Dog Fighting

I am not an animal lover in the least. After seeing my brother's leg get mauled by an out of control dog when we were teens, that pretty much sealed the fate of any lovefest with animals. I don't like their smell, the mess they make, but realize there are many others who don't mind canine halitosis, so I say to each their own. But even though I'm not fond of animals, even I can recognize what constitutes inhumane and cruel treatment of dogs/cats, etc. (the only time I don't feel sorry for animals is when it's the pest/rodent variety - if you shoot a raccoon, I won't flinch). Always had that opinion about the need to protect and take care of non-rodent animals (though I won't be the one taking care of it), always will. Just because God put animals on this earth and put man in dominion over them does not mean we can do whatever we want with them. Just like any other thing God gave us, we need to be good stewards and take care of it. I've said before that people who go around killing cats and torturing dogs are probably only a step away from turning on the homosapiens, and those people should probably be the ones locked up in cages, not the animals.

So it is no surprise that I almost wretched when I heard about the recent indictments of pro (and I guess some would say all-star) football Atlanta Falcons quarterback, Michael Vick, for running an illegal (as if legalizing it would make any difference) dog fighting operation on one of his properties. OK, so he hasn't gone to trial yet, but the U.S. government does not indict you if they don't have sufficient evidence to back the case. Just so you know, the U.S. government's subsequent conviction by trial rate, after indictment, is around 95%. So I'd say that Vick has a pretty uphill battle to face. He claims he was not there, yet there are plenty of witnesses who will testify otherwise. And I suppose I'd believe him if he was a upstanding good citizen like the rest of the NFL players out there (haha, yeah right), but he's not exactly a model citizen, on and off the field.

Anyway, what Vick is charged with is not only running a dog fighting operation, but also the disgusting and absolutely horrid way he and his partners dealt with animals that lost the fights. It is reported that not only were the dogs kept in squalor conditions, but when they lost, they were brutally executed by hanging, drowning, shot with guns, or tortured. The feds found dogs buried all over Vick's property. Yikes.

These dogs deserve better than this. OK, granted, some dogs probably should not be out in public at all (pitbulls, rotweilers), I don't think that the way to destroy troublesome (or not that troublesome ones) are through dog fighting. Veterinarians have humane ways of putting down violent dogs. To pit them against one another simply for sport is just plain disgusting. I'd rather see (and I mean this) two convicted murders or rapists put in a cage and let them fight to the death - I suppose I'd be ok if they took the loser out and put a couple in his head after. But not with dogs... And what does it say about the people (and I use that term loosely) who feel that they can pick on a defenseless animal (for the most part) and use and discard them, with no regard to their life - just for the sake of entertainment and betting...

I guess this is what the world has come to - watching animals rip each other apart for sport.

Who are the real animals here?