Michael Vick's dogs, where are they now? Meet Jonny who was one of 51 pit bulls seized in April 2007 from Bad Newz Kennels, the Smithfield, Va., dogfighting ring run by Michael Vick, then quarterback of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons.
Although too young to have been a fighter, Jonny probably had his mettle tested a few times, and like most of the other Bad Newz dogs, he’d spent his entire life either locked up in a pen or chained to a rotating axle in the woods, with little or no positive interaction with people or other dogs.
After the raid on Vick’s property, Jonny and the other dogs were deemed evidence, and put into shelters to be held until the investigation was complete. Conditions varied, but even the best dogs can break down, after a few months of confinement. With Vick’s dogs, this wasn’t much of a concern; it was assumed they all would be destroyed upon the delivery of a verdict.
Jonny was one of the un-socialized but happy crowd, which is how he ended up with Cohen, who had a pit bull of his own. He had previously fostered six others as a volunteer for the rescue group BAD RAP (Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls). “The first step was to let him unwind his kennel stress,” Cohen says, referring to the jitters that follow dogs out of long-term confinement. He countered Jonny’s anxiety with quiet time and “the rut,” as he calls it. “Dogs love a schedule,” he explains. “They love knowing that the same things are going to happen at the same times every day. Once they have that consistency, they can relax.”
Workers with the Washington Animal Rescue League (WARL) are trying to counter the bad reputation of the pit bull breed with an initiative to encourage people to adopt the dogs. Leilani is a three-year-old female pit bull and at the center of the push to get the controversial breed back into loving homes.
“In every city, pit bulls are the victims, victims of abuse of neglect of the way we treat them of overpopulation,” said Gary Weitzman, of the Washington Animal Rescue League. To keep the dogs from becoming overpopulated themselves, the league is waiving the $150 adoption fee and offering training classes at a discount over the Fourth of July weekend.
The league is hoping to rehab the image of the breed, which they say have been tarnished by reports of recent pit bull attacks. The perceived bad reputation is something pit bull owner Darius Baker encounters all the time when out with his dog buddy. “They're probably the most misunderstood out of all the breeds of dogs for the most part their behavior is just like any other dog, they just have that stigma about them,” Baker said.
That stigma is what Anne Eigeman expected to see from the pit bull living in her apartment building.“Initially I was maybe little hesitant around them because I had heard they could be more aggressive than other dogs, but I’ve found that not to be a general rule,” she said.
Of the 47dogs rescued from the Bad Newz kennels, 21 went to the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, which is the largest no-kill sanctuary in Utah. The rest either found foster homes, or are in permanent homes.
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A puppy mill, sometimes known as a puppy farm, is a commercial dog breeding facility that is operated with an emphasis upon profits above animal welfare and is often in substandard conditions regarding the well-being of dogs in their care. Similar types of operations exist for other animals most commonly kept as pets or used as feed for other animals. The term can be applied to operations involving other animals commercially bred for profit, e.g. "kitty mills." There are an estimated 4,000 puppy mills in the U.S. that produce more than half a million puppies a year. Commercial kennels may be licensed by the United States Department of Agriculture which may inspect the kennels routinely.
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