BETHLEHEM - A stranger enters the way and the deep black pit bull slumps to the deck and lets out a faint growl from behind the gate to the kitchen.
Kathleen Pierce tells her dog, Jhumpa Jones, that it's OK. The gate opens. Jhumpa slowly stands up, trots toward the unfamiliar face, looks up with her soft, dark eyes and follows Pierce and her visitor to the kitchen table.
"Here," Pierce says, handing the alien a parcel of string cheese.
Jhumpa leaps at the stranger's lap before she sits. Her tongue is hanging out of the position of her talk as she bows at the stranger's hand. Jhumpa licks a little part of mozzarella out of the stranger's fingertips, smiles, and sits down for more.
"That's it," Pierce says. "You guys are just now."
Pierce says Jhumpa has gained nearly 25 pounds since the day she was seized from the backyard of the family owned by NFL quarterback Michael Vick in Smithfield, Va.
"I cross her rotten," Pierce says. "I can't help it."
Pierce estimates Jhumpa is six days old. Likely born on Vick's property, there is no show of her birth. No one knows what Jhumpa saw or what she went through at Bad Newz Kennels, the clandestine dog fighting ring financed by the football superstar.
One of 47 pit bulls formerly owned by Vick that were released to animal sanctuaries or adopted by foster homes, Jhumpa has been living with 4 other dogs and four cats at Pierce's Slingerlands home for 3 years.
"Once she saw the other dogs, she relaxed and started acting like any old dog," said Pierce, who said Jhumpa was timid around other humans at first. "She had never been some other people before."
Pierce didn't tell anyone outside of her home about Jhumpa's background until a twelvemonth later she adopted her.
"When I went downward to see her for the 1st time, in my mind I thought she was leaving to be good this massive, massive dog," said Pierce. "But, I looked into her crate and all I saw was this winsome, wise beyond her years, innocent dog. There was spirit oozing out of her eyes."
The dogs recovered from Vick's property were the foremost grouping of pit bulls recovered from a dog-fighting ring that were not euthanized.
Vick's pit bulls were held as evidence at six different animal control sites in Virginia from the day they were seized to the end of his trial - he ended up serving behind bars - in October 2007. Dogs were kept in individual cages for six months, never let out. Cages were hosed down with the dogs inside and they were never handled by humans.
Intense media coverage of the case stirred such a reaction to keep the dogs that they were each individually tested by experts to see if and where they could be situated into adoption.
"In a foreign way, because Michael Vick was who he was and the subject got so much attention, the dogs were able to be protected in the end," said Cydney Cross, the co-founder and chair of Out of the Pits, a non-profit organization based in Albany that rescues pit bulls and places them into foster homes.
Out of the Pits was one of the scores of animal rescue organizations that applied for adoption rights for the pit bulls. Cross was allowed to get in two dogs, both of which had to be eased into domestication at vet clinics for six months before they could be set into homes.
Cross said Jhumpa stood erect in her crate for the full eight-hour drive from Virginia to upstate New York in October of 2007.
"She only stared directly ahead. She was frozen," said Cross. "There was no spirit in her eyes. They were flat"
Jhumpa was slowly rehabilitated at Troy Veterinary Hospital.
"She wouldn't walk at first," said Pierce, who was contacted by Crossing to possibly adopt Jhumpa in March of 2008. "The girls at the vet would address her 'Pancake,' because she'd just freeze and lie on the land when they tried to ask her outside."
Pierce and Cross think Jhumpa may have been used only for training and not for fighting. Jhumpa had a few scars, but not as many as a pit bull used for fighting would have typically. However, her womb is stretched more than normal.
Hazel, the other pit bull seized from Bad Newz Kennelz and set into acceptance by Cross, nearly died because her womb was so badly damaged and infected. Hazel lives in Vermont with a woman who just wanted to be identified as Sally, fearing Hazel may be stolen or harmed if people knew she was a "Vick dog." Sally and Cross believe Hazel, who moves with a limp from a previously broken leg and has a sleek black coat, may be Jhumpa's mother but there is no way to tell.
Jhumpa and Hazel have never bitten another dog or person since being seized. Neither has Hector, a pit bull rescued from Vick's property by the California rescue group Bad Rap and placed into the charge of Andrew Yori in Amenia, N.Y. Hector, who's is believed to be six days old and has a caramel-colored coat, scars up and devour his belly and legs, and several missing teeth.
"Honestly, I was a little hesitant and a concerned at first because of all the scars," Yori said about adopting the dog. "I know they killed the dogs that didn't win. He had to do something to stay alive."
Yori said Hector wrestles, sleeps and plays with his five other dogs without incident.
"They're great teachers for us," Pierce said. "All of these dogs come from neglectful, abusive situations. But, somehow, they simply don't lose their passion of life."
No comments:
Post a Comment