July 27, 2007
View From Lodi, CA: Michael Vick’s Dog Fighting—Who
Can Fathom?
By Joe Guzzardi
No matter how hard I try, I cannot fathom why,
whether as a breeder or a spectator, anyone would engage
in dog fighting.
The
Michael Vick case is beyond comprehension.
Vick is a multimillionaire who could pursue any hobby
he pleases but chose instead, if the charges against him
prove true, to raise pit bulls to fight to the death
while sums of money as high as $50,000 are wagered on
the outcome.
Vick, according to an
ESPN source is “a heavyweight” in dog
fighting.
And, even more disgusting, is the
Humane Society of the U.S.’s estimate that dog
fighting in America is a “multibillion-dollar
industry” with as many as 40,000 people
participating.
The Vick story is painful for me, a dog lover from
way back.
I’ve had dogs all my life. I’ve never had fewer than
two at a time; once not too long ago, I had five.
Being a responsible dog owner is work. Like all other
dogs, my three—Fido,
Sparkle
and Hoppy— have to be exercised, fed, treated at the
veterinarian, let out and brought in. Most of all they
need to be loved and nurtured.
Sometimes I jokingly gripe about the amount of
attention they require. But when I’m gone on even a
short overnight trip, I can’t wait to get home.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that I owe Fido,
Sparkle and Hoppy my life. Recently, when I was
critically ill and in intensive care for 60 days, a
nurse arranged for the
dogs to visit me in the hospital. From that moment
on, my health improved.
How is it possible that in the name of entertainment,
breeders
train their dogs to go for their opponent’s throats?
Vick and his associates kill dogs that don’t meet
their standards of
cruelty by hanging them or slamming their bodies
into the concrete.
Can you even imagine it?
Our pets ask so little of us—food, shelter and
love—the least we can do is provide them with it.
Dog fighting—illegal in 48 states, is the
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals primary
target. P.E.T.A is
actively lobbying for the National Football League
to suspend Vick without pay.
But while the controversial group is right in the
Vick case, it has unfairly focused on shutting down
the great
American rodeo by erroneously claiming that the
bulls, horses and calves are treated cruelly.
An interesting but little known fact is that the
Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, organized in
1936 to ensure that animals be treated humanely and with
dignity has been around seven years longer than the
Humane Society of the United States.
July 28th is
National Day of the Cowboy. And an old
Jim Reeves song,
“The Blizzard,” tells as much about how
cowboys—and the rest of us, save for the likes of
Vick—feel about our animals.
In the song, the cowboy is only seven miles from home
and his wife Mary Anne. But a storm is raging and his
horse Dan is old and lame. Seven miles…five miles…three
miles…100 yards is all that’s left until they would
arrive at “the barn with the hay so soft and warm.”
But Dan can’t make it. The
cowboy says to his horse: “I’m so weary but I’ll
help you if I can.”
So they stop to rest only 100 yards from safety.
But the story ends unhappily: “They found him
there at dawn ...He'd a made it but he couldn't leave ol'
Dan ...Yes, they found him there on the plains his hands
frozed to the reins ...”
A
cowboy and his horse, a man and his dog, a child and
her kitten—these are special relationships that we
treasure all our lives.
What a shame that not everyone can experience the
joys that animals bring to us.
Joe Guzzardi [email
him], an instructor in English
at the Lodi Adult School, has been writing a weekly
column since 1988. It currently appears in the
Lodi News-Sentinel.
