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

A week later Butts was charged with drug possession, dogfighting, and multiple counts of animal cruelty. On the same day he gave Brinkman a written confession:

I, Ben Butts, give this statement to Deputy W. Brinkman at the Surry County Sheriff Department concerning dog charges. Mainly the 33 dogs located at my resident (sic) which were either involved in dogfighting or being raised for dogfighting. Not all these dogs belong to myself, I do bored (sic) pitbull for other people, I do have knowledge of other people, places, and activity.

When the case went to trial the following February, all the charges were dropped. The judge declared Brinkman’s return to the site without the second warrant, something known as a consent search, illegal. Although consent searches are common, they are legally questionable and the commonwealth attorney, Gerald Poindexter, who represented Virginia in the case, accepted the judge’s ruling. Brinkman was flabbergasted. Butts was sent home-with most of his dogs and training equipment.

Butts stayed out of trouble for a while, but Brinkman kept an eye on him. Before long there were rumors that Butts was back into dealing and dogfighting. On December 16, 2006, Butts was arrested again, this time with a stash of marijuana and hashish. He was released on bail, but Brinkman was closing in.

He had an informant who could get inside Butts’s operation, and he was looking to put together a case that would finally land Butts in jail, but he didn’t want to take any chances with the local authorities. He was looking for something bigger. He had heard from Virginia State Police officers and an FBI agent that he had worked with that there was a USDA agent who was always eager to help, especially when it came to animal abuse cases. The guy’s name was Jim Knorr.

The two men hit it off immediately and began working on an investigation. They had gathered a lot of information through the informant, and as winter progressed they were approaching a critical mass of incriminating material. They held out for one last bit of evidence, a coup de grâce; the informant would videotape a dogfight on Butts’s property.

But something happened that brought the investigation to an immediate close. On February 16, 2007, Butts was found dead of a drug overdose.

Just like that, their case was over, but Brinkman and Knorr had recognized a bit of themselves in each other. A bond formed. They stayed in touch, but they had no idea how soon they’d be working together again.

A DOG WALKS THROUGH a parking lot searching for something. He’s a three-year-old Dutch shepherd named Troy. The night is cool and dark, and Troy makes his way through the rows of cars, sniffing the early spring air. The light of a nearby Walmart catches his black and sand-speckled coat. The lot itself belongs to Royal Suite, a two-story dance club on Cunningham Drive in Hampton, Virginia.

Troy stops next to a Dodge Intrepid. His ears perk up and he sniffs more intently. He begins to bark at the trunk. The police officers who accompany him step forward and begin to search the car. Within minutes they have found three ounces of marijuana. When the owner comes out to claim his ride, he too is searched and arrested and charged with possession with intent to sell. His name is Davon Boddie.

Boddie had accomplished little of note during his previous twenty-six years. He had but one claim to fame. His first cousin was Michael Vick. Davon and Michael had always been close. They were the same age and had grown up in close proximity to each other. They played high school football together. Boddie sometimes hung out with Michael and his best friend, Quanis Phillips, another neighborhood kid whom Vick had befriended in sixth grade.

Phillips, who was known as Q, grew up playing sports with Vick and was also on that same high school team. When Vick first went off to college, Q went along to help Vick settle in. After a few months, Phillips moved back to Newport News, but the two remained as close as ever.

In the ensuing years Phillips worked at odd jobs to make money and had run into some trouble, getting convicted of possession of stolen property in 1997 and pleading guilty to misdemeanor possession of marijuana with intent to distribute in 1999. In 2000 he was convicted of violating drug control laws and contempt of court, and in 2001 he was again convicted of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. But whatever struggles he went through, they were eased by the pleasure of watching his best buddy become a national football hero. By January 2001, just three years after he left, Vick was back in Newport News to await the NFL draft. He was on the verge of becoming a millionaire, and Q was once again by his side.

Individually and together, they’d been dreaming of these days since they were kids: when NFL money would provide the life of comfort and security and maybe even decadence that they could never approach growing up. Besides what he achieved on the gridiron, Vick planned to become a force off the field as well, taking care of numerous family members and old friends, including Q, who would be his right hand in as-yet-unforeseen business ventures.

One such venture walked into their lives on a cold winter morning in Newport News. The pair stopped at a local barbershop where they ran into Tony Taylor, who was six years older than Vick and Phillips. It was known around the neighborhood that Taylor was into dogfighting. Vick had bought a pit bull, a house pet named Champagne, when he went to college, and she was a sweet dog that Vick doted on. But he knew what pit bulls could be trained to do. He was seven the first time he saw dogs fight, an unorganized street clash, and it was the first of many such battles he witnessed in the courtyard next to his home and in an open lot across the street. It was just one of the many things that went on in the open spaces around his home, as common and unquestioned as selling drugs or playing baseball.

Vick was drawn to the fights, and by the time he was twelve or thirteen, he was an active participant. He’d missed the action while he was away at school, so when he saw Taylor he asked about getting back in. Taylor explained that he’d met a guy with a big piece of property up in Surry County who ran a real dogfighting ring and this man had shown Taylor the ropes-how to keep dogs, buy them, breed them, train them. That guy’s name was Benny Butts. With Taylor ’s knowledge and Vick’s money there were great possibilities. What the three men discussed that day was one part business opportunity, one part gangsta adventure-a shadow world of underground networks, secret locations, and big-money prizefights.

The metaphorical leap that seduces so many into the world of dogfighting was a short one for guys like Vick, Phillips, and Taylor. They saw themselves in the dogs. In the exterior toughness and bravado, to a degree, but even more in the animals’ willingness to take on any challenge, to endure pain and injury, to never give up despite long odds and great difficulty. Viewed in such light, the dogs are noble and heroic, and that is how these men view their own struggle against the disadvantages they’ve had to contend with. Even more, there is a certain godlike feeling that comes with knowing that these creatures of superior toughness and strength and will are a product of their own making. The dog men have bred and selected and trained these animals, perfect symbols of their own triumph.

By the time they left the barbershop, Vick, Phillips, and Taylor were business partners.

The plan was that Vick would be the money man and Phillips would oversee the operation while Taylor took care of the dogs. Later, Taylor ’s cousin Purnell Peace, a veteran dog man, would join the group. To provide a front for the dogfighting ring, they would obtain a kennel license, house other people’s dogs, and build a Web site promoting their breeding business.