is a piece of crap. It sickens me that he's the face of any franchise (well, except New England)

...in that this guy claims VICK was fighting his dog in like 1999 or 2000 or some year when Vick was in high school or VA TECH - but still claims that Vick was betting $40,000?

Not to say I don't think VICK was involved and is a major loser but sounded like sketchy story.

        Pit Bulls are good dogs with great temperament, their one of the best in temperament, "according to the animal tempoerament testing society". People who are responsible pet owners would never have any problems with their Pit Bull. The problem is rappers promoting this and idiots like Mike Vick actually doing it. Once this happens you have mostly inner city youth fighting dogs and what happens to the dog once their done abusing it. They drop the dog off somewhere, it attacks somebody because that is now what the dog knows. Or someone will adopt this dog from a shelter not knowing it's background and have problems.

 ( The funny thing is the media makes it look like the dog just snapped). They should put a picture of the owner in the paper with his criminal background and his working status. A picture says a thousand words. People are the problem not Pit Bulls.

         People are furious because of People like Mike Vick. Some of these people had there dogs taken away from them because of state laws because of people like him. I'f Vick is found guilty, I hope they put him away for a long time, to set an example to the youth saying that,if you fight a dog this is what is going to happen to you.

any dog at any age ......pit or not i here a story about great danes . I own a few ALL dogs are born to love !! It is a mater of training ! If he was involved him or any one else i would hop the new federal law would apply. Athelete should not factor in they should STRAP up and  get any and all people that take inocent dogs and turn them on them selves. I know we have rules for people  

I don't agree that you should put everyone who condones dog fighting in a ring.  That's condoning dog fighting.  Instead you you should send them to a war camp.  These people have no respect for life. -Rachel

It pains me to know that a human being could hurt a living creature in the nature at all much less pit them against each other.  Pit Bulls are not "bred to fight."  It is not in their genes.  It is in the way they are raised by their owners.  It is an ignorant and bloodthirsty sport causing harm to nature's creatures and for that everyone involved are deserving of jail time.  Micheal Vick should be chained up, whipped and starved to see how he would like it as should all of the other dog fighters out there.  I'm am almost physically ill by this subject.  I can hardly read the reports without shedding tears for the poor animals.

Michael Vick, through his support of dog fighting, has shown that evil exists.  

Dog fighting has been going on for years.  It is nothing new.  The world has been looking for a big figure to convict.  Someone must have lost some money or something.  I don't really care if Michael Vick fights his dogs.  It's organized.  I'm not getting involved.  I love dogs.  I do feel for the dogs and anyone that condones letting their dogs be brutalized in such a way.  We let human-beings go in and fight each other.  We kill human-beings with lethal injection, gas, electricution.  We kill our pets when we don't want them anymore.  The world is just messed up.  We shouldn't be quick to judge anyone.

I love my dog.  She is a big Rottweiler.  She loves to play with children, but she is very protective of her owners.  One day my children and I were out walking our dog.  Another dog came running out to attack.  She grab it by the back and flung it aside.  After that she just kept on walking like it was nothing.  Dog fighting is wrong, but if Vick goes down - a lot of people need to go down.  There are too many people involved to just focus on one man.  He's just a celebrity that is suspected of being into the wrong thing.  I'm sure he knows something about it!  Dogs are bred to fight, they aren't born that way.  Once it's in their line though - it can stay.  Dogs need good owners.  Punish the owners.

I think Michael Vick is a despicable human being. Too many times, people with fame and fortune take advantage of their situations and end up making bad impressions on today's youth. The law needs to make an example of Michael Vick and that dog-fighting will not be tolerated. You know - Michael Vick COULD HAVE been something great - he'll be forever remembered as nothing but a criminal.

HOW MANY DEAD PIT BULLS CAN YOU FIT IN A FORD FI50 ???? LOL

Throw this sick, filthy SOB out of football, period!
How low will the NFL continue to sinK??
I'd love to have a physical shot at this punk myself.
His personakl behavior record speaks for itself, as does his brother's.  All in the family!  Get rid of him.

I put Vick in the same league as al-Qaida.

I hope Michael burns in hell

I used to work at an animal shelter that worked with Animal Control and assisted them following break-up busts of dog-fighting rings. We helped provide the evidence needed to prosecute. I've testified in court as a qualified witness.
Dog Fighting
Dog fighting is one of the most horrific activities I've ever been unfortunate enough to gain exposure to. I will not detail the actual fights themselves. You know what they entail and if not, observing the videos we've seen recently should educate you.
When Mexicans brought their ugly sports of cockfighting and dog fighting with them from Mexico, they had trained and bred aggression towards humans out of them. A fighting bull that attacks it's own owner is without value.
I'm not blaming Mexicans for this, cruelty is an equal opportunity activity.

Who does it?
At first, it was primarily those that imported the "sport". Slowly but surely it spread like some fad for those that perceive themselves as "bad".

The logic of that eludes me. How does fighting dogs, having big tires or using guns make you tough? In my day, tough guys went nose-to-nose. Believe me, some of them needed nothing more than their fists to be truly "bad". If there are any previous "bad dudes" out there, they must laugh when these guys run around acting "bad".

You should know that there was a study done on whether people that are cruel to animals are more likely to hurt people . The results were that they are. In fact, most serial killers started with their pets. Not surprising but I'm amazed that they needed a study to figure that out.

Let me tell you about what you don't see in the dog fighting videos, like the animals used for training the dogs.

The part of the fighting rings that haunts my nightmares is the animals that are used to "train" pit bulls. Cats, rabbits and other dogs. The other dogs are sometimes muzzled so that they cannot defend themselves.

As someone once bitten by a pit bull, let me assure you, it hurts like hell. I cannot imagine dying that way.  It has crossed my mind that perhaps those found guilty of this sport should be stripped and cuffed and dispatched by the sort of dogs they helped create.

Where do they get these animals? Everywhere,  but usually by answering "cheap to a nice home" ads. Check with the owners around where any fighting ring has been broken up. I think you'll find that very few of them are able to get in touch with the people that took them. They also steal peoples pets out of their yards, cars and anywhere else they can find.
Locally, we had some young men turn their pits loose on a puppy that was tied to a fence. Someone intervened and the pup was taken to a vet, but it didn't survive.
I try and understand what it  might take to do something like this and to this moment, it eludes me. It's a rock-hard stainless steel coldness that had to have escaped from hell.
Dogs that are different
Two breeds of dog come to mind as "different". What makes them different? People. People that need external proof of how tough they are.

The pit bull joins the rottweiler - once ranked favorite with the same crowd.. (or as some say, the "rock-willer"). When over bred, the rottweiler became "the dog most likely to turn on it's owner."
Don't get angry at me for saying so if you are an owner of a nice version of one of these dogs. Of all people that should be angry at the people that ruin these dogs, it should be you.
It's not that your dog is insignificant, it's just that when one of these breeds is bad, it's so bad, it's a danger to people as well as other animals. That has to be addressed.
I don't hate pit bulls, in spite of the fact that I have a two-inch scar from the morning I wasn't paying close enough attention to notice that one of our impounded pit bulls was in a bad mood. Not all pit bulls are bad. I've met many that are as sweet as they can be. I'm not after getting dogs killed, I'm after getting less of them born in the first place.
Pits
I once  saw a pit bull break through the metal caging between kennels in an animal control truck to get at another dog. Unfortunately, he didn't figure out how to reverse his direction and the other dog, also a pit bull, tore his throat out.
When we opened the truck, the dog--still caught in the top of the steel mesh wall--was dead. He hung suspended, his front paws up by his bloody face. His missing throat and torn chest resembled something one might expect to see in a butcher shop, not an animal control truck.
When we cautiously opened the kennel that contained the dog that killed him, it stood wagging it's tail happily. It jumped down from the truck and greeted each of us enthusiastically with it's blood-covered face grinning from ear to ear.
Even the nice pit can explode into a murderous rage when he sees another animal. We had people's pit bull jump and tear other dogs out of their owner's arms right in the waiting area. This is so ingrained into these animals, that it is as much a part of them that it renders attempts at training it out of a nasty one is absurd.
Should we outlaw pits? I don't know. Like I said, some of them are nice. I do believe that one should need a permit to own one. Maybe one that required temperament testing of the animal and proven responsibility of the owners.
I need to add one other very important fact, since pit bulls are trained on small mammals. What is a child? Yes. A mammal--hence the killing and mutilations of children unfortunate enough to wander too close, particularly to dogs guarding someone's "stash".
Check the stats on children and other people seriously attacked or killed by dogs. I believe you'll see that the numbers correspond to the escalating popularity of dog fighting.
Random and careless breeding has at last given birth to what all animal people feared, the psychotic pit bull. This makes dog attacks nightmares for the professionals to have to deal with. It's worse when those professionals aren't around.
As you know, once a pit bull locks it's jaws on it's victim, no ordinary means can release it. This is bad enough, but when that victim is a child, the situation becomes a nightmare that may require a multitude of professionals to deal with.
You need to get the child to a doctor but you cannot transport both the child and the dog-besides the dog continues to shake and twist his head, creating even more damage. You need a cop to shoot the dog, but it's a dangerous thing to do within the city limits and right next to the child in his mouth.
Humane societies have been warning about this for some time now. (If an animal lover warns you about an animal, it's best to listen.)
A final word in the defense of these dogs.

Pit bulls didn't ask to be here. They certainly didn't asked to be treated like they are. For those that say, "I keep my dogs right here." And all of the puppies your "stud" helped make? Where are those?
I challenge anyone that says animals don't feel. They feel. Anyone that accidentally steps on their pet's paw will tell you that.  
For those of you that say these pits don't feel the pain of fighting, you're a liar. And you know it.  I don't care about the breeding. Pain is pain and pit bulls feel it just the same as any other animal or you and I. I've seen many, many times over.
Go look at the photos of the poor animals in the case that's getting all of the publicity now. The poor dogs sitting huddled and miserable on the cold concrete. These dogs DO feel. They also experience the same feelings all other animals do, fear, terror and loneliness. These pit bulls didn't deserve the hell they were put through.
The tough guys don't see the old Rottweiler in agony on a cold morning because all the breeder cared about was profit and aggression, not that the hips go bad. His "tough guy" owner long gone now.
 When the dogs found buried in Vic's backyard were puppies, do you think they could have known what life held for them?
Call dog fighting anything you want, but it sure as hell isn't a sport.

It is up to all of us to stop this horror that hurts so many, so much.
I call upon those that participate in it to step up and stop it now. Find your true courage.

The rest of us must concentrate on making the laws against animal cruelty stronger. We need to make the penalties for dog fighting should be as rock-hard as the hearts of the those that promote it.

Regarding Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick

Please read this with in mind I'm a twelve year old girl and this is my first time I'm verbalizing myself on the Internet about the subject of Pit Bull fighting regarding Michael Vick: a topic we've discussed in my current events class.  My mother polished it up for me as she too is as sickened as I am.

Many of us have recently read about, listened to TV reports, or have seen the heinous video clip of two Pit Bull dogs fighting to the death of one of the dogs.  This is one of the cruelest and most gruesome "sports" in which man could possible participate; killing and enjoying the death of man's best friend, the dog. Michael Vick is sick.

Dogs love their masters unconditionally and trust us to care for them, not train them to fight and kill then be tortured to death if they were a "bad dog" and lost the fight.  This video clip of a Pit Bull fight shown on Anderson Cooper's news sickened me.  The only thing it did for me was to get me to speak out for the rights of animals, and to try and get the public to put Vick behind bars, which I feel he rightly deserves ... and more.

If Vick enjoys butchering the losing dogs (assuming they have a last few last breaths left in them) in the most heinous fashion i.e., electrocution, hanging, drowning, decapitating, and clubbing them to death, what will he do when his own grandparents are old and grey and nearing the time that Vick feels they should meet their maker?  He is a cold, calculating, greedy, vicious man who can throw pigskin as easily and he can massacre a dog.

If you have placed Vick, who plays for the Atlanta Falcons, on a throne - replace the scum to a porcelain throne filled with filth, a spot on which he now deserves to sit;  better yet, a blood-filled floor of a dog pit and looking up at a cruel killer with wires of electrical current ready to torture him. An eye for an eye. Right?

This is the first time I've ever written a letter to slam a person and also the first time I've felt such a depth of sadness and pain I took in watching the video and reading about this animal murderer, Michael Vick.

This atrocious man has no right to kill these animals, nor should he own or ever be allowed to have any type of pet again, ever, even a goldfish. He's like another Joseph Mengele, only with animals. I imagine he'd be excited if he could pull a pet goldfish out of water and hold him by the tail until it no longer wiggles, or thrilled to rip the shell of a pet turtle and time its death on his Rolex to see how long it would suffer until death.

Evidentially Michael Vick doesn't know what to do with all of his money. So many athletes give to charities, help our troops, feed the hungry, and try to help the lives of kids from broken homes.

Why couldn't he have bred puppies to be kept in hospital cancer wards?  My mother and I take our two dogs three times a month to senior centers and retirement homes, to help our senior citizens, helping them enjoy their golden years. Helping them remember the dog they once had, or getting some wet heart-felt kisses, or petting a soft furry head resting on their lap just for a reward of an acknowledging hand on them, making them feel better.

What he's done is so pitiful and non-worthwhile. God gave Vick strength and good health to enable him to help win football games and earn more money than a school teacher could ever dream of, to support their families.  

Some people believe he is a hero on the football field, but in the real world it isn't a level playing field, not just for humans, but for the poor wonderful dogs that were purchased or bred by Vick.

How could he say he's innocent? He is anything but innocent. He knew about the fighting, as townspeople often saw him purchasing syringes and other dog "supplies."  Of course, just like another athlete, OJ Simpson, Vick too had earnings from football and endorsements and can afford another "dream team" of lawyers who who'll lie their heads off for a fortune-sized fee, perhaps tamper with evidence and get people to lie or take the fall for Vick.  

I will not root for the Falcons if Vick plays ball, nor will I support any item he endorses. I have an entire classroom filled with 12 and 13 year olds who swear they'll do the same.

US citizens have voted to declare dog-fighting illegal.  Vick was knowingly breaking the law and thinks his money and power will get him off criminal charges.

Please, all of you Falcons may feel you need his football expertise, but do need the notoriety that you are harboring a vicious criminal?  Vick needs to be portrayed as a man who consciously overlooked the law. Vick thought he could get away with it.  

He needs to be stripped of his Falcon feathers, his endorsements, handcuffed and shackled, pay restitution for a lifetime and do community service for the rest of his life. One more thing. He should be banned forever from owning a dog or any other animal, even a turtle.

He is a heinous, hideous, liar and needs to have the book thrown at him. He needs to be branded just like a serial killer or pedophile and wherever he goes after jail, he needs to be marked for a lifetime.

MARY ROSE GIRDNER
SEBASTOPOL CALIFORNIA