People who harm animals rarely stop there.
That is a sentiment I believe in completely. I believe that anyone who gratutiously hurts and destroys animals the way MV did needs very careful monitoring. And I believe that law enforcement agencies and district attorneys are coming to this understanding way too freakin' slowly. I'm hopeful that because Rebecca Katz, who is the new head of Animal Care and Control in San Francisco was a Deputy City Attorney in that city, that this might start changing as she presents a true picture of this issue to her former colleagues. Could it be that the context of animal sheltering - run as it is predominantly by law enforcement - is one of the reasons why young males are attracted to breeding, training and fighting dogs, of using them for the protection of drugs and guns, for using them to create an image of fear and machismo
There is a lot of emotion being expressed around the signing of Michael Vick to play for the now deeply unpopular-with-dog-lovers Philadelphia Eagles. Anger and outrage enough for a month of blogs - the unseemly speed with which Vick scored a rich contract after being suspended 'indefinitely' upon his conviction; the assumption that he is just putting on a good show in front of the cameras, coached by the manipulative Tony Dungy to act nice, look nice and kiss a few puppies; the shock that a man who could show such cruelty and sociopathic behaviour could so easily be re-made into a football hero for millions of youngsters who will not understand that if you electrocute and drown dogs you are an amoral piece of shit and - unlike the pitbulls he damaged - incapable of rehabilitation; that he had not been punished nearly enough and that the sentence did not come close to fitting the crime; that his only regret is getting caught and that he is an unreconstituted piece of garbage worthy of being flung to a pack of angry dog lovers who will show their moral superiority by tying him to a tree and doing unspeakable acts to him; that the Philadelphia Eagles should feel the wrath of dog supporters everywhere by boycotting them. I live just a few miles from the home field of the Oakland Raiders and the forces are already being mustered to protest when the Eagles come to town. Hello? Oakland? The city whose animal shelter is run by a deeply compromised Police Department and which three short years ago underwent a very public scrutiny for things like having a senior officer involved in a dog breeding ring, lack of accountability, treating the public with disdain and a host of animal abuses like dogs found alive in the freezer after euthanasia. What the fuck?
My regret is that during his time in prison Vick wasn't enrolled in Puppies Behind Bars, the jail program which trains service dogs for returning veterans with traumatic head and brain injuries, where an inmate lives 24/7 with a dog and is entirely responsible for the dog's well-being and training.
Of all the righteous outrage about Michael Vick's restoration to a football jersey, the blog entries on BadRap's site seem among the most justifiable. After all, BR (Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls) were one of the humane groups most involved with rescuing and rehabilitating the surviving 'Vick dogs' (as they have become known). I have met a couple of these celebrity dogs, just as I met many of the 'Katrina dogs' which people rushed to adopt in the aftermath of the terrifying events in Louisiana. There are also some 'Oklahoma Bust dogs' or 'Missouri puppy mill dogs'. In my own rescue efforts there is 'Willa the wild dog from the Albany Landfill', the 'Freeway dogs', the 'Warehouse dogs', 'The sweet tale of Bernie Tucker' (to tag just a few). I understand the power of creating a story, or running the most pitiful image of a dog or cat in a fundraising appeal, of the need for hundreds of competing non-profits to pull a particular heartstring. After Katrina, when dogs were being flown in to the Bay Area so that the largest humane organisations in the area could be filmed standing tearfully on the tarmac receiving these pathetic animals from the poor southern states, who was the ultimate beneficiary? Go figure. Many of those dogs had to be returned at great expense after owners frantically searched the database of 'rescued' animals and found their beloved 'Fluffy' was now living in Marin or San Francisco. The animal welfare industry is riddled with hypocrisy and cant, with competition and self aggrandizing, with lack of co-operation and with infighting which would make most dogs recoil in disgust.
On the other side are the many who watch the unfolding of outrage and shake their heads: 'they're only dogs' they say. All the crass accusations aimed at those of us who care passionately what happens to animals in our communities and in our world. I'm as pissed off about that as I am about the eat your own attitudes within the animal rescue world. When I first started becoming aware of what happens to animals within our animal sheltering system in my own progressive town in Berkeley, I was sitting across the table from the then Police Chief and he slid a couple of polaroids across the table towards me. I fearfully picked them up and saw the limp body of a love bird with a clear human bite mark on it's body. I looked at him. He said 'I have a problem down there at the animal shelter'. A staff member had bitten the bird to death in retaliation for it nipping at him. And our Police Chief had found out that among his police colleagues the common response was 'So? It's just a bird'. For men whose job brings them in daily contact with brutality, cruelty, lying, thieving, child abusing, raping and bloody mayhem the death of a bird at the hands of an animal control staff member seemed insignificant. Less than six months later the political pressure took the Police Department out of the animal shelter.
The problem isn't Michael Vick. I am not an apologist for Michael Vick. Luckily we aren't likely to cross paths. Because he's bigger than me. And I don't like him one little bit. The problem is that as a species our moral development is seriously lagging behind our ability to fly a probe to Mars or create an iPhone. The problem is that we throw money at the wrong things. The problem is ... you pick it, you'll undoubtedly be right.
Hmmm, what I hear you saying is that there is a lot of hypocrisy to go around. And if you want to care about animals, first take care of those ones in your backyard before you spend the energy to boycott when the Philly Eagles comes to town.
Posted by: Deb in Minnesota | August 22, 2009 at 04:59 PM