Fly Away Home

It is the beginning of football training camp and as the Eagles report to theirs at Lehigh University, there has been much talk about Michael Vick's future with the team, in light of the incident at his 30th birthday party at which a gun shot was fired.

Vick assures the public and the press that he had nothing to do with the random act of violence and he is having a private meeting with the commissioner sometime this week to plead his case. But so far, all the Eagle's coaching staff continues to support Vick. The head coach called him a "nice guy" on television the other night.

I am more than a little concerned in light of the recent New York Times article on the animal-cruelty syndrome. As Charles Seibert (one of the best animal writers around) indicates, there is "a mounting body of evidence about the link between such act [cruelty to animals] and serious crimes of more narrowly human concern, including illegal firearms possession, drug trafficking, gambling, spousal abuse, rape and homicide."

In other words, people who hurt dogs usually do the same thing to people. "In an October 2005 paper published in Journal of Community Health, a team of researchers conducting a study over seven years in 11 metropolitan areas determined that pet abuse was one of five factors that predicted who would begin other abusive behaviors."

This is not to say that Michael Vick fired that shot or even had anything to do with it. But the very fact that one of the guests at his party did, is reason enough to question his choice of friends and lack of judgment.

I sincerely hope the NFL read the same article.