Jim Gorant: The Lost Dogs: Michael Vick's Dogs and Their Tale of Rescue and Redemption

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.

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 clearing 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.