To Forgive or Forget...I Say No Part 2

The issue with Michael Vick is one that disturbs me and perplexes me as to why I can have such feelings for someone I do not know and have not met.   Many people do not understand.  But let me clarify.

In my years of working with rescue animals and at a dog rescue, I have seen firsthand the hell that these dogs have gone through at the hands of horrible humans.   The scars, both physical and emotional that bring tears to your eyes when these dogs come into the rescue. Unfathomable how they do not know the compassionate touch of a human, the only the touch they know is of being beat or no touch at all.

 When the truth of what Michael Vick did came to light it sickened me.  How can a person do such a thing.   Not only fight these dogs but murder them with his own hands just because  they would not fight.  The methods he used were horrific and this is a human being who did this for the adrenaline rush of it.   As these dogs screamed in pain he just stood back at watched.

Before the excuses get brought to light.   There is no excuse for that.   None.   Michael Vick blames his upbringing for what he did.  Yet Vick told Sporting News Magazine in an (pre dog fighting) interview published April 9, 2001: "Sports kept me off the streets...It kept me from getting into what was going on, the bad stuff.  Lots of guys I knew had bad problems." It was obvious in his own words he knew right from wrong and stayed away from all of that.

Ironically at the time Michael Vick was sentenced he wrote a letter to the judge denying what he said in the 2001 interview.   All of a sudden he did not know any better.   What happened to "sports keeping him off the streets"?

An excerpt from the letter Michael Vick wrote the judge published in USA Today on December 12, 2007  is as follows: "Growing up in Newport News (Va), I was exposed to numerous illegal activities and dogfighting was one of them," wrote Vick. " I never understood why people (were) arrested for guns and drugs, but never for dogfighting.  No one really cared or called the police so I grew up not knowing the severity of the crime."

Vick letter to judge

It does not end there.  Interview after interview Vick's remorse for what he did to those dogs has never been mentioned.   It was the football career he lost that he was upset over.  It was that he got caught that made him the most upset.   Furthermore how does a family stand by and allow such behavior?  Six year of dog abuse, fighting, torture and murder happened at that house.  No one ever tried to stop it.  Why?

The preverbal nail in the coffin came with me in the interview Vick did with The Wall Street Journal in April of 2011.   He was asked if there was anything that he would chance in his life and Michael Vick said," I am happy that I turned out to be the person that I am.  I wouldn't change anything about my life if I could." Vick continued,  “Yeah, I did some really bad things and, yeah, I paid a really big price for it, but since I like where I am now and I wouldn't be here if I hadn't gone through all that, then I am okay with the things I did.”

Well I am not okay with what you did Michael Vick.  I am not okay with you torturing and murdering these dogs because they did not suit your needs.  I am not okay with the fact that you took your family pet, the dog your children loved, and threw it into the pit with the fighting dogs to "toughen" them up.   I am not okay you sat there and watched as it was torn to shreds.  What did you tell your children about that dog and how it was not there anymore?

The biggest thing I am not okay with...the fact you have another dog, and the nerve you have in saying you should be able to have one, and that it is not fair your kids had to suffer by not having a dog during the time of your probation.  Sadly they are clueless as to what their daddy did to their last dog.  You do not deserve the love of a pet.   You  should have never been allowed to have another dog.   You lost your rights to have one.  

I have seen too many dogs and the aftermath of what they have had to deal with at the hands of people like Michael Vick.  For that reason and the reasons listed above...are  why Michael Vick will not be forgiven, and the things he did will never be forgotten.