The Lost Dogs

The first part of Lost Dogs will turn your stomach. Again.

Author Jim Gorant explores once more the site of the Virginia dog-fighting operation in which Michael Vick was thoroughly involved, not only as the owner of the property and a breeder and trainer of dogs, but as one of the guys who brutally killed the dogs deemed too damaged to fight again.

But the second part of the story is encouraging. Although the SPCA initially recommended the destruction of the dogs discovered on the Vick property, assuming that they would be too traumatized to ever recover from the treatment they’d received, many of the dogs were saved. According to Gorant, some of them are now happy and healthy pets. Others are serving as “therapy dogs.” They provide company for hospital patients, and some sit quietly in libraries while school children read to them.

Football fans know that after serving a prison sentence and declaring bankruptcy, Michael Vick is now playing for the Philadelphia Eagles. The Lost Dogs provides readers with news of the victims of Vick’s criminal enterprise, and the news is much better than most people assumed it would be.