Stu Bykofsky: Forgiveness a rare animal with some animal-welfare groups

"Let no good deed go unpunished."

- Attributed to American financier John P. Grier, banker Andrew W. Mellon and writer Clare Boothe Luce, among others.

THE Michael Vick Salvage Project that divided the Eagles fan base also fractured the animal-welfare community, with the Humane Society of the United States in the doghouse with some who oppose HSUS' deal to work with the felonious quarterback.

In a 2 1/2-hour meeting yesterday, the divided met the fractured. For visuals, think Grand Canyon and San Andreas Fault.

The meeting with local and national animal-welfare organizations was initiated - better late than never - by the Eagles. Owner Jeff Lurie, the dog-loving, Reluctant Forgiver, did not attend the press-barred meeting, nor did Vick, the man who put "con" in controversy. The Eagles suited up president Joe Banner to enter the lion's den.

"It was a meeting that we felt needed to happen," Eagles spokeswoman Pamela Browner-Crawley e-mailed me, but she treated the guest list like the Eagles playbook, declining to release it because . . . because it is a state secret? Like Nixon's "enemies list"? Clinton's "bimbo eruption" list?

Lurie was, to hear him tell it, trying to do a good deed by giving Vick a second chance, which was more than the dogs in Vick's Bad Newz Kennels got.

My sources saw representatives from the Pennsylvania

SPCA, area county SPCAs, plus other animal-welfare advocates, such as puppy-mill foe Bill Smith of Main Line Rescue and local activist Marianne Bessey, who protests pet-store sales of puppies and elephants in zoos, among other things.

The meeting was generally calm, highlighted with occasional emotion, with Banner basically being a tackling dummy and not fighting back. This was a "listen and learn" session, to fight the bad PR mud slide.

When HSUS announced it would work with Vick, "those in animal welfare were really shocked," said Karel I. Minor, executive director of the Berks County SPCA.

Part of the shock may have come from how far HSUS moved from its July 2007 position. A month before Vick took a guilty plea, HSUS called for his suspension from the NFL, but now - after his conviction - HSUS is OK with the dog-killer rejoining the league.

To many animal lovers, Vick is a toxic mixture of swine flu, bubonic plague and leprosy. They wouldn't come near him if he were in a hyperbaric chamber.