Post by michele5611 on Jan 12, 2011 10:24:12 GMT -5
www.projo.com/news/content/VICKS_DOG_01-12-11_P1LTT2C_v18.269cf9.html
PROVIDENCE
The pit bull lived tethered by chain to a half-buried car axle in some Virginia woods belonging to football star Michael Vick. Perhaps it was too young to fight or used as bait for other fighting dogs. No one’s sure. But the dog had ground down his teeth trying to chew free of that chain.
Now, on this
morning, he sits inches away from 9-month-old Josephine Stoutzenberger — trembling on a living room rug.
Hives rise beneath his thin, tawny coat. The dog has been given a name: Handsome Dan. He wanted no part of this family portrait so his owner Heather Gutshall had to retrieve him from a back room. She carried him –– his pink belly and drooping back legs swaying above the floor.
Even now, almost four years since authorities raided Vick’s Bad Newz Kennels dog-fighting emporium, seizing 51 pit bulls and transporting the blood sport of dog fighting into American living rooms, Handsome Dan still cowers in fear of strangers.
Vick went to jail for animal cruelty while his dogs became their own celebrities. Magazine articles and websites chronicle their recovery and introduction into foster homes. A new book is out. And Heather Gutshall and her partner, Mark Stoutzenberger, now hope that Handsome Dan and the other so-called Vicktory Dogs, as they’re called, become ambassadors for their breed.
“These dogs are so misrepresented,” says Stoutzenberger, 29, a mental-health counselor who works with troubled adolescents and who, with Gutshall, 36, has been rehabilitating pit bulls and placing them into new homes for three and a half years.
“People definitely think … they are such mean vicious dogs, when they are so sweet.”
Stoutzenberger and Gutshall know what people will think.
Handsome Dan was one of the 22 pit bulls considered the most victimized by Vick’s mistreatment, dogs with emotional or physical scars needing months of special care from an animal sanctuary in Utah before anyone was allowed to adopt them.
People are going to say: “I can’t believe you would let your baby roll around on the floor with one of those dogs. You guys must be crazy,” says Stoutzenberger.
“My mom thinks I’m crazy,” says Gutshall.
“But we know what we’re doing,” Stoutzenberger says. “This is our livelihood. We work with dogs and, if we had any doubt, we would never, ever endanger the lives of our children for the sake of the dogs. The children are first and foremost.”
In England, says Stoutzenberger, pit bulls are known for being such caring dogs they have earned the nickname nanny dogs.
The “horror stories” you hear about the breed are really “blown out of proportion,” he says. If there were as many chocolate labs in the country as pit bulls, he says, you would be hearing similar horror stories involving chocolate labs.
Of the 51 Vick dogs, 47 were saved in the end — the first time that authorities in a raid on a dog-fighting ring agreed to individually assess whether a dog could be rehabilitated rather than destroy the whole lot outright, says Gutshall.
Two dogs died while in shelters. Another was euthanized because of medical complications from being bred so many times. And another was destroyed because it was too violent.
The rest either remain at animal sanctuaries like Best Friends Animal Society in Utah or have been adopted into homes.
“Everyone thought these were going to be the most vicious dogs on the planet and as you can see, it’s not what they found,” says Gutshall.
Handsome Dan is the first Vicktory Dog to be placed in a home with an infant, she says. If the public perception of pit bulls is to change, the Vicktory Dogs will have to behave, says Gutshall. “There’s a lot riding on these guys’ shoulders.”
The couple, who live in the Smith Hill neighborhood, say they began taking in and retraining pit bulls for adoption three and a half years ago because no one else was.
The majority of pit bulls that end up in animal shelters are destroyed, they say, because no one wants them, and so many people fear them.
In 2009, they asked about adopting one of Vick’s dogs from Best Friends. So began an intense six-month review process that included background and reference checks, followed by another long probationary period.
A trainer from Best Friends and Handsome Dan flew to Providence and spent time with the couple, their two children (including a young teenage son) and their two other pet dogs to see if they could all adjust. Then, Best Friends had the couple, their children and their dogs board a plane to Utah to spend time with Handsome Dan.
As part of the visit, Handsome Dan spent a night with the family in a hotel.
He spent most of that time cowering under the bathroom sink. He had to be carried outside to go to the bathroom. But he was never aggressive, says Gutshall. “Vick wasn’t very good at picking fighters.”
These days Handsome Dan spends his days playing with Gutshall’s other dogs around the house and going for walks. He is getting better with new surroundings. He used to jump back into the car through the sun roof rather than explore a new place.
Gutshall won’t say much about Vick’s rehabilitation: “We’re dealing with one of his victims here. We’re focusing on him.”
Handsome Dan sleeps beneath Josephine’s crib.
A dog given a chance, Gutshall says, to be just a dog.
VIDEO
PROVIDENCE
The pit bull lived tethered by chain to a half-buried car axle in some Virginia woods belonging to football star Michael Vick. Perhaps it was too young to fight or used as bait for other fighting dogs. No one’s sure. But the dog had ground down his teeth trying to chew free of that chain.
Now, on this
morning, he sits inches away from 9-month-old Josephine Stoutzenberger — trembling on a living room rug.Hives rise beneath his thin, tawny coat. The dog has been given a name: Handsome Dan. He wanted no part of this family portrait so his owner Heather Gutshall had to retrieve him from a back room. She carried him –– his pink belly and drooping back legs swaying above the floor.
Even now, almost four years since authorities raided Vick’s Bad Newz Kennels dog-fighting emporium, seizing 51 pit bulls and transporting the blood sport of dog fighting into American living rooms, Handsome Dan still cowers in fear of strangers.
Vick went to jail for animal cruelty while his dogs became their own celebrities. Magazine articles and websites chronicle their recovery and introduction into foster homes. A new book is out. And Heather Gutshall and her partner, Mark Stoutzenberger, now hope that Handsome Dan and the other so-called Vicktory Dogs, as they’re called, become ambassadors for their breed.
“These dogs are so misrepresented,” says Stoutzenberger, 29, a mental-health counselor who works with troubled adolescents and who, with Gutshall, 36, has been rehabilitating pit bulls and placing them into new homes for three and a half years.
“People definitely think … they are such mean vicious dogs, when they are so sweet.”
Stoutzenberger and Gutshall know what people will think.
Handsome Dan was one of the 22 pit bulls considered the most victimized by Vick’s mistreatment, dogs with emotional or physical scars needing months of special care from an animal sanctuary in Utah before anyone was allowed to adopt them.
People are going to say: “I can’t believe you would let your baby roll around on the floor with one of those dogs. You guys must be crazy,” says Stoutzenberger.
“My mom thinks I’m crazy,” says Gutshall.
“But we know what we’re doing,” Stoutzenberger says. “This is our livelihood. We work with dogs and, if we had any doubt, we would never, ever endanger the lives of our children for the sake of the dogs. The children are first and foremost.”
In England, says Stoutzenberger, pit bulls are known for being such caring dogs they have earned the nickname nanny dogs.
The “horror stories” you hear about the breed are really “blown out of proportion,” he says. If there were as many chocolate labs in the country as pit bulls, he says, you would be hearing similar horror stories involving chocolate labs.
Of the 51 Vick dogs, 47 were saved in the end — the first time that authorities in a raid on a dog-fighting ring agreed to individually assess whether a dog could be rehabilitated rather than destroy the whole lot outright, says Gutshall.
Two dogs died while in shelters. Another was euthanized because of medical complications from being bred so many times. And another was destroyed because it was too violent.
The rest either remain at animal sanctuaries like Best Friends Animal Society in Utah or have been adopted into homes.
“Everyone thought these were going to be the most vicious dogs on the planet and as you can see, it’s not what they found,” says Gutshall.
Handsome Dan is the first Vicktory Dog to be placed in a home with an infant, she says. If the public perception of pit bulls is to change, the Vicktory Dogs will have to behave, says Gutshall. “There’s a lot riding on these guys’ shoulders.”
The couple, who live in the Smith Hill neighborhood, say they began taking in and retraining pit bulls for adoption three and a half years ago because no one else was.
The majority of pit bulls that end up in animal shelters are destroyed, they say, because no one wants them, and so many people fear them.
In 2009, they asked about adopting one of Vick’s dogs from Best Friends. So began an intense six-month review process that included background and reference checks, followed by another long probationary period.
A trainer from Best Friends and Handsome Dan flew to Providence and spent time with the couple, their two children (including a young teenage son) and their two other pet dogs to see if they could all adjust. Then, Best Friends had the couple, their children and their dogs board a plane to Utah to spend time with Handsome Dan.
As part of the visit, Handsome Dan spent a night with the family in a hotel.
He spent most of that time cowering under the bathroom sink. He had to be carried outside to go to the bathroom. But he was never aggressive, says Gutshall. “Vick wasn’t very good at picking fighters.”
These days Handsome Dan spends his days playing with Gutshall’s other dogs around the house and going for walks. He is getting better with new surroundings. He used to jump back into the car through the sun roof rather than explore a new place.
Gutshall won’t say much about Vick’s rehabilitation: “We’re dealing with one of his victims here. We’re focusing on him.”
Handsome Dan sleeps beneath Josephine’s crib.
A dog given a chance, Gutshall says, to be just a dog.
VIDEO
I look forward to learning much here