His back resting comfortably against her chest, Hector nestles
his massive canine head into Leslie Nuccio's shoulder, high-fiving
pit bull paws against human hands.
The big dog - 52 pounds - is social, people-focused, happy now,
it seems, wearing a rhinestone collar in his new home in sunny
California.
But as Hector sits up, deep scars stand out on his chest, and
his eyes are imploring.
"I wish he could let us know what happened to him," says
Nuccio, the big tan dog's foster mother.
Hector ought to be dead, she knows - killed in one of his staged
fights, or executed for not being "game" enough, not winning, or
euthanized by those who see pit bulls seized in busts as "kennel
trash," unsuited to any kind of normal life.
Instead, Hector is learning how to be a pet.
After the hell of a fighting ring, he has reached a heaven of
sorts: saved by a series of unlikely breaks, transported thousands
of miles, along with other dogs rescued with him, by devoted
strangers, and now nurtured by Nuccio, her roommate, Danielle
White, and their three other dogs.
The animals barrel around the house, with 4-year-old Hector
leading the puppy-like antics - stealth underwear grabs from the
laundry basket, sprints across the living room, food heists from
the coffee table - until it's "love time" and he decelerates and
engulfs the women in a hug.
Nuccio wishes he could let her know all that happened.
But what she does know is this: Hector has come such a long way
since he was trapped in the horrors of Michael Vick's Bad Newz
Kennels.
Authorities descending last year on 1915 Moonlight Road in Surry
County, Va., found where Vick, the former NFL quarterback, and
others staged pit bull fights in covered sheds, tested the animals'
fighting prowess and destroyed and disposed of dogs that weren't
good fighters.
Vick is serving a 23-month federal sentence after admitting that
he bankrolled the dogfighting operation and helped kill six to
eight dogs. Three co-defendants Purnell Peace, Quanis Phillips and
Tony Taylor also pleaded guilty and were sentenced, and the four
now face state animal cruelty charges. Oscar Allen, who sold a
champion pit bull to Vick's dogfighting operation, was sentenced
Friday on a federal dogfighting charge.
Officers who carried out the raid found dogs, some injured and
scarred, chained to buried car axles. Forensic experts discovered
remains of dogs that had been shot with a .22 caliber pistol,
electrocuted, drowned, hanged or slammed to the ground for lacking
a desire to fight.
A bewildered Hector and more than 50 other American Pit Bull
Terriers or pit bull mixes were gathered up. So were "parting
sticks" used to open fighting dogs' mouths, treadmills to
condition them, and a "rape stand" used to restrain female dogs
that did not submit willingly to breeding.
The dogs, held as evidence in the criminal prosecutions, were
taken to a half dozen city and county pounds and shelters in
Virginia.
Hector was bunked in the Hanover pound in a cage below a dog
named Uba who was smaller and more clearly showing anxiety.
Uba flattened on all fours when Tim Racer, an evaluator on a
team assembled by the American Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals, arrived at his cage.
"Are you going to kill me now?" was the message another
evaluator, Donna Reynolds, read in Uba's eyes.
The black-and-white dog tried to wriggle away once out of the
cage, but he came around after a while. He wagged his tail when the
team showed him a 4-foot doll, to test his response to children. He
spun around and got into a play position when they brought out a
dog.
"This is the big secret. Most of them were dog-tolerant to
dog-social. It was completely opposite of what we were led to
believe," Reynolds said.
How much to trust the capacity of fighting dogs to have a new
life as pets or working dogs in law enforcement or therapy settings
is an issue that has divided animal advocates; some believe most
such animals should be put down as a precaution, while others say
they must be evaluated individually. One dog seized at Bad Newz was
euthanized as too aggressive, but the others, four dozen plus in
all, have had different fates.
Nearly half have been sent to a Utah sanctuary, Best Friends
Animal Society, where handlers will work with them. None showed
human aggression and many have potential for adoption someday.
Others, evaluated as being immediate candidates for foster care and
eventual adoption, went to several other groups.
Among the latter was Hector.
A team of animal welfare experts got things rolling last July
when federal authorities sought ownership of the seized dogs. The
result, they say, was groundbreaking.
The Oakland, Calif.-based pit bull rescue and education group
Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pit bulls, or BAD RAP, which
had done similar rescues from fighting busts in California, asked
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gill for permission to evaluate and
rescue as many of the dogs as possible, with the hope of eventually
placing them in adoptive homes.
"Much to our amazement, he said yes," said Reynolds, who heads
BAD RAP. "This doesn't happen. People don't say yes to pit
bulls."
Gill declined to comment, but those familiar with the Vick case
said the Justice Department hoped early on to find a way to give
the dogs a second chance. As part of his plea deal, Vick agreed to
pay for the dogs' care.
The court even appointed a guardian and special master,
Valparaiso University animal law expert Rebecca Huss, who oversaw
the dogs' disposition and recommended which rescue groups would
accept them.
One result of the unusual process, said ASPCA's Stephen
Zawistowski, is that shelters that always euthanized such dogs are
now saying "you've given us permission to care" about giving them
a second chance.
Each dog was evaluated as an individual. Huss recalled the
good-natured but quiet Rose, whose overbreeding had led to mammary
tumors. In the end, needing surgery but unable to tolerate
anesthesia, Rose was mercifully put down, just days after being
transferred to a foster home.
"The good thing was she didn't die in the shelter," Huss said.
"She had a little time in the sun, not enough, but a little time
in the sun."
Huss received reports from an ASPCA-led evaluation team and from
volunteers who observed and worked with the dogs where they were
being held as evidence in shelters and pounds.
Nicole Rattay, a volunteer from BAD RAP, spent six weeks
visiting the Vick dogs in shelters every day, e-mailing and phoning
her observations to Huss.
"Some dogs were ready to learn 'sit' and obedience," she said.
"Some needed more time to accept touch and feel comfortable in
their surrounding. Sometimes I would just sit in their kennels."
For some, bits of roasted chicken became a "motivator," she said.
She mentioned Handsome Dan, who bridled at touching at first but
gradually grew more comfortable, though not enough for foster home
placement, at least not yet. He ended up going to Best Friends.
"I hope that he can overcome what was done to him," said
Rattay.
BAD RAP won government approval in mid-October to transport a
group of dogs to California foster homes to get them out of
confinement.
Hector and a dozen others were about to make the cross-country
trip in a rented 33-foot Cruise America RV.
But first, they had to get ready.
Four BAD RAP members - Racer, Reynolds, Rattay and Steve Smith -
cruised a Richmond, Va., Wal-Mart, loading up with doggy sleeping
mats, crates, bowls and chew sticks. The next day, they split up in
twos to pick up, bathe and exercise the 13 pit bulls from four
shelters. Then they loaded them up.
Rattay walked through the RV, cooing and checking her cargo to
the thump-thump-thump of happy tails against dog crates. Alert to
an adventure, one dog circled his bed. Another stretched and
yawned. A third slathered her outstretched hand with kisses.
"Oh my goodness," she cooed to them. "It's nice to see you
again. Hi buddy, hi."
At first, the caretakers put cardboard between the crates to
offer the dogs privacy and calm. "But they were happier when they
could see their neighbor," Rattay said.
She and Smith took turns driving and napping on the 2 1/2-day trip
(Racer and Reynolds flew home to prepare for the dogs' arrival).
The dogs drifted to sleep in their crates - atop the RV table,
benches, queen bed and couch, and an area above the cab - but
jumped right up each time the RV stopped for a break at a highway
rest area.
Assembly-line style, the couple walked, watered, and fed each of
the 13 dogs, causing some gawks from other drivers who'd stopped,
but never any questions from the dogs.
"They did fabulous," Rattay said. "They understood the
program right away and got in and out of their crates."
Mostly things went fine for Hector and his fellow passengers in
the rolling kennel, though one incident briefly worried Smith and
Rattay.
It hadn't occurred to them to map a route that avoided places
with ordinances banning pit bulls. A groundskeeper at an Arkansas
rest stop warned them that "further down the road, they will take
that dog from you unless you have proper paperwork."
"We finished it up and got moving," Rattay said.
At 10 a.m. on a Tuesday, Rattay pulled the RV in front of Racer
and Reynolds' house.
It had been a long trip, and soon after the two couples unloaded
and walked the dogs, both drivers and animals fell asleep in the
living room waiting for foster families to arrive.
Smith snored a little, Rattay remembered, and a dog gave a low
grumble.
Hector's settling into his new life, getting further and further
from his past.
Weekly AKC "canine good citizen" classes are correcting his
social ineptitude. And he's taking cues on good manners from
patient Pandora, a female pit bull mix who's queen of the
household's dogs. Once Hector graduates, he'll take classes to
become a certified therapy dog, helping at nursing homes and the
like.
For now, he's learning the simple pleasures of a blanket at
bedtime, a peanut butter-filled chew toy, even classical music.
"I put on Yo-Yo Ma one day and he cocked his head, laid down
and listened to the cello next to the speaker," Nuccio said.
"He's turni