For the Vick sick

Anyone who – due to the sickeningly ugly sports news lately - needs a dog love fix, they need look no further than the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band song “Mr. Bojangles.”

“He spoke through tears of fifteen years how his dog and him traveled about”

“His dog up and died. He up and died. After twenty years he still grieves.”

One time, Wrigley, our beloved hound-doggy looking white-yellow lab, chewed up a chunk of oriental carpet and I lost my mind. I went crazy. Crazy. I grabbed Wrigley by the collar and screamed “Get out!” and practically hurled him out the door to the backyard.

The scared, bewildered and deeply hurt look in Wrigley's eyes when I did that is something I will never, ever, forgive myself for. I didn’t hit him. I didn’t hurt him. I just severely freightened him. And it was awful.

Each and every night when Wrigley is lying on his back - on our since-replaced oriental rug - and he is grunting and cooing from all the tummy rubs and ear scratches and muzzle nuzzlings he is getting, I silently ask a higher source for forgiveness for that one lapse in temper that caused a sweet animal to get so upset.

How on earth is god ever going to forgive Michael Vick?