Seven of Michael Vick's Rescued Dogs Reunited

The dogs had the time of their lives. So did the adopters. The photographer had a rougher go of it!

Five years ago, the Pit Bull advocacy group BAD RAP left Virginia with 10 of Michael Vick's dogs "secreted" in the back of its RV, according to ABC News. The group had worked with prosecutors on the case to identify which dogs could be rehabilitated.

All of them went to good homes, and all are doing well. Last month, seven of the dogs were reunited for a photo shoot and a celebration. 

They have a lot to celebrate. If there was any question in the public's mind that Vick's abused dogs -- trained to fight -- could not only be rehabilitated but turned into loving, happy dogs, it's gone. 

All seven have Canine Good Citizen Certificates. Three work as therapy dogs in hospitals and children’s literacy programs. One, Jonny Justice, appeared on the Rachel Ray Show and won GUND's Top Dog contest -- his likeness will soon show up as one of GUND's famous stuffed dogs. 

“They’re very forgiving, and they all really enjoy other dogs, which is probably the other big surprise that came out of the case,” said Donna Reynolds, director of BAD RAP. “In fact, dogs were a comfort to them.”

“Dogs live in the moment; they don’t dwell on the past,” she continued. “Once they have enough positive experiences to draw on, they just run right into the present.”

And the present is a fun place. At the reunion, the dogs had the time of their lives -- what dog wouldn't, surrounded by a pack of well-adjusted, happy dogs, all of whom happened to look a lot alike?

“There were lots of hugs, kisses, lots of crying. When people meet these dogs, they cry,” Reynolds said. “They understand that they are little pieces of positive history.”

The only one who had trouble was the photographer, Mark Rogers. Imagine trying to wrangle seven wiggly dogs and their adopters to one good picture. 

Actually, you don't have to imagine it. Watch the wiggly wiggliness of the photo shoot right here:

Getting the Shot! from BADRAP.org on Vimeo.

Via ABC News

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Seven Reasons It’s Good to Be a Dog in Vail, Colorado

About the Author: Helen Fazio and her dog, Raja, blog on pet travel and related topics at www.traveldogbooks.com. In their first book, The Journey of the Shih Tzu, Raja tells the wolf-to-woof story of the development of this amazing breed. They are working on forthcoming titles.

At least every other ski season Raja loves to make his way to Vail, Colorado. The powder in the Rocky Mountains is amazing and Vail scenery with red cliffs and sage and gold pines is always glorious.

Vail was named for Charles Vail, an engineer who routed a highway through the valley in 1944; the ski mountain was developed by Pete Seibert, an Army Mountain Division Soldier, and his buddies, who trained in the area during WWII. Local ranchers contributed capital toward the fast-growing ski destination. Today, not only is Vail a prime family holiday destination, but the mountain terrain offers all the challenges mountain sports can handle.

Here’s why Vail is such a pup-friendly town.

1. As soon as you fly into Vail, an airport monitor lets you know that your dog will be made to feel right at home. This ad from a real estate company basically puts the dog before the house big time!

2. The Colorado Ski Museum on Frontage Road in Vail Village celebrates the age-old connection between mountain dogs and skiing mountaineers in a mural on the outside. Look at those treacherous wooden slide-in skis! Who wouldn’t want a dog to help with all the mishaps and accidents!

3. Vail Village Arts Gallery considers dogs to be great art. The gallery represents the brilliant dog portraits of employee Suzanne Shirra. Contact her through the gallery if you want your pet to be luminously captured on an enormous canvas. In our picture, a Yellow Lab, a Black Lab, and a phosphorescent Maltese glow on the gallery walls.

4. All the best shops have dog greeters to make you feel really welcome. Meet Charlie of the De Corato Boutique on East Meadow Drive in Vail Village. One day Charlie, a Basenji-Pitbull mix. was walking lonely and cold down a mountain road … and the next he was rescued into the lap of retail luxury by shop owner Laura Lilley. Lucky dog!

5. Who wouldn’t want to be like Daisy, living the good life as the quintessential skier companion and all around very cool mountain dog? Daisy accompanies Brian mountainside, sometimes running up the slopes on her own to gallop down with Brian in the big drifts. Daisy resembles the dog on the Ski Museum mural, doesn’t she?

6. If your dogs look even the least bit chilly, some restaurants invite you to bring them inside. Raja was hanging out off the slopes and the Rimini Gelato Shop on Lionshead Place insisted he come inside and have a warm drink.

7. Kate and Carhart recently moved to Vail and are searching for dog-friendly housing. Something tells us that they won’t have a hard time finding a really nice place and making friends.

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Don’t Have Access to a Quality Dog Trainer? Here Are Seven A+ Online Training Classes

I often hear from readers who want to do something fun with their dogs and teach new behaviors using positive reinforcement, but who don’t have access to good trainers in their area.

While I don’t recommend that you seek assistance for severe problems like aggression, reactivity, or separation anxiety without meeting a qualified behavior professional in person, I do suggest that you check out these amazing online education programs to improve your skills as a trainer as well as your dog’s behavior. All of these programs were developed by fantastic trainers and focus on improving your relationship with your dog by using reinforcement to create reliable behaviors.

+ CyberDog

CyberDog is a basic manners course based on the beginners’ curriculum from the Karen Pryor Academy. KPA-certified training partners Sarah Owings, Helix Fairweather, and Lynn Martin will help your dog learn basic skills like targeting, recall, loose-leash walking, waiting at a boundary, and settling on a mat. The eight-week program costs $250.

+ CyberAgility

This is exactly what it sounds like: agility instruction from the comfort of your home. Also created by Helix Fairweather, this fun online course costs $160. Using clicker training, shaping, targeting, and other positive training techniques, not only will you learn new games to play with your dog, you’ll graduate with better training skills!

+ Susan Garrett

This internationally renowned agility champion offers two online courses. Puppy Peaks is a great focus- and teamwork-building program created for puppies but helpful for dogs of all ages, while Recallers is designed to help you build a reliable recall, regardless of distraction or environment.

These fantastic courses are available only a few times a year, and while I haven’t taken them myself, I’ve heard rave reviews! Sign up for Susan’s newsletter on her site to make sure you don’t miss out.

+ KPA Dog Trainer Foundations

I had the pleasure of contributing to this great new course from Karen Pryor Academy. It’s designed as a clicker course for devoted pet owners or competitors who want to hone their training skills, or it can be a prerequisite for those who lack training experience and are interested in enrolling in the dog trainer program. It aims to give attendees a solid understanding of clicker principles, and how to clicker train “the Karen Pryor way.” Registration is $359 for seven lesson units that take eight to twelve weeks to complete.

+ Sylvia Trkman

Two-time world agility champion Sylvia Trkman offers online educational programs for a variety of skill levels, including puppy training, tricks, agility, and foundations. You can enroll as a participant, submitting videos and receiving feedback on your training from Sylvia and classmates, for $220 to $250 per course, or as an auditor for $120 to $150.

+ Sumac Johnson

Sumac Johnson’s Wag It Games program offers online classes throughout the year, including Rally Obedience, Homeopathy, Living Room Agility, Sniff It, and even my new favorite, Treibball — there is something fun for every dog and dog owner to try! You can attend classes as a student, or as an auditor at a reduced price. Check the site for details and start dates.

+ Donna Hall

Donna Hall is a talented Canadian trainer offering customized online classes in subjects including Service Dog Training, Treibball, Basic Clicker Skills, and Foundation Manners. I’m a big fan of her YouTube pages and videos.

Are you interested in signing up for an online program? Have you participated and would like to share some feedback about your experience? Please tell us in the comments. Until next time, happy training!

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My definition of crazy: Seven weeks, 30 cities, a big bus and a dog

This week Dr. Becker and I are wrapping up “Your Cat: The Owner’s Manual” for publication next spring with the fantastic assistance of Jana Murphy and our own Kim Campbell Thornton, not to mention the scores of top veterinarians and other experts we’ve ask for input and review to make sure we have the latest and greatest in  feline information. And just 15 days after that manuscript goes to the publisher, the book we wrote last spring, “Your Dog: The Owner’s Manual,” gets its official launch by Dr. B on “Good Morning America.”

He’ll stay in NYC to do a circuit of national shows, make a fast stop in Princeton, NJ, for a book-signing, and then fly to Houston to meet me, my dog McKenzie, and a 45-foot wrapped bus and a  crew consisting of tour manager, bus driver and a couple of tour assistants to help with events and drive the chase car. On April 25, we start our BIG Bus Tour, with a series of events in Houston, then hop on the bus for the drive to New Orleans … then Tampa … then Miami … then Jacksonville … then … well, you get the picture. Our days will start before dawn with media interviews, then a lunchtime event for veterinarians, then a public event at a PETCO. Every day, five days a week, for seven weeks.  (Above is what the bus will look like, so please wave if you see us!)

Yes, it’s completely insane, as all truly wonderful ideas are.

We’ve been planning it for months, and at times we weren’t sure we’d pull it off. The number of moving pieces in a tour like this is truly astonishing, and if any one of them doesn’t fit just so  the whole enterprise is in peril. But we locked them in, one by one, with the help of Dr. B’s agent’s team and my own much-appreciated Sacramento graphic designer and web team, as well as our publicist, Kathie Kerr, whom you’ve already met.

For those of you near one of those 30 cites, I hope you can turn up and say hello. Here are the details. But really, that’s not what I’m writing about today.

I have four dogs, one cats, eight chickens and two ducks. Getting personally ready for this tour is, for me, something akin to planning the invasion of Normandy. Although I’m not an inexperienced traveler, packing to be away from home for nine weeks (I’m leaving early for Texas to visit with my friend Mary on her ranch before the trip) is pretty challenging. At least McKenzie, who’ll be the official tour dog, doesn’t need to pack clothing — two simple vests with her name on them (one red, one purple) will be her entire wardrobe for the tour, along with some fancy leashes and collars. Throw in some tennis balls, a lot of poop bags, 40 pounds of Honest Kitchen, some probiotics to help prevent G-I upsets (I’ll be on my own probiotics as well!), Frontline and Heartguard, a crate, some shampoo and the all-important tennis balls (so important I list them twice) and she’s set.

Not so me.

Every week we’ll have a day for laundry and rest, sometime two, so there’s that. But I still have to pack enough “business casual” to get me through five or six days straight, with enough diversity to handle everything from heat waves to downpours. Oh, yes, and since my role (in addition to dog-walker) is reporting on the tour, my biggest challenge is electronic: Coordinating the laptop, iPad, videocam, smartphone and digital SLR for a continuous stream of updates to multiple media platforms  — including McKenzie’s page! Honestly, I love that stuff, so the actual work of it is a challenge I can’t wait to tackle. But the packing? Ohhhhhh … hate.

Then there’s the home front issue, and in this, I got lucky. A former colleague who’s between homes will be staying at the house with his dog, caring for the animals who remain here, Ilario and the poultry. Since he’s a writer, he’ll also be taking over my pet duck’s popular Facebook fan page.

As for the three dogs not traveling with me: Drew is staying up north with regular blog commenter Susan Fox. Faith, the youngest retriever, left for Mary’s ranch a month ago (I’m taking advantage of the opportunity to get the youngster field-trained, since Mary’s one of the best field trainers around). Woody and McKenzie will drive to Texas with me, and Woody will then stay on the ranch for a vacation — although I doubt Mary can stand to keep from putting more training on him, too!

You know … now that I type it all out, the fact is most everything IS locked down, and I’m in great shape! I guess really, there’s not much else to do but enjoy the adventure. And yes, I intend to!

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