Hello Celebritys

Vick reinstated in NFL. I hit a dog over the head with a frying pan once. Complete accident. I was rushing in the kitchen, hand held pan just at the hip, foster dog sprung up to say hello just as I was twisting around - WHAM! - they connected, and the pup hit the dirt. Thankfully the dog didn't hold it against me - all-forgiving pit bulls. But my dog, my pit bull - she saw it, she was horrified. She looked at me as if I'd hit her on the head - lowered her body, looked back at me over her shoulder as she slunk away into another room. OMG! Those moments that you wish you could take back.

But the moment was indelible: Sally suffered for that dog; she put that event into a context I never imagined a dog could do - 'the other.' Based on what she saw, mom wasn't safe when frying pans were out and it took a long, long time - years - before she'd start to believe that they weren't going to hit her in the kitchen, too. She remembered. A dog remembered a moment, a fearful event that telegraphed down to her bones and embedded into her psyche.



I have to wonder what this dog - now named Halle - witnessed at that Moonlight Road property. And I have to guess she still remembers what she heard and saw there. The public may forget, but she won't. The dogs are watching, Mr. Vick.

There is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury. - Alexander Smith

Not guilty
Let us never forget that, while Michael Vick pleaded guilty to "a" dog fighting charge in his more recent hearing (11/08) in the state courts, he "also pleaded not guilty to a count of cruelty to animals" (source) Not guilty of cruelty. No cruelty. Naw. Didn't happen. Not a bit.

Halle remembers.

I don't think we need to waste our time hating Vick or the organizations that have given him a free pass. We have better things to do. Karma is much more efficient at righting wrongs, and she has a steel trap memory.

Photo: Halle during evaluations at the Hanover Pound, VA.