Michael Vick Sentenced - Dog Fighting Awareness

Michael Vick was sentenced to 23 months for dog fighting (cruelty to animals). Vick was a Virginia Tech quarterback that went on to the Atlanta Falcons in the NFL.

Whether it was new-found fame and fortune, or a hold-over from old friendships, we may never know. The abuse of animals that he was a part of was disgusting.

But there might be a silver lining.

Right around the time of the indictment of Michael Vick, I drove through the section of Virginia where he had the house that hosted the dog fights. There were signs and billboards everywhere about dog fighting and how cruel it is. An entire community was awakened to the savagery in its midst, and they rejected the behavior whole-heartedly. I think there was even a sense of shame that their town had been smeared because of the actions of Michael Vick.

More good news to come out of the Vick case: quite a few animals have been or are up for adoption and placement that were rescued from that dogfighting house. Of course the animals that did the fighting were so badly damaged (physically and psychologically) that they had to be put down...they just weren't safe to place. But he had animals that weren't abused, and he had animals that were slated to be 'fed' to the fighting dogs, and those have been rescued.

I'm not one of those people that thinks that cruelty to animals is worse than cruelty to humans. I try to keep it in perspective...there are many more heinous crimes being committed every day: human on human crimes. (or worse, adult on child crimes). I'd like to see those crimes get the same (or greater) media attention as Michael Vick's dogfighting case.

But in its own way, the sentencing has at least brought to light something that we as a society hadn't paid much attention to of late. When Michael Vick was sentenced, awareness of the ugliness of dogfighting is at an all-time high.