There’s all kinds of inspiring quotes.
Try this one: Pride goeth before the fall.
Or this: The higher someone is, the more it hurts when you hit the ground.
On December 23, 2004, Michael Vick, a standout American football player since 1999, signed a 10-year contract with the Atlanta Falcons that was worth $130 million - with a $37 million signing bonus thrown in as well. This deal made him the highest paid player in NFL history at that time and made everyone even slightly connected to Vick feel very, very proud.
For a while, everything was great. Michael Vick played well, especially in 2006, when he became the only quarterback in NFL history to rush over 1000 yards during the regular season, setting the NFL record for most yards per carry in a season, with 8.4 yards per carry being the magic number.
But the fact of the matter remains: You can take the boy out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of the boy.
Michael Vick, whose attitude was never the best to begin with, started to act out more frequently. Despite the Falcon’s most earnest entreaties for him to rein it in a little, things Vick were involved in started to get a little in the way of negative press.
In 2004, two guys were driving one of Vick’s trucks when they were arrested for selling marijuana.
In 2005, a woman filed a lawsuit against Vick, accusing him of giving her genital herpes back in 2002. She evidently had a problem with his lack of disclosure about his condition, when he obviously knew about since he had been going to clinics under the name “Ron Mexico” to get treatments for herpes. Vick settled that one out of court.
In 2006, after his team lost, Michael Vick basically flipped off an entire stadium of fans.
While these and other incidents started to annoy Michael Vick’s sponsors, he was a money maker for a lot of companies, who continued to pour money into his bank accounts in exchange for plastering his name on their merchandise.
Then, in April of 2007, an investigation into Michael Vick’s cousin’s drug activities led authorities to Michael Vick’s Surry County property. Finding over seventy dogs, mostly pit bulls, authorities made the brilliant conclusive leap that maybe, possibly, there was some dog fightin’ goin’ on ’round these parts.
Michael Vick, of course, denied that he knew what dogfighting was, much less that he financed and ran a dogfighting operation known as Bad Newz Kennels for 6 years, during which Michael personally hung, electrocuted, drowned and shot dogs that performed poorly during dogfights.
Dogs are cute and fluffy. They’re man’s best friend. People love their dogs.
So when it was announced that Michael Vick, a millionaire many times over, had made them a) savagely fight each other (which hurts a lot, incidentally) and b) tortured them to death when the dogs lost - well, that really annoyed the hell out of most of America.
Vick was publicly accused of and charged with financing the operation, directly participating in dog fights and executions, and personally handling thousands of dollars in related gambling activities.
At that point, Michael Vick’s bouncing, painful decline accelerated.
On the 19th of July, Nike, who was Vick’s biggest marketing partner, announced that it would “suspend” the release of its latest product line named after Michael Vick. Nike warned retailers that the “Air Zoom Vick V” wasn’t going to be released.
Ow.
On the 27th of July, 2007, Nike announced that they had suspended Michael Vick’s contract and were not going to sell any more Michael Vick products for a while
Ow.
That day, Reebok told the world that they were jumping on the bandwagon and that Michael Vick jerseys would no longer be manufactured or sold.
Ow.
Also on that day, the NFL announced that all Michael Vick-related items had been pulled from NFLShop.com, including Atlanta Falcon’s jerseys that had been customized with Michael Vick’s name and number.
Ow.
A few days later, trading card companies Donruss and Upper Deck decided that it would be a good idea to yank Michael Vick’s card from any future 2007 releases.
Ow.
On the 31st of July, 2007, Rawlings, who used Michael Vick’s images to sell their merchandise and sold a football with his name on it, decided that swimming was preferable to sitting on a life raft with Michael Vick and announced that they would stop any marketing involving Vick.
Ow.
Later that day, Dick’s Sporting Goods stores and Sports Authority stores announced that they weren’t going to sell anything that had to do with Michael Vick.
Nothing like a good ol’-fashioned shunning, hmmm?
By August of 2007, Michael Vick, after being faced with the fact that three of his former friends and co-defendants had flipped on him and were quite prepared to testify against him in exchange for lesser sentences, Vick decided to accept a plea bargain for his federal charges. Michael Vick pled guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to operate an interstate dogfighting ring, admitting that he had provided most of the financing for the operation and had participated directly in dogfights in Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina.
With his career in ruins and all eyes on him, you’d think that while he was free on bail that Michael Vick would lay it down and keep a low profile.
Nope, he tested positive for marijuana and was placed on house arrest in September, finally turning himself into the authorities in November to get his time-served numbers up while he was waiting for his federal sentence to be announced.
On the 10th of December, 2007, Michael Vick was sentenced to 23 months in jail for his part in the dogfighting operation. He still faces state charges, which could mean that we won’t see Michael Vick play football again for a long, long time.
What do you think? Too much time? Not enough?
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Ron Mexico in dis bitch uh-huh knowhaI’msayin?!?!
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23 months, huh?
Wonder how long that is in ‘dog years’?
Does he get the wonderful day-off for every day he spends in prison? That’d be about a year, unless he gets even more off for days he’s already been behind bars.
Any mention of him being prohibited from owning any animals or being around any animals?
I think animal abusers should be forced to register just like sex-offenders. So wherever they move their neighbors will know to keep their potential victims under lock and key. Especially since neither of them seem to be able to stop compulsively re-offending.
Is his sentence long enough? No. It’s an insult to the dogs he tortured. It’s just long enough to hopefully get the public to forget about his hatefullness, but short enough to try to get back on that gravytrain of sports, money, and celebrity-ism.
My guess is that the dogs he abused and tortured and killed would like to see that sentence ‘timesed’ by seven.
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trash. Do something positive with your life.. and all that money.
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I have a pitbull and I would never do this to them. This is the reason that people ban these animals from their apartment complexes and neighborhoods. I’ve been associated with a few pits my life and none of them have been like this; completely sweet dogs. It’s just like people who raise their children like crap. They turn out to be little terrors. Animals are just easier manipulated. I think there’s this girl in Orange County out here who a year ago her pit tore some guy apart and just recently her other dog attacked a mail man. It’s horrible how people treat their animals like this.
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Be for fucking real people. Yes, he deserves to have his career ruined. He got that. It’s over. But hell? For fighting dogs? Are you going to send hunters to hell too? What about slaughterhouse employees?
Let’s use some perspective about this one. There are people on this site who rape and mutilate children and go on killing sprees for fun. Fighting dogs, while horrible, does not even begin to measure up. This is an uneducated man who will lose his money and career as well as face jail time. I think thats enough.
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hey Whit. Get your head out of your ass; he was killing dogs that didn’t succeed in killing other dogs. That’s not ok.
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whit-what the fuck is wrong with you…you dont think dogs have feelings?and i do not agree with hunting either.hunting down a defensless animal just to shoot it and say hey look at me…i shot it cuz it was fun…thats sick too!!
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Whit-
Be real? Real would be if Vick got treated the same as any other low-life hoodster… that you never hear about getting big sentences, because they weren’t semi-famous.
Being real would entail getting nailed for the illegal things you do.
You have every right to think that cruelty to animals is no big deal… even though you claim that child abuse and murder is a bigger deal- when research shows that animal abuse is a precurser to abusing/killing people.
The fact is that what Vick did was illegal, and he knew it was illegal and still did it. Even though he was richer than most anyone will ever be. Lots of people don’t think smoking pot is a big deal either, but it’s illegal too, and it just happens to be another thing Vick did that (if he’s so uneducated) his handlers should have controlled. Being that he was told not to, and told he’d have random drug tests, which he failed. More proof that he thinks everyone else’s rules just dont apply to him.
Vick is just a poor ole uneducated person? I was under the impression that most professional sports people are recruited from colleges, where they are required to get certain grades to stay on the team. Are you saying that Vick was recruited off the streets and never attended college? I think what bothers people is that he supposedly WAS educated, yet obviously learned nothing. Or thought he was above it.
What’s next- hunting and slaughterhouses? Um, yeah. There’s lots of people who think those things are cruel, too. And, if they play their cards right, they might get laws prohibiting it. If you are pro either of those things you have every right to try to stop laws being enacted about them. That’s how things work here.
Do I care much if he loses his ‘career’ and his ‘money’? Not so much. There’s plenty of people who could be called disadvantaged who would never have chosen to blow it all away on gambling and animal cruelty.
Not to worry, though- the talkingheads claim that his incredibly light sentence and his snappy-looking suits will put him right back in the middle of his money-fest right after he’s released from prison.
So, if I were you I wouldn’t toss and turn all night worrying about whether he’ll ever make millions and millions a year… I’d be worried that he will soon be back behind bars again, because people like him rarely ever change. Maybe get better at hiding their illegal activities, but still keep doing them.
That’s what I love about both educated and uneducated convicts. No matter how much money they have, they inevitably go back to their root personality and fuck themselves over again. Yay. I love it.
And, while it pisses me off how the celebrity-for-no-reason types seem to get off for crimes average people would get nailed for, I secretly delight in the fact that they aren’t better than anyone else at being able to control their high level of re-offence. In this case, his statements that are so full of ‘me, me, me…. instead of once (correct me if I’m wrong) ever saying he was sorry for actually causing torture, pain and death to ‘his’ dogs….. he’s PC and so said he’s sorry he hurt himself and everyone else- other than the dogs! Loser.
I have cats, and a dog. I know cats can be an acquired taste, but who the eff doesn’t like dogs? He has not once apologized or said he’s sorry for what he did to his dogs. He’s just sorry he lost his massive endorsements.
I would like his sentence to have included mandatory drug testing for 5 years after his release… but that’s just because I’m mean, and because I know he would not be able to pass. He couldn’t stay clean before his sentencing, and he won’t be able to afterwards.
Be for fucking real people. Yes, he deserves to have his career ruined. He got that. It’s over. But hell? For fighting dogs? Are you going to send hunters to hell too? What about slaughterhouse employees?
Let’s use some perspective about this one. There are people on this site who rape and mutilate children and go on killing sprees for fun. Fighting dogs, while horrible, does not even begin to measure up. This is an uneducated man who will lose his money and career as well as face jail time. I think thats enough.
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no sympathy for Vick here. He had it all and threw it away out of some sense of loyalty to him homies. What did it get him? Loss of millions of dollars and the discovery that when their ship was sinking, they tossed him overboard to lighten the weight. As for it not being a big deal, they may not be people but anyone who tortures and mutilates dogs for fun deserves a trip to hell in my option
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Wow. My first comment and I already get GloryBug-ed. At least it was more mature than being told to get my head out of my ass.
Anyway, here I go…
–You have every right to think that cruelty to animals is no big deal… even though you claim that child abuse and murder is a bigger deal- when research shows that animal abuse is a precurser to abusing/killing people.
I don’t believe I said much about my views on cruelty to animals (other than the part where I clearly said it was wrong), and I don’t believe that statistic really applies in this situation. What Vick engaged in was to him and many others in certain areas off all races and walks of life a SPORT. Like cock fighting, hunting, bull fighting, etc. Do I personally find any of these things to have any value? No. A thousand times no. But many do. Also, another tidbit of information for anyone who associates this with “hood” behavior…a majority of the richest members of this sport are white men in the southern states. Those men are the one who you purchase your top notch studs and bitches from, they are the ones that you see in the training videos, and they have set the standard as far as dog fighting goes. Do some research so you can get the “this is a crime only perpetrated thugs in the hood” stereotype out of your heads. You can also find it in trailer parks and wooded suburbs all over the country.
–I was under the impression that most professional sports people are recruited from colleges, where they are required to get certain grades to stay on the team. Are you saying that Vick was recruited off the streets and never attended college?
Let me tell you a little thing about many urban athletes. From the time they pick up a ball and show skill, education takes a back seat. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, and some prep schools and private colleges actually educate their athletes, but I’ll let you in on a little secret. Most don’t give a damn. Ask me how I know? My father played collegiate football and golf, my two brothers played collegiate basketball. I’ve got two cousins on their way to the NFL. Now my FAMILY demands education. The schools? Not so much. They want to win. So the players take cake classes and major in useless degrees , and the professors let them skate by. Please tell me you knew this already. You had to. Listen to most of these NBA/NFL players speak. They sound like eighth graders, or worse. Actually, that’s fairly accurate, as that’s about when they start dominating the field/court, and that’s when exceptions start being made. So I don’t care if he was in college or not. That man and many other athletes are given whatever they want from a young age, as long as they play well. There is a reason they act “above the rulesâ€. For many of the poor, urban, “ghetto†athletes, they have been conditioned that way.
–What’s next- hunting and slaughterhouses? Um, yeah. There’s lots of people who think those things are cruel, too. And, if they play their cards right, they might get laws prohibiting it. If you are pro either of those things you have every right to try to stop laws being enacted about them. That’s how things work here.
Again, there is a call for being realistic here. Hunting will never be illegal, nor will slaughterhouses change much. Why? Big business, baby. Big business. Which, by the way, Bad Newz Kennels was. But slaughterhouses pay taxes, and hunting brings in a pretty penny as well. Vick’s operation? Well, the gov wasn’t making any money off of that, were they? Interesting.
–…the talkingheads claim that his incredibly light sentence and his snappy-looking suits will put him right back in the middle of his money-fest right after he’s released from prison.
That’s a joke, and I fail to see how his suits matter in any way. He’s not articulate enough to make a fortune off of public speaking. Most sport analysts agree his football career is over, and he’s already lost both of his homes. He will have missed three seasons, and be 30 upon release. When you figure out how he’s going get back into his “money-festâ€, you might want to let him know.
Oh, and I think marijuana should be legalized, so I don’t really give a hoot about him lighting up while waiting for this thing to run its course. If smoking weed is illegal, alcohol sure as hell should be. *shrugs shoulders*
In my opinion, Vick is an ass. He deserves everything he gets. I’m not sympathizing with the man at all. He was wrong. However I do not feel like his actions are worthy of hell. I do feel like you folks are jumping the proverbial gun with that judgment. Seriously. I know some people just enjoy pontificating in the comment sections, but being a Christian, the thought of hell to me is more than just a notion. Michael Vick in my opinion is not deserving of that fate at all.
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@Whit,
I can agree with you on some of that, but my personal feelings definitely differ when i think about a slaughterhouse or about hanging a dog from a tree. Perhaps that’s misguided due to the fact i have no problem with eating meat from animals from which i have no idea if they where slaughtered humanely, whereas i cry for a sending to hell if someone ties dogs to a tree after they failed at a dogfight, but alas, that’s most certainly how i feel. From what i understand, you’re saying he didn’t know any better, since when is ignorance an excuse? again, perhaps i’m ignorant as well and perhaps i’m eating meat from animals that have suffered the same or more then the dogs he killed, but for me that feels different.
I agree with you on the Marijuana, but that is probably due to the fact it’s legal out here ;)
As a last thing, i wonder how many people here actually believe in heaven and hell, as i don’t believe in either. for me voting someone to go to hell is the same as saying he should lose all his money and live the rest of his life as a bum, in that sense, he’s probably nearly there already.
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and you dare call yourself a cristian after all that shit..
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Mandy - I don’t know what you’re talking about, so I’ll just leave that alone.
DualDenz - Thanks for the intelligent response. I’m not blaming ignorance outright, although I do believe that Vick is an ignorant man, what I do contribute the basic offense of dog-fighting to is culture. He grew up around dog fighting, so to him it was no big deal, just like shooting wildlife is no big deal to those raised in hunting families. Where he was totally wrong was with the torture of the dogs after losing. When I was younger I would hear of dog-fighters who at least had the morals to keep a vial or two of pentobarbital and some clean syringes by the pit. To me, however there is no difference between what happened to these dogs and pigs being shot in the head with nail guns or chickens being plunged alive into boiling water to loosen their feathers.
I think that we all can agree that he deserves what he’s getting, but eternal damnation, whether real or hypothetical is a bit much.
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Vick deserves everything he gets if not more. It’s bad enough that he operated a dog fighting ring, but he also took part in torturing these animals to death just because they couldn’t perform. Anyone who thinks that this is ok and not a big deal has obviously never owned a pet and has no heart.
I get so sick of these celebrities thinking that our laws don’t apply to them, and our system is a lot to blame for it. They let them go with a slap on the wrist while us who bust our asses to make a living would get nailed! Vick was in the position to be looked up to and idoloized by a lot of people, especially young sports fans. Look what he did with it. He had millions and millions of dollars…look what he did with it. Feed some hungry people, donate to charity, whatever! The way I see it…he was given a gift, and gave nothing back. He deserves hell, and too bad all dogs go to heaven, because I’m sure some of those dogs he hung would love to get revenge.
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clapping for caressa
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if only I was straight I would totally love to be able to use the excuse of torturing people if they didn’t perform properly. man there’d be a lot less men out there. Go for it ladies!
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Whit-
I understand the argument that you are trying to make, but it just doesn’t fly.
First of all, there’s a difference between being uneducated and being stupid. I think he is the latter.
Secondly, it doesn’t really matter if it’s ‘cultural’ to fight dogs or cocks. And, that sounds insulting and racist, if you ask me. The fact is that it does not matter if something is ‘cultural’ if it is also illegal. And everyone knows that dog-fighting and cock-fighting is illegal. Even if you consider it a harmless sport, it is illegal.
Same as with the pot. As someone who suffers from chronic pain, I think Pot should be legal for medicinal use, at least. But it isn’t. So I don’t do it.
Bottom line is that Vick obviously has no problem doing illegal things. That he is above the law. And that is what will eventually bite him in the ass, because even if he makes a comeback after his teensy bit of jailtime, he’ll fuck up again. People who think they are special always do.
It takes a certain kind of person to put dogs through that kind of training, to sacrifice other dogs and cats for their cruel training, and to personally use your hands to shoot, hang, strangle or drown a dog that you just forced to get shredded by another dog. CRUEL. People who live around there should think back on whether they gave cats/kittens/puppies/dogs away ‘free to good home’, because chances are that instead of getting a loving forever home, they got torn to shreds in Vick’s dog cruelty camp.
People who enjoy cruelty of any kind suck, and I unapologetically hate them. Good thing they usually self-destruct.
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Oh, and as far as ‘too much information’…
Did I really need to know that Vick also has Genital Herpes? Ouch. My brain needs bleaching now.
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The dogfighting, which is a ridiculous and twisted “sport”, earns him a stop-over on his way to hell. His pathetic waste of all the opportunities he was given is his connecting flight. He had a chance to experience things that most people will never be able to afford. He gave it all up to be a thug. When your job takes you to the homes of millions of people, including kids, you have an obligation to try and at least uphold the minimum standard of good judgement and scruples. Heck, that is true for us peons. It seems so many in the public eye, most of whom wanted fame, don’t think that they are “role models”. To this I say: then stay a nobody and be a screw up. Why work so hard for fame when you don’t want to become any better than the loser you started out?
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not so much thug, more like scum who deserves to be thrown into a cage with the remaining pits and torn to pieces
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He does deserve a cage…If pitbulls were women ..Michael Vick would be O.J. Simpson.
He should be ashamed of himself!
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Brit…wake up and smell the coffee…Nobody wants ur dog around
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The dumbest people in the world say “It depends on how they are raised”….Wake up suzie McSimple..
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dualdenz…I bet ur about to be deported huh?
ur dumber than …u know who?
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ohhhh and to think i almost missed it.
@Kristina Roush
I’m probably dumber then someone, but i’m quite convinced it’s not going to be you :P
cheap shot, but when i see an open goal, i go for it ^^
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kristina…it really does depend on how dogs are raised. The same goes for people. Your parents must be proud.
If you train someone/thing to attack they/it will. If you train someone/thing to be good around kids they/it will.
You obviously weren’t trained at all in the common sense field.
Not as cheap as Dual’s but the point is there.
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Brittany- I agree with you about how a dog’s temperment can be influenced by training.
I am not so sure that training helps adult dogs, after they were trained negatively.
I also think that it is not wise to ignore the differences between what different breeds are capable of, due to size, temperment, breed instinct and treatment.
I had a dog, Patti, for 17 years. She was a pit/whippet cross that I got from a homeless man in Santa Barbara. He was trying to trade her for drugs, but he took my 20 dollar bill for her instead. So, I raised her from a pup. She was very sweet, and I had a proffesional trainer help with her as a pup. She never bit/attacked any person or dog, though she was VERY protective of me and my children.
After she died, and waiting a couple of years, we adopted a small poodle from the SPCA. Not a puppy. He ended up being a horrible cat-chaser, neighborhood roamer, and to be honest, just not a very nice dog. Once he bit a stranger trying to bring him home, once he bit my youngest right through his lip trying to get at the food I was giving my son, and once he bit a child at my parents house during dinner. He terrorized my cats that had been so used to Patti’s good nature.
He died last year after being hit by a car when he charged out of the garage in an attempt to attack people walking down the street. He was small, but he was not nice, no matter how much I paid for training.
My point being, the smaller dog (the poodle) was much more aggressive, and obviously must have had a bad homelife before I adopted him. Training did not work for him. My big dog, Patti, I got as a pup, and I was responsible for her training. She did not chase cats or bite my children, or attack strangers, even though she was protective of us.
But- what would have happened if it was reversed? If the bigger dog with bigger teeth, with a jaw that can dislocate in order to latch onto whatever they attack had been the non-puppy with the unknown background? I’ll guess she could have caused way more harm than the poodle was able to.
Buying a big breed from a breeder, where as puppies they are kept in crates with their mother instead of learning to interact with people is dangerous. Same goes for backyard breeders who sell puppies that have had no human interaction.
I do not think it’s a particular criticized breed that is the problem. It’s a combo problem of stupid people getting dogs for the wrong reason, who do not train, and are unwilling to be responsible for the physical capabilities for harm that their dog’s breed may cause.
c
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People like this just piss me off! They are trying to ban Pitbulls in California and it is wrong. This is all because of idiots like him that train their dogs to fight. Pits are very very friendly people, they love their owners. I have a pit and she adores me and my boyfriend! I would never train her to fight or anything of that nature.
I also just had a put before this one. She was a really good dog. Made me kinf of sad. She was abused until she was 6 months old. Her name was Mia, she lived in a an oven because some illegal Mesican had her and didn’t want his landlord ot find out about her. Mia was beaten severely. It was soo bad that when I started seeing my boyfriend (it was his dog at first, but I became to love her also). When I would go to my boyfriends house, the dog would hide every chance she got! If i were to go to bed with my bf, the dog would pretty much sleep under the bed. If my bf left the room, the dog went with him. After being around his house for about a year she was finally gaining my trust and would let me touch her for once. Then she started sleeping in bed with us, etc. =0) We were a happy family. We would even have people over and she was still very scared, but everyone understood why. Mia was beaten and she would never ever forget it.
Anyway, my boyfriend took the dog to Kansas with him because his sister was getting married. While he was down there, he put the dog in the back yard with the other dogs. Mia got sooo scared that my bf was leaving her that she dug out from one side of the fence to the other. =0( He went back to his sisters to find her missing and we couldn’t find her anywhere in Lawrence, KS. We both miss her very much and hope she is with a trusting family that will take care of her. =0( She was a great dog despite the fact that she was beaten by a piece of shit that thought doing this stuff to her was fun.
You see, pits are beautiful creature. All they want is love, just like any other dog.
I am currently trying to move but can’t move because of the rep. people give these dogs. Every place I try to get into won’t let us in because of our pitbull. =0(
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Hey Whit,
Pull your head outta your ass.
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