The Monday, July 7 Washington Post has a wonderful front page story headed "Saving Michael Vick's Dogs
Pit Bulls." The subheading is, "Rescued From the Football Player's Fighting Ring Show Progress in an Unprecedented Rehabilitation Effort."

The reporter, Brigid Schulte, writes:
"Of the 49 pit bulls animal behavior experts evaluated in the fall, only one was deemed too vicious to warrant saving and was euthanized. (Another was euthanized because it was sick and in pain.)

"More than a year after being confiscated from Vick's property, Leo, a tan, muscular pit bull, dons a colorful clown collar and visits cancer patients as a certified therapy dog in California. Hector, who bears deep scars on his chest and legs, recently was adopted and is about to start training for national flying disc competitions in Minnesota. Teddles takes orders from a 2-year-old. Gracie is a couch potato in Richmond who lives with cats and sleeps with four other dogs."

Schulte notes the great work of groups such as the Utah based animal rescue group Best Friends (www.BestFriends.org) and the wonderful San Francisco based pit-bull rescue group BAD RAP -- an acronym for Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pit bulls (see www.BadRap.org )

The heartwarming article is well worth reading, and is accompanied by touching photographs. As papers note which articles get the most clicks, please check it out at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/07/06/ST2008070602429.html
or at this Tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/6zecqm
and then spread the word by sharing the link (or forwarding this email with the link) rather than cutting and pasting the whole article.

It is vital that those in the media who do animal friendly articles get positive feedback, so please send reporter Brigid Schulte a thank you for this animal friendly story, at
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/brigid+schulte/

And, importantly, please keep open the discussion of animal adoption, or pit-bull rehabilitation, or any other loosely related animal issue, by sending a letter to the editor appreciative of the front page pit-bull story, then making whatever you are inclined to make about animals. The Washington Post takes letters to the editor at letters@washpost.com

Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor. Remember that shorter letters are more likely to be published.

I send thanks to Lawrence Pinsky for making sure we saw this article.

Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn

(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)

Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com to read reviews of Karen Dawn's new book, "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals" and watch the fun celebrity studded promo video.