One day I brought this little guy home with me:



I didn't know much about him but I knew that he was going to get really big really fast and that if I was ever going to control the dog, I had to do it while he was this small. He wasn't impressed with treats so I couldn't mold his personality by bribing him with Milk Bones. He didn't want any special toy so I couldn't use one of them. There was only one thing that this dog wanted then and it's the only thing he wants right now...my love. I had to get angry at him and isolate him when he was bad...and even THAT broke my heart...unless of course he had just eaten one of my shoes, in which case I was glad to lock his stupid ass in the kennel. Oh...when he ate the remote I was annoyed as well. At this point, I can pretty well trust him. All he chews up are things that don't belong on the floor. So, don't drop a pencil...he WILL eat it.

A LOT of people told me that I shouldn't have a dog that big because it would, and did, get bigger than I am. I remember walking the horse to the store one of many times. I didn't want him to bolt and get away from me so I threaded his leash through my belt hoops. That worked, he didn't get away...of course he still bolted, he just took me with him. I weighed all of 90 pounds then and he was already topping the scales at 100 pounds...of muscle. He slammed me, face first, into the fence. and then he dragged me another 20 feet before he finally figured that the people driving by had seen enough of my humiliation and he stopped. I think that dog knew that what he was doing was hurting me. There's no other reason for the way he just stopped and walked over to me. I guess he could have just been afraid of getting in trouble, but he had never done that before so he didn't really know what I would do. One way or another, one thing's for sure...he wouldn't purposely hurt me. I can't imagine what he would hurt:

I'm sure that I could have trained him to kill if I were a cruel son of a bitch. But say what you will, I would never harm a child or an animal...big people don't do that. When our kids fall in love with a cricket...we let those suckers in our homes. (EEEEWWW...I just got the shivering willies.) Did children ever witness what Vick and his buddies did to dogs up there in Virginia? Do we have to worry about one of them suffering from that experience? Just how old is a boy when it's time to indoctrinate him into the world of dog torture and mutilation? 15? 17? When do you take him aside and tell him that you have a compound in your backward totally devoted to torturing dogs for cash? (Don't you dare tell me it's a sport...I WILL spit in your face. For Ernie Banks alone.)

You surely can NOT tell a young man that torturing animals in ways too horrifying, gruesome and ghastly to be speakable is anything that a man would do. We all know what he did...at least we know enough. How much does a young man have to hear before something in his gut tells him that this is wrong...it's not a sport...it's not even manly? It's a cowardly way to make a buck. Real men show us their stuff on the playing field, and at the heads of households...and as masters of loyal dogs. Unless you take a dog and go far, far, FAR out of your way to make it otherwise...it will be the gentlest of creatures. Man has had a two way relationship with dogs for longer than I can imagine. For as long as there have been dogs, there have been people protected by them. Aren't we lucky that whomever put us all here left the dog for us? I can't imagine a hippopotamus in my house. And a duck would do no good. A skunk would just stink up the place worse than a dog does. A snake would bite you before you ever needed protection and a horse would shit all over the place. We were lucky enough to get an animal that fit nicely in the house, didn't smell too terribly bad, didn't break furniture walking through the house and didn't eat so much that we had to go to work just to feed the fools. And that animal is gentle enough to love a child. Although I wouldn't give a dog a baby, I have no reason not to give it a kitten...and trust that it wouldn't have hurt the baby either.

This dog could bite that cat's head off. But I didn't TEACH him to be cruel. In it's natural state, the dog is a loving, loyal and gentle creature. I wonder what my son would have said to me if I decided to tell him that I was starting a dog fighting ring and I wanted him to be apart of it. He WOULD put a stop to it, one way or another. I honesty believe that he'd probably call the cops on me if nothing else worked. I like to think that that's exactly what happened to Vick and his cronies...but it probably isn't.

Robb was right, our dogs are like one of our kids in a lot of ways. One very important similarity is that like our kids, our dogs should never have to face such cruelty at the hands of anyone who even LOOKS something like a man. That just makes them mean and a danger to the real men. These big dumb animals should never know of such cruelty. They should live their lives with no more fear than when, if ever, you're coming home. I wish that I didn't know of such things! We owe them so very much, some of us may not even KNOW what all we owe these wonderful animals. You'll never know about the crimes they prevented simply by being there. So, some of us have animals who are heroes and we'll never know it. I wouldn't even consider giving my dog away...I can't imagine the betrayal felt by a dog who was born, allowed to suckle and romp for a short time before it was taken and made into a mean, vicious creature. How old is a puppy when it's taken from it's mother to be turned into a freak of nature...a dog that no longer has the capacity to love and be trusted? Whose job was that?

Probably some nit wit like the one who said this:

"...They won’t tell you that the “rape stand” is actually called a “mating stand” and is used when females are in heat and the kennel owner wants specific dogs to mate with that female..."

Well...DUH! Of course that's what it's for...you idiot...THAT'S the point!!! Nobody needed to tell me that. Ever hear of a fence and a few feet to call your own during courting? If the female WANTED to be there, it would be mating. The mere fact that you needed a "stand"...or whatever it is that you strap her into DEFINES rape. I don't know of a female anything who can bear the thought of that.

This stuff is still going on. Who do you see about that? There's a guy in Virginia who didn't even want to pursue this. The man is in a position to do so NOW...now that Vick has pleaded guilty in federal court. You can never take away his status of convicted felon. Yesterday I heard a woman, in defending Vick, say that, "He didn't kill anyone!" You know, even IF we made that the legal limit for knocking heroes off of their pedestals...this woman would change her cry to, "He didn't murder anyone I know!"

There are countless people who would defend Michael Vick and I don't get that at all. This is a country where people don't wear fur coats anymore. In a room full of people who are supposed to be men, wasn't there ONE person amongst them who knew that this was wrong? How did they ALL allow this to go on for years? One of Vick's co-defendants quit 3 years ago so it HAS been going on for a very long time. I just can't stop wondering what a young man does when approached with this idea. Does he take his own pets and kill them? Or does he take animals that he doesn't know and think that makes it OK? Aren't there better men in our country for us to look up to? Men who don't commit ANY crimes? I bet there are. And...I bet if the NFL looked really, really hard...they could find them. You'll know the good guys...they'll have a healthy dog closeby. They certainly won't have torture pits in the backyard.