How could they?

I am officially boycotting Eagles Football. Not that not watching Football is very hard for me these days, but I'm pretty disgusted that a team could embrace a monster like Michael Vick the way it has.

A couple weeks ago I joined some friends at a Japanese restaurant full of friendly, young, drunk post-grads (myself among them). A guy at the other table was chatting with my friends so when I heard the guy sitting behind me say he was an Eagles fan,
I said, "Oh! Are you from Philly?"  (My boyfriend is from Philadelphia and it is definitely a place that is close to my heart, just not in terms of football.)
The guy answered yes and proceeded to say "The Eagles are going to crush everyone with Vick!" and I said, "Are you a Vick fan?"
He said, "Of course! He's amazing."
I said, "What about what he did to those dogs?"
The guy replied, "What dogs? Those baby killers? I'm glad they're dead. They kept Vick out of the game. Who cares about those dogs?"

I was shocked! I replied that no thanks to people like him those "baby-killers" are still alive and being rehabilitated.

Amazingly, only one of Vick's 49 dogs was deemed to be behaviorally unfit for rehabilitation and recommended by the judge in the case for euthanasia. The others found long term care and concern at places like Best Friend's Animal Sanctuary in Utah and Bad Rap in California. This case is considered a landmark case in Animal welfare law because fighting dogs are usually euthanized immediately after they become federal property. In this case, the dogs were treated as the victims that they are who are deserving of love in the time that they have left.

Unfortunately, the federal bust did not come in time for some dogs. DOZENS of bodies were found on the Vick property. Vick admitted to murdering his own dogs when they did not perform. These dogs were either hung, drown or electrified to death presumably because they couldn't or wouldn't fight, or were killed by other dogs. To me, this shows the brutality of these people and their disregard for life. Thankfully, Vick was sentenced to time in prison and had sponsorships revoked. However, the fan worship that this man gets concerns me because people are so easy to forget crimes and idolize athletes and celebrities.

Luckily, many of these dogs were saved and below is a video from Bad Rap about how these brave dogs are now ambassadors for their breeds.