Michael Vick and Me
I was one of the bull terriers in Michael Vick’s dog-fighting club. I was held captive for 5 1/2 months and trained 18 hours a day, 7 days a week in preparation for a single night when I would be forced to fight another dog to the death. Lucky me, huh?
You have to understand, hurting another animal is not how I was brought up. I hope that by telling my story I can convince other dogs the value of this advice: Do not get into an unmarked van with strangers promising a free weekend at Frisbee Training Camp.
I should have been suspicious from the moment the guy approached me at the dog park. Why couldn’t this recruiter park his van on the street instead of telling me to sneak out a hole in the fence and meet him in the alley? In hindsight a warning sign like that seems so obvious. I guess the promise of meeting some of the world’s best flying disk athletes blocked out my common sense.
We arrived at the camp after dark so I couldn’t see much but I do remember being escorted past a surprising number of dogs licking cuts and wounds. “Your groundskeepers needs to do a better job of sweeping broken glass from the lawn,” I joked. My escort didn’t laugh, which I chocked up to just being tired from the drive. When we finally reached my sleeping area I have to admit I was disappointed. There was no dog bed stuffed with fresh cedar chips as promised. The accommodations consisted solely of a dirt floor and a dish containing what I can only assume was not bottled water. That was it! Where was the welcoming basket of freshly baked kibble? Where were the de-clawed cats delivering fresh pairs of gnawing shoes? Clearly I had been oversold. Too tired to deal with things there and then, I made a mental note to speak with the camp ombudsman in the morning and went to sleep.
It was but a few hours later that I was awoken by barking and growling coming from the large room at the end of the hall. A couple of dogs were fighting fierily and it sounded like a large group of humans were there too. Rather than intervening, however, they seemed to be cheering the dogs on! Great security, I thought, and made a second mental note to add this to my list of complaints. The fighting finally stopped but just as I was about to revisit El Rancho Pillow, ANOTHER set of dogs started fighting. And again nobody stopped them! I got the attention of a human passerby and said I wished to speak to the camp manager but the guy must have thought I said “beat me with something hard.” In what language does “head counselor” sound like “wooden stick?” I decided it best to hold my complaints until the morning when I could deliver my message to someone with a better grasp of the language.
I won’t bore you with the details of the next few days. Suffice to say, not only was I denied the promised Frisbee lessons, I wasn’t even allowed outside. None of us were. Each attempt to straighten things out somehow became translated into “poke me with a stick.” Well, it soon became clear this place wasn’t a Frisbee camp after all. It was a detention facility and we would soon be expected to fight each other for our lives! We even heard rumors the place was owned by some guy named Michael Vick. Surely not the same Michael Vick who plays quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons?! Tell me it wasn’t so!
Escape didn’t seem to be an option. The guards were meticulous in keeping the doors locked, they were no phones around and they rigged the computers to block all outgoing email. The other captives and I soon fell into a standard routine where we’d eat a lot of raw meat and then hang out in the exercise yard while the humans taunted us with sharp poles and insults. I discovered that the more anger I expressed around the guards, the happier they became so I pretended to be more and more vicious each time I was called upon. I got so good at faking it, in fact, that my captors rewarded me with some “quality time” with one of the female dogs. She wasn’t really my type but when in prison you look for moments of tenderness wherever you can find it.
Some of the dogs tried to work out wrestling moves to make it look like they were hurting each other more than they actually were. Unfortunately the guards figured it out and made an example of those dogs by moving them to the top of the list for the next fighting night. I knew MY night would be coming up soon and I’ll be honest, I was getting pretty scared. Would I be able to hurt another dog? Even one that was hurting me? I really didn’t know. Luckily I was rescued before I had to find out.
You know what makes this whole ugly experience just a little worse? After all we went through, Michael Vick never bothered to come around and sign autographs.
Comments (2)
I feel your pain, Truman. What a terrible ordeal. Of course, we felines would never get involved in such degrading thuggery. But we can sympathize with your plight, and hope that the miserable guilty humans are put to a quick death. I think that your experience clearly illustrates the dangers of dog parks. They are evidently hangouts for human brutes, and no place for a decent animal. You’d never find a cat there! By the way, how did you escape? You forgot to tell us.
Crystal honey, Truman was rescued by the “suits” that’s how he is alive to tell his story. Don’t be so sure about felines not being involved in this atrocity. Some of these pieces of human garbage use cats/kittens for the dogs to kill so they get a “taste for blood.” They are strays picked up on the streets or even stollen out of their own yards. They will take any animal for these dogs to chew on to get used to killing. Humans like him don’t deserve to breath the same air we do.