The Lost Dogs

by Jim Gorant

  A six-foot-tall white fence surrounds a yard thick with broad-leafed Bermuda grass. Outside the gate at the end of the driveway there’s a camera and an intercom. Motion sensor lights hang on the garage. The flower beds are tidy and neat, dotted with trim young shrubs. In the backyard a boat sits on a trailer. There’s an aboveground pool and a full-length basketball court complete with white painted lines and glass backboards that can be raised and lowered.

  The house looks like any one of a half dozen others on the street, another newly risen McMansion that signals the country’s burgeoning real estate economy and provides a plush home base for some happy, anonymous family. But the property extends well beyond the pool and the unmarked white fence. It twists back into the dense woods where several dozen dogs sit chained to car axles and four sheds stand among the trees, nearly invisible from the road because they are painted pitch black.

  Michael Boddie was still a teenager when he began dating a girl who lived across the courtyard at a housing project in Newport News, Virginia. Her name was Brenda, and by the age of fifteen she had borne the couple’s first child, Christina. A son, named after his father, followed the next year, and then another son, Marcus, came four years later. By the time the pair married, in 1989, they’d added a fourth. That last child, Courtney, took the name Boddie, but the three older kids, who were ten, nine, and five, stuck with their mother’s maiden name, Vick.

  The family lived together in a three-bedroom apartment in a housing project in the downtrodden east end of Newport News. Michael Boddie did three years in the army, then found work as a painter and sandblaster at the shipyards. The couple’s extended families helped raise the kids while Brenda finished high school then took a job, first at a Kmart, then as a schoolbus driver.

  Boddie has insisted that he was around throughout his kids’ lives, but Michael Vick has described him as something more like an uncle: an older male relative who helped support the family but came and went randomly and for varying periods of time. Vick has also said that his father struggled with drugs, and Boddie’s history does show a drunk driving charge and a stint in rehab.

  The kids, by most accounts, stayed out of trouble, at least as much as possible for someone growing up in the Ridley Circle apartments in a town that had been nicknamed Bad Newz. Sports were a diversion. The Vick children spent a lot of time at the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Hampton Roads. Michael, who everyone called Ookie, showed great athletic ability, first in baseball and then in football. He followed in the footsteps of an older cousin, Aaron Brooks, who was a star quarterback in high school, then at the University of Virginia, and in the NFL.

  Four years younger than Brooks, Michael Vick went to the same high school to play for the same coach, Tommy Reamon, a former NFL player himself. After Vick’s freshman season, that school, Homer L. Ferguson High, closed and both he and Reamon moved on to Warwick High. At Warwick, Vick showed off the strong arm and blinding speed that would make him a star and earn him a choice of college scholarships. He picked Virginia Tech, in large part because it was relatively close to home.

  After sitting out his first year to develop his game, Vick emerged as the Hokies’ leader during his red-shirt freshman season in 1999. The first time he stepped on the field, he scored three touchdowns in little more than a quarter of play and went on to lead the team to an 11-0 record and the national championship game. His team lost that game to Florida State, 46-29, but Vick’s renown only grew. During the season he set multiple records, finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting, and energized the sport with visions of a new type of player—a hyperathletic do-it-all quarterback who could win games with his arm or his legs or both. Suddenly everyone in football had a Michael Vick fixation: They were either watching the real Vick or looking for the next one.

  The following season Vick did nothing to hurt his reputation, although an injury caused him to miss parts or all of three games, and the Hokies lost the one contest he sat out fully. Still, he guided the team to a 10-1 record and was named MVP of the 2001 Gator Bowl as he led his team to a win over Clemson.

  Vick was now twenty and fully grown. At two hundred pounds and slightly less than six feet tall, he was thick yet compact. His large brown eyes and small wide nose were offset by a strong jaw that made it look as if he had an underbite. Topped off with a goatee, the total effect of these traits was to give Vick an appearance that, while handsome, could fairly be described as almost canine.

  Although he had two years of eligibility left, Vick decided to skip the remainder of his college career and enter the 2001 NFL draft. He was taken first overall by the Atlanta Falcons, which signed him to a $62 million contract and received an almost instant return on its investment. The next year, Vick’s first as the full-time starter, he made it to the Pro Bowl and led the Falcons to the playoffs for the first time in four years. Vick returned to the Pro Bowl and the playoffs in 2004 and the Falcons rewarded him with a ten-year, $130 million contract, making him the highest paid player in the league at the time. Another Pro Bowl season followed in 2005, and he flourished off the field, too, ringing up endorsement deals with Nike, Powerade, Kraft, Rawlings, Air Tran, EA Sports, and Hasbro worth multiple millions.

  Like many young athletes, especially those who’ve grown up poor, Vick spent his money freely. He bought cars and jewelry and toys. There were numerous houses, including one in Atlanta, Georgia; a condo in South Beach, Florida; a place he bought for his mother in an upscale section of Sussex, Virginia; and another house he was building nearby. He paid for his father’s drug rehab in 2004 and gave the old man a few hundred bucks every few weeks to keep him going. He supported a wide range of family and friends, handing out Escalades to his inner circle. He also purchased a fifteen-acre tract of land in Smithfield, Virginia, a small town in rural Surry County. The address was 1915 Moonlight Road.

  3

  THE RED DOG PULLS hard against the leash, straining to rush up the path and see what lies beyond. It is the first time she’s been out of the clearing, off her chain and axle, in weeks. She’s nervous though, too, and regularly looks up at the man holding her, trying to read some sign of what he has in mind. She sniffs the air for a hint, intermittently wagging and holding her tail down.

  They emerge from the trees into a compound of kennels and small black buildings. The dogs in the kennels begin to bark, rushing forward to press their faces against the chain link as she goes by. Her tail and ears droop, as if they’re being blown flat by the force of the barking. But she hasn’t eaten in three days and her hunger drives her forward. She can smell food and hopes that she will be getting some.

  The man steers her toward the biggest shed, the two-story one. As they step inside, the door swings closed behind them, and the sound of the barking becomes more distant, then dies down altogether. The man grabs a small rope that hangs from the ceiling in the corner of the room. He pulls it and with a loud squeak a staircase descends from above. The man carries the little red dog up.

  At the top he flips a switch and bright lights flood into a small, open room with a square of carpet in the center, maybe sixteen feet by sixteen feet. The carpet is a light color, a sort of off-white, and there are dark blotches on it. It’s not attached to the floor and the edges curl up a little. For the little red dog, the smells are overwhelming. There have been many people here, many dogs. The remnants of sweat and blood and urine and fear mix in the air, and the dog’s insides churn with anxiety and concern.

  She hears barking outside the shed, and in a moment there are noises downstairs. Another man emerges from the staircase carrying another dog. The red dog does not recognize this dog, but, like her, it’s a female and it’s about eighteen months old.

  The man puts the red dog onto the carpet and the other dog is placed on the carpet opposite her. Both dogs sniff the air. The red dog licks her snout and shifts her weight from side to side. Instinctively they are drawn toward each other but the men get in between them. The one who brought the red dog up from the clear
ing stands over her, clapping and yelling, “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

  Two other men have come up the stairs, and they stand around the carpet. They begin to shout as well. The man puts his hand on the red dog’s face and shoves her backward. She comes back toward him and he does it again. He grabs her by the muzzle and shakes her face from side to side.

  The red dog remembers all the days she spent chained up in the clearing, face-to-face with other dogs she could not quite get to. Frustration and fear and anger and the instinctive need to defend her territory begin to stir within her. Her stomach turns with hunger. The men’s voices mix with the riot of smells. The dogs outside begin to bark again. The other dog lets out a low growl, her own fear and aggression surging. The leashes go tight as the men back off and the dogs begin to pull toward each other. The little red dog lets out a strong bark that echoes off the plywood walls.

  Dogfighting is everywhere and nowhere. The Humane Society of the United States estimates that there are forty thousand dogfighters in the country, and yet most people are untouched by it. They wouldn’t know a pit bull if they petted one in the park, they never read about dogfighting in the local paper, and they’ve never been anywhere near an actual dogfight. The practice cuts across all sorts of demographic distinctions: age, race, class, economic status, education, profession. Dogfights have been uncovered at Ku Klux Klan rallies and at inner-city drug raids. Busts have netted unemployed urban teens and suburban professionals—teachers, doctors, lawyers.

  Some of the mystery results from the varied faces of dogfighting. At the most basic level, it’s a guy with a dog, some wannabe tough who wants to let his pet prove his manhood. These are often random clashes in alleys and empty lots that may have little riding on them but the owner’s pride—and the dog’s life. These owners have probably done little to prepare the dog for the match other than mistreating it to make it aggressive and maybe feeding it some drugs.

  The next level up might be the guy who keeps a few dogs, trains them a bit, and puts them in prearranged fights. He’s not running a business; it’s more of a pastime, but he’s trying to make a few bucks on the action. Those first two groups make up the vast majority of dogfighters, which is why they remain so hidden from view—they’re small-time, random, and by their very ubiquity they blend into the woodwork.

  Then there are the professionals. They have a full stable of dogs, thirty-five or more, which they raise for the specific purpose of fighting. They use elaborate training methods and equipment mixed with backwoods wisdom. They feed the dogs high-end food, supplements, and sometimes even steroids. When they get a winner, they breed it and sell the pups for high fees, hoping to establish known lines of fighting dogs that can fetch even more money.

  The fights, arranged months in advance, ride on significant wagers, up to $20,000 or $30,000 per match, although they can sometimes shoot even higher than that, into the hundreds of thousands. Fighters need the long lead time to train their dogs, a six-week period of seasoning called “the keep,” which not only gets the dog in shape but attempts to prime its aggression. The exact mix of drills and work-outs and even chemical supplementation is where a dog man, supposedly, shows his true skills, and so each man guards the elements of his approach as if they were ingredients in a sought-after recipe.

  There are occasional off-the-chain fights, in which two dogs are simply taken off their restraints and allowed to go at it without any preparation or restrictions, but most clashes follow a general set of practices established more than a hundred years ago, the so-called Cajun Rules, which give all the fights a similar form. A neutral party holds a deposit from each fighter, usually half or one-third of the bet. Upon arrival the dogs are weighed and if one is overweight the fight is forfeited and the owner loses his advance. After the weigh-in each handler washes the other man’s animal, to make sure there are no drugs or poison on the fur that could hinder his dog.

  The pit itself is usually a square of anywhere from twelve to twenty feet, with low walls around it to keep the dogs inside. A carpet is laid on the floor to help the dogs get traction, and sometimes a light-colored rug is chosen to make the blood more visible. The dogs enter the pit with a referee and one handler for each. There are diagonal “scratch” lines in opposite corners, and the handlers hold their dogs behind the line. When the referee calls “Fight,” the dogs are released and they charge toward each other.

  The handlers remain in the ring, urging the dogs on. The dogs fight until one turns sideways or disengages, at which point the handlers take the dogs back to their corners. The dog that turned away is released and if it charges back toward the other dog, the fight continues. If it fails to reengage, or is unable to, the fight is over. Otherwise, the battle goes on until one of the handlers calls the match. It can be over in ten minutes or it can go on for hours. When it’s done the winning dog usually gets immediate medical treatment. The losing dog might. Or it might be killed.

  Fights and dogs are celebrated through an underground network of magazines and Web sites. A secret world filled with coded language, clandestine meetings, and black market trade. Such publications are not necessary to carry out the fights, but the participants can’t help but brag. Although many of the sites post disclaimers saying that they don’t promote any illegal activities and that all the stories are fiction, they have provided peeks into the gruesome world of dogfighting. A now-defunct Web site for Keepem Scratchin’ Kennels described a fight between Little George and Virgil: “Virgil started out fast and tore a gaping hole in Little George’s chest. Within the first ten minutes it looked like he was going to put him away.” As the dogs continue to struggle, heat becomes a factor and causes a turn of events. “Little George started coming back into the fight and got Virgil down for a little while. But the more George tried to put on Virgil, the worse Virgil bit him right back into the gaping hole that he opened in the beginning of the fight. As they were standing up battling it out, you could see the blood dripping out of his chest like you turned on the spigot.” Eventually, the blood loss gets the best of Little George. “Little George had weakened and went down. He had a hold of Virgil’s leg. Virgil was chewing on his head to get him off and it sounded like he was chewing on his knuckle bone.”

  Here’s another, from the book The Complete Gamedog by Ed and Chris Faron, that describes two men trying to treat a dog after a fight, which gives an even more visceral sense of what these dogs are forced to endure:

  She was so physically busted up that it was necessary to take the kennel crate apart to get her out of it. We spent the next hour or so desperately trying to save her, but nothing we did helped. [The other dog] had destroyed her face so badly that her sinuses were crushed, her whole face was pulsing up and down as she breathed and air was bubbling out of the holes on her muzzle and around her eyes. The last thing Jolene did before losing consciousness entirely was throw up an incredible amount of blood. We couldn’t figure out how she could have swallowed so much. We carefully pried open her mouth and peered inside with a flashlight, and it was then we saw just how badly she was hurt. There was a big hole between her eyes—big enough on the outside to stick a dime into, and this hole went clear through her skull, emerging in the roof of her mouth just in front of her throat. A thin trickle of blood was running down her throat, she must have been hemorrhaging throughout the fight. We sat there helplessly, watching our pride and joy take one last faltering breath, and then Jolene was gone.

  And this one, from an academic study called “The Social Milieu of Dogmen and Dogfights” by Rhonda Evans and Craig Forsyth in Deviant Behavior, captures not just the fight but the overall atmosphere:

  The handlers release their dogs and Snow and Black lunge at one another. Snow rears up and overpowers Black, but Black manages to come back with a quick locking of the jaws on Snow’s neck. The crowd is cheering wildly and yelling out bets. Once a dog gets a lock on the other, they will hold on with all their might. The dogs flail back and forth and all the while Blac
k maintains her hold. . . .

  Snow goes straight for the throat and grabs hold with her razor-sharp teeth. Almost immediately, blood flows from Black’s throat. Despite a serious injury to the throat, Black manages to continue fighting back. They are relentless, each battling the other and neither willing to accept defeat. This fighting continues for an hour. [Finally, the referee] gives the third and final pit call. It is Black’s turn to scratch and she is severely wounded. Black manages to crawl across the pit to meet her opponent. Snow attacks Black and she is too weak to fight back. L.G. [Black’s owner] realizes that this is it for Black and calls the fight. Snow is declared the winner.

  Back on the second floor of the black shed, the little red dog rushes across the pit. The other dog charges toward her. They’re on a collision course with each other and a battle that can end only with teeth and blood and pain. It’s only a few steps across the ring, but at the last minute each dog veers to the side, so they don’t quite meet nose to nose. Instead they circle to the right, keeping an eye on each other and passing so close that they bump. The other dog rears up and puts her paws on the red dog, who recoils momentarily, then lurches forward. They continue circling but gradually slow until they’ve almost stopped, shoulder to shoulder, heads turned toward each other, sniffing.

  The red dog feels something pull at her neck and suddenly she’s being propelled backward across the rectangle. The man with the leash is yelling at the red dog and her tail drops. To determine which of their dogs have the right stuff, fighters regularly test or “roll” the dogs, putting them in brief matches to see which have the instincts and aggression to succeed. This little red dog is being rolled, and it’s not going well.