when did super bowl sunday become

When did Super Bowl Sunday become a family holiday?

It's hardly surprising that the Super Bowl should have evolved into an

occasion to have a holiday. After all, it's over a month past

Christmas, the weather sucks, it's three weeks till pitchers and

catchers report to spring training, and why not turn this annual orgy

of testosterone excess and advertising dollars into an excuse to throw

a party? That it has to be something manly to warrant a holiday

(unlike, say, the Oscars�, which few self-respecting men will even

admit to watching despite the prospect of Angelina Jolie in a push-up

evening gown) is besides the point.

It's been a widely held myth that domestic violence rates go up on

Super Bowl Sunday, and perhaps that's why the powers that be in the

NFL seem to want the players to pretend to be as cute and cuddly as

possible in the Week-O-Hype that precedes the inevitably disappointing

Big Game. This year it's especially important as the sport starts to

heal from the ugliness of Michael Vick's extracurricular activities;

and so we have our Two Handsome Quarterbacks and Cute and Cuddly wide

receivers like Plaxico Burress, whom we love not just because of his

manhandling of Al Smith two weeks ago but because his very name sounds

like an antidepressant.

It may be that an all-East-Coast Superbowl isn't the ideal matchup for

advertisers, though the Boston and New York markets are hardly chopped

liver. And the matchup of the Scrappy Little Team that Could and the

Eighteen-And-Oh Beantown juggernaut is the kind of stuff of which

movies starring Dennis Quaid and Mark Wahlberg with trailers featuring

for the 4,962nd time that music from Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story are

made.

But as the whole family settles down tomorrow to chow down on wings

and fried cheese and other LDL-raising delights (we're having pita

chips with spinach and artichoke dup, corn chips with black bean and

corn salsa, vegetable lasagne, multigrain focaccia, and salad at Chez

Brilliant), the New York Times gets in the spirit of Super Bowl as

Family Holiday by taking a look at how some of the horribly abused

dogs that were rescued from Michael Vick's house are doing. It's a

rare dose o'Warm Fuzzies (heh) in a world with precious few of them:

They are assigned to an area of the sanctuary called Dogtown

Heights, what Best Friends calls a gated community. Vick's dogs

have their own building with heated floors, sound-absorbing

barriers and skylights. Each has an individual dog run because, for

now, the dogs must remain isolated, for safety's sake.

Little Red is a tiny rust-colored female whose teeth were filed,

most likely because she was bait for the Bad Newz fighters.

Handlers cannot explain why loud noises make her jumpy.

Cherry, a black-and-white male, has what seems to be chemical burns

on his back. His file at Best Friends says he loves car rides and

having his backside rubbed. But like many of Mr. Vick's pit bulls,

he is petrified of new situations and new people.

Oscar cowers in the corner of his run when strangers arrive. Shadow

runs in circles. Black Bear pants so heavily that he seems on the

verge of hyperventilation.

All but one of the Vick dogs at Best Friends wear green collars,

signaling that they are good with people. But Meryl, who arrived

with a rap sheet, wears a red collar.

She was aggressive toward the veterinary staff at a previous

shelter. When Best Friends evaluated her in November, she lunged at

a veterinary technician, snapping at him three times. By court

order, she must stay at Best Friends forever.

Mr. Vick paid $18,275 for the lifetime care of each of his dogs

here but one. Denzel was deemed highly adoptable, so his fee was

only $5,000.

The actual cost for personnel and medical staff to care for the

dogs, said Best Friends officials, is much higher at the sanctuary,

a no-kill, nonprofit facility for 2,000 animals. For example,

Denzel needed a blood transfusion to treat a tick-borne virus.

Donations must make up the difference.

Bred to Be Friendly

John Garcia, the assistant dog care manager of Dogtown, which

houses about 500 dogs, said pit bulls that are withdrawn or

aggressive toward humans break his heart because they are bred to

be people-friendly. "With most of these dogs, even Meryl, their

actions are based on fear," said Mr. Garcia, who communicates with

the dogs in soothing baby talk. "The biggest job we have with these

guys is teaching them that it's O.K. to trust people. It may take

months or years, but we're very stubborn. We won't give up on

them."

Because the dogs are still adjusting to their surroundings, it is

difficult to predict how many of them will become adoptable. They

arrived Jan. 2 from Richmond, Va., on a chartered airplane,

stressed after eight months in shelters. In initial evaluations

last September, many lay flat and looked frightened. Now, many

respond to caregivers by wagging their tails and giving sloppy

kisses.

"They have improved by light-years," Mr. Garcia said, adding that

it would take patience and a lot of time for these dogs to be happy

and safe in an adoptive home.

Caregivers walk the dogs several times a day and spend time in

their kennels, praising and caressing them. It is progress when a

dog like Cherry does not need to be carried, because he is afraid

to walk on a leash. It is monumental when Shadow approaches them

instead of retreating.

"We want to get them to understand that being around people isn't

necessarily a bad thing; that we won't hurt them," Mr. Garcia said.

"The worst thing we could do is push them too hard, too fast."

Mr. Garcia, an expert in working with aggressive dogs, said getting

some of these pit bulls accustomed to other dogs would be the

toughest task. Initially, 10 were evaluated as aggressive toward

other dogs.

[snip]

Ellen arrived at Best Friends overweight, looking more like a

sausage than a fighter. She was a breeding dog but had spent time

in the ring. One side of her face droops from nerve damage, but she

is still affectionate and loves to offer her belly for rubs.

Lucas was Vick's champion, a 65-pound muscular brown dog with a

face mottled with dark scars. He is so friendly and confident that

his trainers suspect he was pampered.

"I bet you ate steak every day, didn't you, Lucas?" the caregiver

McKenzie Garcia, who is married to John, said. "I bet they took

care of you because you made them money."

Every Vick dog here has a Personalized Emotional Rehabilitation

Plan. Caregivers rate each dog in several categories. How fearful

was Little Red today? How confident was Black Bear? How much did

Meryl enjoy life?

Recording the dogs' progress will help Dr. McMillan, the

veterinarian, track their well-being. "DogTown," on the National

Geographic Channel, also plans to follow the progress of several of

Mr. Vick's dogs, including Georgia.

"The successful rehab rate for these kinds of dogs is unknown

because nobody has ever studied it until now," Dr. McMillan said.

"You might see an incredibly friendly dog, but does that dog's

personality change over several weeks, over several months, after

psychological trauma? Are they hard-wired to be aggressive, or can

they change? What's the best way to work with them?"

The plan is to determine how to keep these dogs happy, even if a

real home is not in their future.

And one dog already has his forever home:

His back resting comfortably against her chest, Hector nestles his

massive canine head into Leslie Nuccio's shoulder, high-fiving pit

bull paws against human hands.

The big dog--52 pounds--is social, people-focused, happy now, it

seems, wearing a rhinestone collar in his new home in sunny

California.

But as Hector sits up, deep scars stand out on his chest, and his

eyes are imploring.

"I wish he could let us know what happened to him," says Nuccio,

the big tan dog's foster mother.

Hector ought to be dead, she knows--killed in one of his staged

fights, or executed for not being "game" enough, not winning, or

euthanized by those who see pit bulls seized in busts as "kennel

trash," unsuited to any kind of normal life.

Instead, Hector is learning how to be a pet.

After the hell of a fighting ring, he has reached a heaven of

sorts: saved by a series of unlikely breaks, transported thousands

of miles, along with other dogs rescued with him, by devoted

strangers, and now nurtured by Nuccio, her roommate, Danielle

White, and their three other dogs.

The animals barrel around the house, with 4-year-old Hector leading

the puppy-like antics--stealth underwear grabs from the laundry

basket, sprints across the living room, food heists from the coffee

table--until it's "love time" and he decelerates and engulfs the

women in a hug.

[snip]

Hector's settling into his new life, getting further and further

from his past.

Weekly AKC "canine good citizen" classes are correcting his social

ineptitude. And he's taking cues on good manners from patient

Pandora, a female pit bull mix who's queen of the household's dogs.

Once Hector graduates, he'll take classes to become a certified

therapy dog, helping at nursing homes and the like.

For now, he's learning the simple pleasures of a blanket at

bedtime, a peanut butter-filled chew toy, even classical music.

"I put on Yo-Yo Ma one day and he cocked his head, laid down and

listened to the cello next to the speaker," Nuccio said. "He's

turning out to be a man of high class and culture."

(Note to my mom: Don't even THINK about it.)