After losing a reported $1.5 million when they dumped Michael Vick after he pleaded guilty to his connection to his dogfighting ring in 2007, it’s been reported today that Nike signed an endorsement deal with Michael Vick… again by several news sources.
“Mike has had a great relationship with Nike and is excited to be part [...]

It was really only a matter of time before Michael Vick got his endorsements back, once the NFL decided having an admitted dog torturer and killer on its roster was a super-groovy good idea. Nike has taken Vick back to its bosom. From Yahoo Sports:

Michael Vick is back with Nike two years after the company severed ties over the quarterback’s involvement in a dogfighting ring.

“Mike has a long-standing, great relationship with Nike, and he looks forward to continuing that relationship,” his agent, Joel Segal, said Wednesday.

Segal would not reveal terms of the agreement. Nike declined a request for comment.

The deal was announced during a panel discussion at the Sports Sponsorship Symposium by Michael Principe, the managing director of BEST, the agency that represents Vick.

The endorsement is the latest step forward for Vick as he seeks to rehabilitate his career and his image after serving 18 months in federal prison. On Sunday, Vick played his first regular-season game since December 2006.

“It is quite evident that athletes that run afoul of the law are by no means relegated to obscurity when it comes to pitching products,” said David Carter, a professor of sports marketing at the University of Southern California.

Why is Nike doing that? Because apparently we don’t care enough about what Michael Vick did to those dogs:

Nike, which signed Vick as a rookie in 2001, terminated his contract in August 2007 after the Atlanta Falcons star filed a plea agreement admitting his involvement in the dogfighting ring. At the time, Nike called cruelty to animals “inhumane, abhorrent and unacceptable” and halted release of his fifth signature shoe, the Air Zoom Vick V.

Back when Vick first signed with the Eagles, Carter had said he was “too toxic for most companies to even consider taking a chance on him.” What’s changed? As Carter noted Wednesday, there has been little backlash to the quarterback’s return to the NFL.

Protests have been limited, and the Eagles’ sponsors have stood by them. That experience could make companies less wary about adding Vick as an endorser, though the biggest determinant might be no different from any other athlete: how well he performs on the field.

So Nike only does the right thing if they have no choice. Got it. Way to go, you mavericky shoe-making juggernaut, you. There’s nothing like a guy who has killed and tortured dogs with his own hands, while laughing about their agony, to sell stuff for a red-blooded American sporting goods firm.

There aren’t any actual statistics on increasing longevity in dogs and cats, but ask any vet or pet owner and you’ll hear tales of dogs living to be 15 or more and cats reaching the age of 20 or even older. An informal and completely unscientific survey of people I know who have dogs turned up a number of pets who were living well past the 12 to 14 years that we tend to think of as the average lifespan. Some of those were small breeds, which tend to live longer anyway, but medium-size breeds such as Beardies and Corgis were up there at 15 and 16 years and sometimes more. I even heard about a 15-year-old Mastiff.

So I was happy to address the subject in my column this month, although many of my questions went unanswered. Why do smaller dogs live longer than giant-breed dogs but elephants and whales live for many years? Apparently, we don’t really know. One of the things we know about dogs, says Martha Smith, DVM, director of veterinary services at Boston’s Animal Rescue League, is that longevity directly corresponds to breed size, but within a group–Labrador Retrievers, for instance–smaller Labs don’t live longer than larger ones. So you can’t make any predictions based on the size of an individual dog versus another individual of the same breed.

And how do we know that pets really are living longer? Any statistics on that? Not really, Smith says.

There is no comprehensive study that has looked at that. I think the only way to gather all that data would be to get into the records of various veterinary hospitals throughout the United States. It’s a really complex data search that would be required.

Pets are living longer, veterinarians think, because of improvements in veterinary care, nutrition and the human-animal bond. Leash laws and keeping cats indoors, for instance, mean fewer pets get hit by cars. The attitude that the pet is a member of the family means he spends more time indoors, more time in the company of his family and thus gets looked at more closely. Little things that might turn into big problems are more likely to be seen and treated by a veterinarian before it’s too late to manage them.

That said, the number-one reason dogs die is cancer, says Johnny Hoskins, DVM, who has spent much of his career studying pet longevity. For cats, the main cause of death is usually related to some type of organ failure, such as kidney or heart. The key in animals as it is in humans is early detection and management, Hoskins says.

One of the things Smith and I talked about was how to estimate age in pets. Being a shelter veterinarian, she has to do that frequently. Time was, people relied on looking at the teeth and body condition. But that can be misleading.

Both of those factors are influenced by what their life experience has been. You can have a very fit animal with great teeth that’s quite old or you can have an animal who’s kind of loose and floppy and has bad teeth and is young.

A new technique has veterinarians looking into the eyes for answers. With training, they can shine a light through the lens, which creates patterns that can be tracked. The spot of the light diffuses at different rates depending on the animal’s age, and a chart was created to help establish the age based on the pattern.

Will we ever be able to predict lifespan? Smith wonders if canine genetic tests might play a role in that someday.

I’ve just learned that the makers of one of the big canine genetic tests has started to market the fact that they can predict a dog’s size based on his genetic profile when he’s a puppy. So if you adopt a mixed-breed puppy and you’re hoping he’s going to be under 25 pounds, but you’re not sure, you can send out a blood sample to find out based on breed composition how big he’s going to get. I wonder at some point if they’ll be able to make lifespan predictions.

That would be cool.

One thing my editor wanted to know was a formula for calculating a dog’s age in human years. The old “multiply by 7″ rule doesn’t really apply because different breeds age at different rates. But knowing that number isn’t essential. Other things are more important, Smith believes.

For me, it’s immaterial what they are equivalent to people’s age because they’re not people. They’re dogs and cats and they are what they are. Are they fit? Are they happy? Are they enjoying life? Are they enjoying your company? Are they active? Those are the important questions to ask, not what numbers we should assign to them.

Tell it, sister!

Nowadays the dog owner finds that the market is flooded with different types of dog food and he is expected to choose the best food from them for his pet. These foods come in varied forms – soft foods, dry food, semi-moist food, candies, biscuits, chewy crackers and gourmet bonbons and in a variety of packages, from various size tin cans, boxes and packages. In the wild environment, dogs ate the complete animal, meat, stomach contents, etc. Pet food manufacturers established testing laboratories to test all the dog foods they manufacture and also have recruited nutritionists and food technicians to prepare nutritious food to meet NRC standards.

Before I go on to giving you a specific tip or two about kidney failure in dogs, I’d like to say one thing: it is possible, to treat your dog when he suffers from kidney failure, so don’t despair. Just remember that not all hope is lost and you can in fact prolong your dog’s life.

Here are 7 answers to frequently asked questions about caring for dogs that will help you and your dog enjoy a long and happy life together.

Prevention of formation of dog bladder stones is quite simple if you have some knowledge of the working system of a canine’s urinary tract and how it reacts to food and supplements as well as exercise. By reading this brief article, you’ll come to understand about some of the simple steps that need to be taken in order to help your dog’s urinary tract system to heal so that he will not have problems with the formation of the bladder crystals in his urinary tract and it would not get infected again.

Arthritis is a common disease that affects the lives of humans as well as dogs. Dog arthritis is very prevalent among the older dogs across all breeds. Almost one out of every five dog sufferers from dog arthritis in the US. Being a human, you are able to express your pain, but how your dog will express what they are going through? Be careful and notice the slight changes that your dog shows to observe the signs of dog arthritis symptoms.

Arthritis is the most common disease for the middle-aged and older dogs. It is normally a part of the aging process but it can also be at the site of an old orthopedic injury. The signs of dog arthritis includes taking longer to stand up, moving a little slower, his knees are creaking or he’s having a bit of difficulty climbing onto his favorite chair.

Arthritis or more popularly known as osteoarthritis is a common disease affecting not only humans, but your dogs also. A common survey shows that one out of every five dogs in US suffer from arthritis. As we know, arthritis is the degradation of bones and cartilage.