I just finished previewing the show produced by the Discovery for Animal Planet titled Animal Witness: The Michael Vick Case.  It did an excellent job of walking through the the timeline of the case, interviewing the investigators of the case and delving into the background of dog fighting.  The show will air on August 24th at 10pm eastern and then repeat at several different times on Animal Planet after that.  It is rated TV-14 for violence.

The show goes in depth into many of the dog fighting practices employed by Michael Vick and his partners.  The details and timeline of events help to paint a very clear picture of when and how things happened.

The documentary does an even better job of detailing the rehabilitation of the Dogs that Michael Vick bred and trained to fight in dog fighting rings across the South East.  The rehabilitation of Vick’s abused dogs has been a topic that we have not covered here at SackVick.net in a great deal of detail.  This documentary walks through the process that was used and even uncovers some interesting new findings as the rehab groups and efforts involved had to learn how to deal with dozens of dogs all at once.  This definitely makes for an uplifting side of the story as you watch just how successful this process was.

That said, this documentary is targeted towards Animal Planet.  It does not delve into the human toll, the suffering and the death of people involved in the dog fighting rings and partnerships associated with Michael Vick.  It is eye opening for the toll on the dogs and animals, some of the primary victims, but does not delve into the victims that were human and were indirectly harmed by the illegal gambling pools, drugs and weapons rings, and other activities that plagued these events and groups, resulting in many more serious crimes and at least one unsolved murder.

It is a good documentary that definitely highlights information that has not been presented before and not been presented as well or as completely in relation to Michael Vick’s dogs and the nature of Pitt Bulls in general.  I would like to see Discovery dig further into these related crimes because many people often just offer up the defense that all Michael Vick did was torture and kill his own dogs.  They don’t recognize the other crimes that were committed against actual people as a result of the illegal activity and criminals that were involved in Michael Vick’s dog fighting rings.