Category Archives: Bad Rap

Update on the Vick Dogs…

They have slowly brought them into the limelight. I have followed their progress from the day they left their hell on earth. I am a person that despises BSL’s (Breed Specific Legislation) because I had a battered and abused Pit for years until my girl Baby died from cancer. She was the sweetest dog I have ever known and folks…I have known a boat-friggin-load. From BadRap.org via People Magazine:

After Michael Vick’s 51 pit bulls were seized from his property in April 2007, two rescue groups took most of them in — Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah, and BAD RAP (Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pit Bulls) in San Francisco. Several other groups around the country also opened their doors to the dogs: the Georgia SPCA, All or Nothing Rescue, Our Pack, Richmond Animal League, Recycled Love, the Animal Farm Foundation, the SPCA for Monterey, Out of the Pits, and Animal Rescue of Tidewater.

That was background on this story, just in case some of you have been under a rock for over three-fucking-years. From the recent article in People Mag:

The little black-and-white dog knocked into furniture and hid things in his crate. He couldn’t go up or down stairs, didn’t know how to climb onto a couch. Flushing toilets and clanging pots sent him running from the room. He wasn’t a bad dog—he simply didn’t know any better; he’d never lived in a house. His lack of social grace earned him the name Jonny Rotten. “He was a caveman,” says Cris Cohen, a Burlingame, Calif., car-dealership manager who provided Jonny with a foster home. “He had no manners.”

That was understandable. Jonny 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.

This story has a fairy tale….or tail…ending…I love it and I am glad that after all the hard work of BadRap and the folks in Utah, BestFriends, many of these dogs have been put back into homes and they are well-adjusted. The rest are working their way…slowly, back into society. I believe mutha fuckas…I believe they will all, or the majority of them will end up within our society as ‘good dogs’.

In fact, rescuers argued from the start that rather than be condemned as a whole, the dogs should be individually assessed and treated—and this has turned out to be one of the great lessons of the Bad Newz dogs. Generalizations and preconceptions are as unhelpful and counterproductive for pit bulls as they are for people.

Consider one of Vick’s other victims, Hector. A handsome brown dog with a black snout and deep scars on his chest, he had clearly been a fighter. Yet from the start he had nothing but love for the world. After moving through a few foster homes, he was adopted by Roo Yori. The director of care and enrichment at Animal Farm Foundation in upstate New York, Yori is best known as the human companion of Wallace the Pit Bull, a national flying-disc champ.

Hector shares his new home with Yori and his wife, Clara; Wallace; a rat terrier named Scooby; Angus, a black Lab mix; and a toy Australian shepherd called Mindy Lou, who runs the show with an iron paw. Hector fitted in from the start and never had a problem with anyone, human or canine. Under Yori’s guidance, the ex-fighter blossomed, earning several temperament awards and eventually becoming certified as a therapy dog, working with the sick and elderly, as well as troubled teens.

So what conclusions can we draw from the fates of Vick’s pits? “We know so little about dogs like these because so few of them have been allowed to live,” Dr. McMillan says. “We’re learning a lot, but the work still doesn’t permit concrete conclusions. These dogs really represent the start of these kinds of studies.”

Still, we now know for certain that while it may be faster and easier simply to exterminate dogs recovered from illegal fighting rings, it’s not the only option. Look how far Jonny has come. Cohen formally adopted him last year, and he, too, is a therapy dog, working in a program that encourages kids who are learning to read. The children who take turns reciting stories to him don’t know him as a pit bull or a Vick dog. No one knows him as Jonny Rotten, either. Along the way he acquired a new name. Now he’s Jonny Justice. (emphasis mine of course)

I love you Jonny, I really friggin do, sweet boy… 😉

Posted in Baby Girl, Bad Newz Kennels, Bad Rap, Breed Specific Legislation, BSL, Jonny, Michael Vick, Pit Bulls, Pit Bulls need love too

Good News from the survivors of Bad Newz

Feb 9

Posted by Dusty, hells most vocal bitch

Bad Newz Kennels was owned by Michael Vick. Pretty much all you have to say is his name and most people in America know what your talking about…the Pit Bulls that survived the horrors committed there under the guise of fun and games for humans.

The Humane Society wanted them destroyed. PETA wanted them destroyed. A quote from a PETA spokesman says it all:

“The cruelty they’ve suffered is such that they can’t lead what anyone who loves dogs would consider a normal life, We feel it’s better that they have their suffering ended once and for all.”

But that is a fallacy, its a bullshit line from folks that don’t get it or even want to attempt to understand the psyche of an abused animal. 51 dogs survived the horrific treatment of Michael Vick and his..cough..friends.

It’s been almost a year now since the Feds rescued the 51 living dogs from Vick’s home in VA.

Only ONE had to be put down because she was unable to cope with humans on any level. Only one.

The Sports Illustrated story is a 5 page history of many of the dogs from Bad Newz Kennels. It will make you smile, it will make you cry and sometimes it will make you cuss in anger that human beings can be so fucking mean to an animal that only wants love, affection and the occasional kiss and hug.

Sports Illustrated was so impressed with how the Vick dogs have turned out they made them the December cover story. SI is a sports magazine so to me, that says volumes. A quote from the story:

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.”

I am a pit bull owner, or was until I had to put Baby down a couple of summers ago when her body was riddled with cancer. She was an abused pit who loved every living thing inspite of what had been done to her. I haven’t gotten another dog because I want another pit that was abused.

I know that sounds weird as shit, but I want to give my love to another dog that has come out the ‘other side’ of a horror story such as Baby’s or Vick’s dogs. We have two little dogs and a whole lotta cats…so it’s not like I don’t have animals to love and enjoy. But Baby will only be replaced with another abused pit who needs a good home.

Some of you will shake your heads and still believe that all pit bulls are bad dogs that can never be trusted with human beings or other living creatures.

But they are not m’dear reader. I can testify to that fact and so can BadRap. They were given some of the Vick dogs to rehabilitate. They did a magnificent job, go to their site and watch the videos and read their blog. See how they are now living with families that have cats, kids and other dogs in the home.

The SI story gives you the background and brings you to the present on these dogs. Its a heartwarming story that will give you chills…at least it did to me.

As Gandhi once said: The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

And in closing I just want to thank the Judge that had the balls to say no to putting these dogs down. Thank You Judge Henry E. Hudson. I heart you dude.

Now, I can also put up a shot of my Baby and Brian, a gratuitous shameless plug for the dog I loved and who loved me back… and my son whom I miss very much: