dogs that either lost fights or failed fight tests. The method of killing ranged from electrocution, drowning, hanging to slamming a dog’s body to the ground until dead.

Vick and the other defendants — Purnell A. Peace, Quanis L. Phillips and Tony Taylor — were involved in an ongoing animal fighting venture based out of Vick’s home in Smithfield, Va., from early 2001 to April 2007, according to a statement released by the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Vick faces $350,000 in fines and six years in prison if convicted of the charges.

If Vick is guilty and if he does get the maximum sentence then he has gotten off lightly in my opinion. The methods of killing these poor dogs seem to have been selected to inflict the most pain and distress possible.

Now to be fair some of the more “sensational” items reported in the news aren’t all that big a deal to me. The “rape stand” strikes me as nothing really as American Pit Bull Terriers can be very dog aggressive (depends on the dog) and breeding them would be problematic at best. Also the claims of a “pry bar” (aka a “breaking stick”, “parting stick”) is also not much in the way of evidence either. I do not fight my American Pit Bull Terrier and the thought of doing so makes me sick, yet I own two breaking sticks. Since American Pit Bull Terriers are dog aggressive a fight can occur when you least suspect it and seperating the dogs can be difficult without a breaking stick (and I should note that using a breaking stick is safest for both the dog and the person seperating the dogs). The bloodied carpet on the other hand along with the collapsable fighting “pit” are indicative of fighting. The carpet is to give the dogs traction and the “pit” is often nothing more than pieces of plywood to create a wall around the carpet.

UPDATE (James Joyner): Steve beat me to it. Let me just add that watching Vick go from #1 overall draft pick to NFL’s the most exciting player to this has been surreal. What a waste of talent.

Bill Jempty has more at OTB Sports.

A rather common occurence. A police officer in Norfolk Virginia shot and killed a pit bull after he claims it charged him. The police’s version of events is,

Police say the dog was charging at the officer and the women in the accident. So the officer reacted.

“He began to back up, yelling at the dog, but the dog continued to run. He pushed the woman to the side, drew his weapon, continued to backpedal, and fired 3 rounds,” said Norfolk Police spokesperson Chris Amos, describing the account provided by the officer.

We asked Lock: “Was the dog running or barking?” “No sir. No,” he replied.

Personally, I find this a bit hard to believe. Pit bulldogs are notoriously animal aggressive, but are typically human submissive. A pit bulldog will have very little threat display around other, animals especially dogs. Around humans on the other hand a pit bulldog will have a very noticable threat display if the dog feels threatened. As such, the idea that the dog would charge and do so silently is somewhat unbelievable to me. My guess is that the officer saw the dog and having seen some of the hysteria surrounding pit bulldogs in the media over-reacted.

The person who was watching the dog also bears a large share of the responsibility as well since the dog was not on leash. Undoubtedly if the dog had been on leash the dog would still be alive today. Far to many people take their dogs outside off leash. This is irresponsible dog ownership and is dangerous, at a minimum, for the dog.

Yesterday’s Boston Globe report that Mitt Romney once strapped his dog to the top of a station wagon for a twelve hour car ride, during which the thing that the bumper stickers say “happens” in fact did, is getting much attention around the blogosphere.

Ana Marie Cox attributes the behavior to Rommey’s Mormonism although, to be honest, I’m pretty sure this is not a widespread practice among that faith.

Fontana Labs concludes that Romney is an orifice that, along with opinions, everyone has and which his dog made use of during the incident in question.

Steve Bainbridge avows that “there is now no set of circumstances under which I’ll be voting for Romney. Sam and Toby would never forgive me.”

In Romney’s defense, however, I’d note that the incident took place over twenty-five years ago. Goodness knows, his views on dog travel have certainly changed half a dozen times in the interim.

I sent my wife this Reuters article about a recall on some wooden “Thomas and Friends” toys this morning because the children of some friends of our plays with them. Steven Taylor, though, noted something more within the rubric of the blog, though, deeper into the piece:

The recall of toys made in China follows a series of health scandals in the United States involving food, drugs and other products imported from China, from poisoned cough syrup to tainted toothpaste and pet food.

It’s a worrisome trend, indeed. I had missed the news of tainted toothpaste and cough syrup but the pet food scandal has certainly garnered international attention. As Steven observes,

For all the talk of China becoming an economic superpower, they are going to face a tough road if people are going to start associating “Made in China” with “Made with Poison.”

Quite.

The irony is that China has managed to combine the worst elements of capitalism with the worst elements of Communism: a repressive regime that provides no safety regulation. The demands of the global marketplace will force them to change, at least on the latter front, over time. People want cheap goods and most of us will overlook human rights abuses in the countries providing them. We won’t accept unsafe products, however.

While we’re on the subject of self-promotion, I keep reporting on the pet food recall story that’s been unfolding for, now, three months because nearly every day there’s something new to report. Yesterday the “something new” was that acetaminophen had been detected in pet foods which had been sent to a laboratory for analysis by enterprising (and concerned) pet owners. Acetaminophen is not an approved food additive, can be quite toxic to cats in particular, and should not be present in food in any quantities whatever.

My most recent update on the story is here.

I continue to believe that the minimum effective remedy for the problem revealed in the course of this saga is mandatory country-of-origin labelling of food ingredients. Without that manufacturers and brand names have motivations to deny and conceal. With that the market can function to motivate manufacturers and brand names to do due diligence with respect to their suppliers.

Well, it seems that Michael Vick the quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons is also what is called a “dogman”. A dogman is somebody who likes to fight dogs. Dog fights are brutal affairs. The dogs are fought until one of the dog scratches (refuses to fight) or one of the dogs is dead. The injuries that these dogs suffer are appalling.

[I've moved the image of Gypsy the dog who was on the losing end of a dog fight below the fold. It is a very disturbing picture, but it shows how barbaric dog fighting is. If you are squeamish, don't click to see more.]

That a person can think this “sport” is entertaining speaks of unbelievable cruelty. To bet on this kind of sport, house over 60 dogs in horrible conditions simply re-enforces my view that the people involved in this activity are some of the lowest people in our society.

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick was at a dog fight in 2000 and is “one of the heavyweights” in the sport, ESPN reported. The network Sunday cited a police informant whom a dog-fighting investigator called “extremely reliable.”

“That’s who bets a large dollar,” the informant said on the show “Outside the Lines.” “And they have the money to bet large money. As I’m talking about large money, 30 to 40 thousand, even higher. He’s one of the heavyweights.”

When asked how he knows Vick bets that amount, the informant said, “because I’ve seen it.”

In fairness nothing has been proven against Vick, other than property he owned had 66 dogs, 55 of them pit bulls, equipment often associated with triaining dogs to fight, and even a pit where dogs could have fought. He might be some ignorant fool who is going to bear the brunt of this horrible news. I find this possibility unlikley though, and if turns out that Vick was/is into dog fighting, I hope his life becomes a living Hell.

More here.

Warning: The following picture is rather graphic. It displays a dog that was on the losing end of a dog fight. The dog no longer has any ears, one of its forelegs had to be amputated, and its face is a mass of wounds along with a startling number of drainage tubes. The point of the picture is to show the burtality that goes with dog fighting. It is a horrible, horrible activity and in regards to the people who take part in it…let me just say, I fully support euthanasia of animals that are unsound.

Update: Vick’s claims of never having been to the Virginia property are made more dubious by the following items. First, he recieved mail there, and local residents noted that Vick bought syringes there. The latter could be related to dog fighting in that dog fighters will often take care of the injuries a winning dog sustains. Some dogmen will inject their dogs with things like vitamin K before a fight to promote blood clotting (fights can on a long time, and a dog losing due to blood loss is clearly not desirable). Also, after a fight the dogman might inject his dogs with antibiotics. You can’t take your dog to the local vet since if dog fighting is illegal he might report you to the authorities.

Can we say, “Suspension”?

Another Update: Whoopsies. Now the story is that Vick’s involvment with dog fighting was well known inside the Falcon’s orgainization and that Vick’s recruited others into dog fighting as well.

Also, the rumor is that the Falcon’s are getting ready for a 6 game suspension.

Update III: For those of you who saw the picture below the fold and wondered what happened to poor gypsy, click here to see how well she did. It just goes to show what an amazingly stable nature of the American Pit Bull Terrier. That a dog can go through something that horrific and still come out of it a happy go lucky dog…well actually her new owner says she is a bit of a spoiled brat.