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Michael Vick’s publisher has canceled the NFL quarterback’s book signing tour due to threats from dog lovers.

Vick  was set to tour during the off-season to promote his autobiography Finally Free.

But online threats, made on bookstore websites and on Facebook, led the publisher to reconsider.

“While we stand by Michael Vick’s right to free speech and the retailers’ right to free commerce, we cannot knowingly put anyone in harm’s way, and therefore we must announce the cancellation of Mr. Vick’s book-signing appearances,” Byron Williamson, president of Worthy Publishing, said in a statement.

“We’ve been assured these threats of violence, which have been reported to the police, are being taken very seriously by local authorities,” Williamson added.

The publisher canceled planned signings in Atlanta, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Vick was convicted in 2007 and served 19 months in prison for his involvement in a dog-fighting ring

According to Philly mag.com, recent threats against him includes these remarks:

“I would go there to slit your throat knowing how you treat animals.”

“Hope your kids don’t fall in a pool with a battery.”

“I would snap your neck if I met you, your [sic] a piece of trash.”

PhillyMag.com reports Vick has received an increasing number of threats since acknowledging he and his family had brought a dog into their home.

Baltimore Animal Rescue & Care Shelter (BARCS) is charging no fees for its next 52 adoptions to commemorate the retirement of Baltimore Raven Ray Lewis.

Lewis, who wears No. 52, will end his playing career when the Ravens season ends.

The free adoptions started yesterday,

BARCS is located at 301 Stockholm St. — across from the stadium in which the Ravens play — and is open from 2 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

You can look at animals available for adoption here.

Tim Tebow has slightly altered the name of his dog, as a result of being traded from Denver to the New York Jets.

His Rhodesian ridgeback, formerly known as Bronco, is now named Bronx, which he hopes the dog won’t find too confusing.

The quarterback adopted the dog in 2010, the year he signed with the Broncos.

Tebow was traded to New York two months ago after the Broncos signed Peyton Manning.

All of which makes us wonder if there are other canine name changes underway among those fans who name dogs after their hometown quarterbacks.

What’s happening with all the dogs named Peyton in Indianapolis, all the dogs dubbed Tebow in Denver? If you live in Baltimore, should you name your dog Flacco? Or should you opt for something more stable and long term, based on institutional memory as opposed to the flavor of the day?

Here, Unitas.

(Photo: Twitter)

When is a funny Super Bowl ad not very funny?

When it promotes animal cruelty.

While they haven’t seen the ad in question, an organization that works to ban greyhound racing says that ‘s what the athletic shoe company, Skechers – intentionally or not — is doing.

As we reported a couple of days ago, Skechers, having concluded its contract with Kim Kardashian, has turned to a dog to advertise it’s shoes, and its planned Super Bowl ad features a French bulldog — in Skechers, of course – competing against greyhounds in a race.

The ad was filmed at Tucson Greyhound Park, which the anti-dog racing organization GREY2K USA says is notorious for treating greyhounds poorly. Greyhounds are kept in small cages which are barely large enough for them to stand or turn around, fed diseased meat, and get injured at a clip of nearly once a day.  According to the Arizona Department of Racing, nearly 1,000 greyhound injuries occurred at the park between January 2007 and November 2009.

Grey2KUSA says it contacted Skechers after learning the ad had been filmed, aksing that the “misguided promotion” be canceled. It started a petition urging Skechers to pull the ad at Change.org, and it had nearly 80,000 signatures as of the end of this week.

Grey2K is calling for a boycott of Skechers, and is urging its membership and others to write emails to those involved with the ad:

•Skechers President Michael Greenburg at michaelg@skechers.com
•Skechers Vice President of Media Gary Martin at gpmedia@aol.com
•Mark Cuban at mcuban@hd.net (Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, is briefly featured in the ad.)
•NBC at nbcuniversalviewerfeedback@nbcuni.com.

And the organization is also running a contest for the best protest photos (such as the one of the greyhound atop this post). The top three entries will win a Grey2KUSA cap.

Protests have been planned at Skechers outlets, and, on Jan. 28, at Tucson Greyhound Park.

Skechers marketing chief Leonard Armato says there are no plans to pull the ad — scheduled to be shown during the Super Bowl Feb. 5. He said the ad doesn’t condone animal cruelty, and pointed out that it has not been seen by any of those who are protesting.

“That the ad is running during the most heavily watched sporting event of the year suggests that greyhound racing is a sport. It is not,” said Grey2K President Christine Dorchak. “It is greyhound cruelty.”

And who, you’re wondering, was the brain behind Sunday’s halftime show that featured a dog-riding monkey?

That’s Tim “Wild Thang” Lepard, a Mississippi boy who once tangled with bulls but, after nine related surgeries and we can only guess a few bumps on the head, found a safer line of work — placing Capuchin monkeys atop border collies and orchestrating the entertainment that ensues.

We’re not ready to call this animal cruelty, so we’ll just call it kind of stupid, and another example — like the rodeo, like the circus — of the way-too-prevalent thinking that the purpose of animals is to entertain us.

That’s the football player’s job. Is watching the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots jump on each other not enough? Must we fill the brief halftime lull in play by mounting one species atop another?

Apparently, yes.

The dog and monkey team is one of several belonging to Leperd’s outfit,  Team Ghost Riders. They appear at rodeos, minor league baseball games and other sporting events across the country.

Leperd, 49, who lives outside of Tupelo, Miss., is a former bull rider and bullfighter.

According to the Team Ghost Riders website, he has always felt he has “a bit of Elvis in my soul.”

Leperd explains how he evolved from bullfighter to dog and monkey trainer this way:

“After nine major surgeries encountered while fighting bulls, I began to put together the dog and monkey act and concentrated on comedy. I wanted an act that no one would forget in rodeo and felt performing with three dogs and three monkeys would accomplish my goal.”

Here’s a look at the crew in action last year during a rodeo in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania.

No, that’s not the ice cream man rolling down the streets of Lisichansk, a city of 100,000 in Ukraine.

It’s a crematorium on wheels, purchased by the city to more handily dispose of stray dogs — sometimes while they are still alive — as part of the country’s efforts to clean up its streets before next year’s Euro 2012 soccer championship.

(About two and a half minutes into the video above you can see city officials showing off their mobile crematorium.)

The vehicle is staffed by three employees — a driver, an oven operator and another who shoots strays with a syringe gun, paralyzing them.

The crematorium is capable of burning 40 kilos worth of dogs and cats at a time.

Lisichansk is not alone in trying to clear the streets of strays before the soccer championship,  being co-hosted by Ukraine and Poland.

The cities of  Kiev, Lviv, Kharkiv and Donetsk — all of which are hosting matches — have stray removal programs underway. In Kharkiv and Kiev, plans have been made to open shelters for strays found in the vicinity of Euro 2012 stadiums, but some other cities opt for extermination instead.

Sometimes, Lisichansk lends its mobile crematorium to neighboring  jurisdictions. How thoughtful.

Despite protests, from inside and outside the country, the stray removal program continues, and the mobile crematorium — which features temperatures of 900 degrees — keeps rolling.

A petition appealing to Ukrainian authorities to stop cremating live animals can be found on the website Care2.

According to the petition, Ukraine — rather than focusing on spaying and neutering and finding homes for strays — has long opted for less humane practices.

Stray dogs and cats were previously killed using an illegal poison called ditiline that paralyzed their respiratory muscles are paralyzed.

Officials consider the crematorium ” more modern” and “environmentally safe,” the petition says.

Whether you’re a fan of trains, Ravens (the football kind), dogs, or all three, you’re invited to a Ravens “Pet Rally” Saturday (Sept. 10), proceeds from which will benefit Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter (BARCS).

The event takes place (rain or shine) from 5 to 10 p.m. at the B&O Railroad Museum and Round House. In addition to vendors, food, beer, games and a silent auction, the event will feature music by Outbreak and Against The Grain.

Tickets are $15, and that includes admission to the museum and concert.

For more information call Terri at 410-952-5778 or stop by BARCS, located at 301 Stockholm Street.

Hawkeye, the dog photographed lying next to the casket of his master, a slain Navy SEAL, may be taking part in a tribute to his owner at a University of Iowa football game this fall.

Iowa’s athletics department announced Tuesday that it will honor Jon Tumilson at a Hawkeye home game in November as part of a commemoration of Veteran’s Day.

The department said it will work with Tumilson’s family to determine what role his dog, Hawkeye, might play in the memorial.

Tumilson, from Rockford, Iowa, was one of 30 American soldiers killed in Afghanistan on Aug. 6 when their helicopter was shot down.

Tumilson’s Labrador retriever laid by his casket for much of the Aug. 19 funeral ceremony, after which photos of his loyal display went viral.

Tumilson, who joined the Navy after graduating high school in 1995, was a big Hawkeye football and wrestling fan, according to the Washington Post.

A former Iowa player suggested the dog lead the team on the field.

Tumilson’s mother, Kathleen, said her son made it clear he wanted Hawkeye at his funeral. “He didn’t have family; that was his son,” she said.

When Hawkeye went to their home after the funeral, she said, he went directly to her son’s room.

Hawkeye is now staying with her son’s friends in Texas.

Four dogs owned by Arizona Cardinals linebacker Joey Porter got loose from his Bakersfield, Calif., residence over the Fourth of July weekend and killed a neighbor’s dog.

Porter was cited for not having the dogs on a leash, county Animal Control spokeswoman Kim Rodriguez told the Bakersfield Californian. She said it was unclear how the dogs got out of their kennel.

Porter’s dogs were large and appeared to be half mastiff, half pit bull, she said.

Rodriguez said she doesn’t know what kind of arrangement Porter reached with the neighbor whose dog was killed.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, two of Porter’s dogs got loose from his home in Pennsylvania in 2006 and killed a miniature horse on a nearby farm.

I’ve never liked the open letter. It’s a cheap gimmick that allows the writer to pretend to be writing to someone when you’re really taking aim at them. It’s a feeble attempt to get the attention of someone who neither knows who you are, nor cares what you have to say. It lets you, the writer, ride on their celebrity while you make a point, ostensibly to them, but really to the world. Open letters are highly presumptuous, and a little rude.

Nevertheless, Dear Michael Vick …

I see an opportunity for you.

This pertains your former property at 1915 Moonlight Road in Surry County, Virginia — the one that’s now headed to serve a purpose far different than the one for which you used it.

As you may have read, or not, your former house, the headquarters of your former Bad Newz Kennels, the home you forfeited after your conviction for dogfighting, has been purchased by a group called Dogs Deserve Better.

They plan to turn it into a $2.5 million center to rehabilitate and rehome dogs that have been abused — tied, chained, penned, or forced to take part in dogfighting. (At this point, were this one of those catty open letters, I would have added “an activity with which you are familiar.” But this really is more sincere than catty.)

From a writer’s standpoint, not to mention a reader’s, it’s a pretty wondrous development in the long-running story that, as you know, just won’t go away.

You should get in on it. You should donate some money to the project — if not to assuage any guilt you might still be feeling, then for image reasons alone, and image, these days, is everything.

To build its $2.5 million center, Dogs Deserve Better needs, well, about $2.5 million. They’ve made the down payment, but there is still lots of work to be done and money to be raised.

That’s where you come in, or could if you wanted to — giving the story one more serendipitous twist.

I know you served your time. I know you paid (and are still paying) your debt. I know your fans, and maybe you, think that gives you a clean slate — but a slate is hard to truly get clean once it has been tainted with blood, be it that of humans or dogs.

You have a lot of haters, myself included. I’ve bashed you before and I’ll probably bash you again — it’s easy to do that from afar, while hiding behind the protective gear of a blog. Though I’m a forgiving sort generally, I’m one of those people who can’t forget what you did with dogs. I’m also one of those people who stopped being a Philadelphia Eagles fan when they hired you, and, in the few games I watched, rooted for you to get sacked, even painfully so. (I did not like that I was doing that.)

Animal lovers, despite all their warmhearted, do-gooding tenderness, can be a pretty vengeful lot, and you permanently alienated them.

Even the work you are doing with the Humane Society of the United States in its anti-dogfighting campaign isn’t enough to change their minds about you. They probably never will. But by kicking in some money to rehabilitate dogs, you might make them, at least, think twice.

It would make a far deeper and more lasting impression than your HSUS appearances. I commend you for those, but, in all honesty and no offense, you don’t come across as all that remorseful. You don’t excel at appearing sincere. Besides, it’s just talk, and talk is cheap.

I realize that, despite your huge NFL salary, your money these days isn’t exactly your money — that you don’t have much to throw around, what with your debts and your lawyers and your agents. My understanding is you’re pretty much living on an allowance, and that endorsements, which dried up after your conviction, are few. This could help with that, too.

News that Michael Vick had chipped in to build a center to rehabilitate animals on his former property — and I’d suggest you do it in a low key, non-trumpeting kind of way — would do wonders for your image.

Since you’re still getting your finances back in shape, I think it would be great if the Philadelphia Eagles, and the NFL, chipped in as well, perhaps doubling or tripling the amount you might be able to come up with.

I’m aware it was you who, willing or not, footed the bill for your former dogs to make miraculous recoveries and find themselves in loving homes. There are pieces of the whole story of you and dogfighting that, horrendous as it is, are also inspiring. You could add another inspiring element – you could quell, but likely not erase, the wrath of dog lovers who hate you. Animal welfare types can be a self-righteous bunch — and persistent as linebackers. You may never have them on your team.

But a donation would give them pause, and perhaps a modicum of respect for you. They might see it as a sign — to some it might seem the first one — that you are truly sorry. Money usually can’t buy forgiveness, but it can soften the sharp edges.

I won’t be so presumptuous as to suggest an amount, and, I’m not even sure Dogs Deserve Better would take your money. I am in no way affiliated with the organization, other than having written about it a time or two. But they seem to mean well.

Support from you, the Eagles and the NFL — on top of all it would do for your image, and football’s — would help the organization accomplish its mission: Establishing the Good Newz Rehab Center for Chained and Penned Dogs.

Out with the bad, in with the good. Get it?

In closing, I apologize for the openness of this letter, and for sticking my nose in your business. But in a world where bad news is the norm, chances to make some good news – and to make some good happen — should be considered, if not jumped on immediately.

It’s just a thought.