Fighting Dogs

That's a photo from today's 'New York Times' (taken by Garrett Davis) of a man named John Garcia and a dog named Georgia. It comes from an article called 'Given Reprieve, N.F.L. Star's Dogs Find Kindness' written by Juliet Macur.

Georgia used to 'live' at Michael Vick's Bad Newz Kennels, a kind of concentration camp for pit bulls forced to be fighting dogs. (Pit bulls are actually, officially, American Staffordshire terriers, and they are a lively, intelligent, and affectionate breed of dog, especially when treated well and not traumatized and abused into bad ass dogs-- into fighters.) Georgia is fortunate because now she lives at the Best Friends Animal Society sanctuary in Utah, where Mr. Garcia is the assistant dog care manager, and where she is being rescued, rehabilitated, and loved back to a semblance of normal doggy life. In essence, she and the other dogs rescued from Vick's kennel are being treated for PTSD. They are survivors of torture and abuse.

She has no teeth. They were all removed, they surmise, so that she would be a more willing breeder. Found at Vick's hellhole kennel were stands where female dogs were tied up and forced to mate with males. The staff at the sanctuary suspect she tried to bite the males while being raped, and so, her teeth were removed--all 42 of them. According to the article, "Having those teeth extracted, Dr. McMillan and other vets said, must have been excruciating. Even with medication, dogs are in pain after losing one tooth, which may take more than an hour of digging, prying and leveling to pull."

Dr. Frank McMillan is the Best Friends veterinarian. According to the 'Times' article, he is also "an expert on the emotional health of animals, who edited the textbook “Mental Health and Well-Being in Animals.” " He is also quoted as saying he is "most worried about Georgia".

She "barks incessantly at her doghouse." She rolls "her toys so obsessively her nose is rubbed raw." The article goes on to describe her this way: "A quick survey of Georgia, a caramel-colored pit bull mix with cropped ears and soulful brown eyes, offers a road map to a difficult life. Her tongue juts from the left side of her mouth because her jaw, once broken, healed at an awkward angle. Her tail zigzags.

"Scars from puncture wounds on her face, legs and torso reveal that she was a fighter. Her misshapen, dangling teats show that she might have been such a successful, vicious competitor that she was forcibly bred, her new handlers suspect, again and again."

This is only part of the story. There are 21 other former fighting dogs at the sanctuary in Utah, and an additional 25 others are in foster care throughout the country. Only one had to be euthanized because he was irreversibly aggressive towards people. Michael Vick is in Leavenworth Federal prison, serving a 23 month sentence for his part in this canine nightmare, and he "agreed to pay $928,073 for evaluation and care of all the dogs." says the article. Each of the dogs at the Utah sanctuary have had $18,275 paid for their lifetime care. Though the hope is that one day they could be adopted out to families, the reality of that is very small. Only one of them was assessed to be adoptable, and Vick contributed just $5000 towards his care.

The article goes on to state: “These dogs have been beaten and starved and tortured, and they have every reason not to trust us,” Mr. Garcia said as Georgia crawled onto his lap, melted into him for an afternoon nap and began to snore. “But deep down, they love us and still want to be with us. It is amazing how resilient they are.”

It has been well documented that people who abuse animals often easily move on to abusing children and other people they consider weaker than themselves. I have more hope for sweet Georgia, who still somehow knows how to love, than I do for Michael Vick and other people who perpetuate such hurtful abuse upon relatively powerless others and consider it sport.

Interestingly, the 'Times' ran this article in the pro football section of the Sports page on the day before the Super Bowl.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai