Michael Vick Dog News

May 23, 2008

“A lot has gone on since I last reported in so I’ll start at the beginning.

Alf and I have known all along that he was going to go live with a pit bull rehabber friend of our foster mom’s. Her friend lives in the Midwest and has two pit bulls our foster mom rescued after Hurricane Katrina. I’ve seen pictures of these two dogs and been read stories about how they have been certified as therapy dogs….whatever that is. These two dogs were 7 week old puppies when Hurricane Katrina hit. They ended up at St. Francis Animal Sanctuary in Tylertown, MS in the care of Best Friends Animal Society….the group our foster mom volunteered with after the storm. While there our foster mom met up with the lady from the Midwest and with tears in her eyes, begged the lady to take the puppies. The lady did and the rest is history. These now almost 3 year old dogs have done some pretty amazing things in their work with at-risk-youth in a large, midwestern city. They’ve been honored nationally for their humane education work.

In December, before we came to Richmond to live with our foster mom, her Midwest friend visited us while we were still at Virginia Beach Animal Control. She and Alf were instant best friends. The lady saw Alf’s potential for helping troubled youth and she and Alf agreed that he would eventually go live with her.

So about two months ago Alf and our foster mom loaded up the car and headed out to meet her friend. They met up outside of Nashville, TN. – which is about half way between Richmond and Alf’s new home. The lady brought one of her Katrina pit bulls with her to meet Alf and after she put him in his place a couple of times, Alf and the Katrina dog became good buddies. (See, she knows how to behave and Alf is still learning.) The day after he arrived at his new home he visited a battered women’s shelter and was an instant winner with the residents. A day or so later, Alf had a chance meeting with one of the higher-ups at HSUS….you remember…..the group that said we needed to be killed. Alf was a hit, as always. Wish I could have been there to see it!

Alf is starting his obedience training and his new foster mom has hopes that he, like his Katrina Pit bull sisters, will become a certified therapy dog.

Alf has promised to send his own updates to RAL and we’ll post them on this web site.

OK – so enough about Alf.

I’ve started my obedience training at K9 Consultants. I’ve got this thing with “sit”…I just don’t wanna do it…at least not for my foster mom. But we’re working on it. She tells me I have to learn to sit, and other things, in order to get my Canine Good Citizenship award….like I know what that is.

I made a trip back to the vet because I had some yucky growth on my leg and my cherry eye had come back. But after a bit of cosmetic surgery (which my foster mom says is a good thing) my eye looked better for a while, but now the cherry eye has come back again. The vets are trying to figure out what to do about it. The growth was nothing to worry about and is healing just fine.

I was invited to attend the Virginia Federation of Humane Society’s annual conference that was held On March 28, 2008 in Lynchburg, VA. I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about but Alf and I got their first ever “Companion Animal of the Year Award”. (I get to keep the plaque and I’ll send Alf a picture of it.) This was my first public appearance and I think I handled it very well. I’m told there were about 100 people there many of whom went ga-ga over me. I wasn’t afraid of the people, the applause or the strange noise from the PA system. All in all it was really good and I want to do things like that again. My foster mom told me that because I was such a good ambassador for the breed I might get a chance to do some ads about dog fighting. Now that’ll be way cool!

So there you have it. Alf and I are both doing fine and now that he’s got a new home I don’t have to nudge him off the sofa to sit next to my foster mom. And she doesn’t have to roll the hose up every day.