Dogs Deserve Better takes option to buy Michael Vick’s Bad Newz Kennels property

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2011:

TIPTON, Pennsylvania–The anti-dog chaining organization
Dogs Deserve Better has an option to purchase on football player and
convicted dogfighter Michael Vick’s former home on Moonlight Road in
rural Surrey County, Virginia.
The 15-acre estate housed Bad Newz Kennels, Vick’s
dogfighting operation. The 4,600-square-foot house where dogs were
fought remains on the property, but the Bad Newz Kennels doghouses,
training facilities, and fencing have been removed.

Dogs Deserve Better has operated for nine years from founder
Tamara Ci Thayne’s home in Tipton, Pennsylvania, but needs more
space for dog housing and training. Members annually take in between
400 and 600 formerly chained dogs, Dogs Deserve Better capital
campaigns chair Monica Severy told Virginian-Pilot reporter Linda
McNatt. “We bring the dogs inside with a family,” Severy said.
“They are all house trained, and are in a loving environment,” in
preparation for adoption. We do have dogs in the program who were
used for fighting,” Severy added. “The dogs will live in the
house,” Severy anticipated, “and we’ll use it for training and for
meetings. There will be somebody there all the time, living there,”
beginning with Thayne, who would relocate.
Dogs Deserve Better has 45 days from taking out the option to
purchase to complete the financial arrangements. The asking price is
$595,000, Severy said.
“We don’t want to take a mortgage if we don’t have to,”
Thayne told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “We would much prefer to raise the money.
We have already raised $71,500,” Thayne said, which “may be enough
to secure a loan, so we will just keep plugging along and see what
happens. Then we still have to undertake a capitol campaign for the
dog facilities. We will foster dogs in the office while we fundraise
for that. We had just started to get serious and build a team to
fundraise, and this sort of dropped into our laps,” Thayne added,
“but we decided to go for it. We feel it’s turning a negative into a
positive.”
Law enforcement impounded 51 pit bull terriers from Bad Newz
Kennels in April 2007. Four were euthanized. The Best Friends
Animal Society eventually adopted out about two-thirds of the rest.
Fourteen remain at the Best Friends sanctuary in Kanab, Utah.