When Michael Vick got out of prison last week, news reporters speculated about who would pick him up. Nobody expected the answer to be the Humane Society of the United States! Best Friends got the Vick pitbulls, and HSUS got Vick. I think Best Friends got the better deal.

I heard a woman on the radio say that we should forgive Michael Vick – everybody makes mistakes and deserves a second chance. I thought about that, and about dogfighting. I can’t imagine what would make a person want to watch two dogs tearing each other to pieces, but then I don’t understand the appeal of boxing either, and millions of supposedly normal people call it entertainment. Of course the two aren’t the same — the men in the ring choose to be there. One can argue that socioeconomic concerns mitigate that choice, but not down to the powerlessness of the dogs. Plus, the humans are not expected to fight to the death.

And Vick didn’t “just” organize and watch dog fights. He admitted to participating in killing dogs outside of the ring. Perhaps the most stomach turning tale was of the loser lying in a puddle, who was electrocuted with a toaster.

People do change. Many of us in the animal protection movement can’t even imagine wanting to hunt, yet there are activists in our movement who used to enjoy hunting. My own background includes animal abuse. At college I did experiments on rats, which involved giving them injections to nauseate them, causing “aversive conditioning” to their favorite drink. I knew that the poor little fellows were killed after the experiment as they were no longer deemed useful. The tests certainly weren’t useful – we knew in advance what the results would be. I didn’t like the whole thing much, so I didn’t think about it much, I just did it.

Oh God. Then there was the mouse in my apartment. Unable to stand his droppings or sleep through his midnight munchings, I set a glue trap for him. When his squeaking awoke me I was horrified to find him twisted and desperate on the plastic tray. What had I expected? The only thing I could think to do was to put him out of his misery as quickly as possible. I put him in a bag and slammed it hard many times against the wall till I was sure he was dead.

I just wrote the lines above finding it hard to believe that the sad scene really emerged from my own memory. But it really was me, and I doubt I am uniquely Jekyll and Hyde. Michael Vick’s hideous Hyde has been so publicly displayed and whipped, it is hard to believe in his better side. But when I think of what I have done in the past – some would say not comparable to Vick but I know that mouse would disagree – and think of my work now, I have to accept that perhaps anybody is capable of just about anything, of being the best or the worst that a person can be.

The mouse in my apartment brings to mind a more fun story. As anybody who does TNR (Trap, Neuter and Release) of feral cats knows, killing the mouse did not take care of the problem – more mice soon moved in. But there was no way I was going to kill again. So I bought a humane trap, and figured that I would catch the next mouse and take him to nearby Washington Square Park. I worried he might get eaten there by rats or fall to some other fate, but at least he would have a chance.

What I should have figured, but hadn’t, was that the trap would go off deep in the night, and that I was not going to get back to sleep with a freaked out rodent rattling around in a cage under the sink. So at the clack of the trap one morning at 4am, I put on my roller blades, and leashed up my dogs, my mix-breed Buster and my pitbull Paula, who were at that time my mush team for getting around Manhattan.

We came out of the apartment building onto Spring Street. I had never seen it so deserted. But the street wasn’t completely deserted: on the benches next to the basketball court we were about to pass, I saw a gang of rough looking youths. We approached and I wondered if in attempting to save this mouse’s life I may have forfeited my own. But as we glided by, with the gang giving us sidelong glances but making no move, I heard the muttered yet unmistakable word, “Pitbulls.” Ha! It had not occurred to me that my little honeys were protection, but I guess it should have – after all, I had never read a newspaper headline that said, “Young woman mugged while out with her pitbulls.”

This last weekend I couldn’t resist putting together a little video to introduce you to one of my lethal weapons. It’s the first video I have ever shot and edited, so when I accept my Best Picture Oscar (for a fantastically animal friendly film of course) you’ll know you were there at the beginning! It is only fitting that fabulous Paula Dawn, who graces my book cover and countless posters, and likes to boast that she has even been on the front page of the Los Angeles Times, now has her own (brief) music video:

Now you know why I have never thought of my pitbull as protection! And you know why I, like anybody who has ever had a pitbull, have such a soft spot for them. Pitbulls are known as “leaners” because they will never just sit next to you, they have to lean against you. And Paula, as you probably picked up from the video, is so dangerous that I have to warn people not to get too close or she might stick her tongue in. It hurts to think that people hurt them, or get their kicks from watching them hurt each other. That’s why I know I would find it hard to work with Michael Vick, as I feel so personally offended by his past, but I heartily commend those willing to, in order to help the other pitbulls. Pitbulls need all the help they can get.

HSUS has a fantastic program, teaching kids to befriend and train rather than fight pitbulls. It is great for the dogs and for urban youth. You can learn more about it at http://www.hsus.org/acf/fighting/dogfight/programs/ HSUS hopes to expand the program from Chicago to every major city across the country, and they need support. If you or your company just might possibly be interested in sponsoring the program, would you drop me a line and let me know?

The upside of Vick’s arrest was that the whole issue of dogfighting finally got the media attention it deserved. While most people were horrified when they learned the details, some in the NFL showed different priorities. Because John Stewart of the Daily Show voiced his concern about those priorities, I get to leave you with a laugh:

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