Animal advocacy group organizing sponsor boycott over Michael Vick reality show

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The group Animal Advocates of Arizona is behind a boycott against the companies which are sponsoring “The Michael Vick Project,” a reality show featuring the convicted felon, now airing on BET. The show began airing on Feb. 3.

Plans for the show were announced a few months ago, amid a great deal of criticism about Vick’s motives for the show. Many believe that the NFL quarterback is not truly remorseful for his crimes, and should not be given another opportunity for more fame and money.

In October 2009, Vick told the Los Angeles Times: “I just want people to really get to know me as an individual. What I want to do is change the perception of me. I am a human being. I've made some mistakes in the past, and I wish it had never happened. But it's not about how you fall, but about how you pick yourself up.”

What Vick calls “mistakes” were actually felonies which could have sent him to prison for much longer than the 18 months he spent incarcerated. The fact is, he spent years torturing and killing defenseless animals.

When police raided Vick’s house in Surry County in 2007, they found 65 dogs (nearly all pit bulls), a dog-fighting pit, blood-stained carpets, and various equipment commonly used in dog fighting.

One of the items found on Vick’s property was a ‘rape stand’ which is a device in which female dogs are strapped into and restrained, to allow a male dog to breed with her.

According to the federal indictment, when dogs at Vick’s Bad Newz Kennels lost a fight, or failed to perform well in ‘test matches,’ they were routinely killed by methods including electrocution, hanging, drowning, and in at least one case by “slamming” the dog’s body onto the concrete floor. In one session in April 2007, at least eight dogs were killed through these methods.

Vick took part in these executions along with his partners Purnell Peace, and Quanis Phillips. The indictment detailed a March 2003 incident, in which a female pit bull who had just lost a match was killed. Vick and Peace decided to kill her by “wetting the dog down with water and electrocuting her.”

Incidentally, those aforementioned details were not mentioned last week’s debut episode of “The Michael Vick Project.”

James DuBose, executive producer for Vick’s show said: “This show can be a blueprint for so many kids. I want to show them that things are going to happen, that they're not going to get through life without dealing with some kind of adversity. I want to show that if they have a fall from grace, this is how they can turn it around. We want this to be a story of hope.”

While it may be difficult for anyone to see how someone who could regularly drown, electrocute, and beat dogs to death the way that the new Eagles Michael Vick did, he has in fact become a role model once again…that happened when the NFL readmitted him.

Kathy McKee of Animal Advocates of Arizona has compiled the following list of sponsors for Vick’s show:

-Nivea
-Buick
-Bally’s Fitness
-Denny’s Restaurants
-Footlocker
-Nationwide Insurance
-Applebee’s
-Sprint
-Pizza Hut
-Dave and Buster’s
-Broadview Security
-Loreal

 

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