Michael Vick, the ex-NFL quarterback recently released from prison, has promised to turn over a new leaf and is already making great strides to do so. According to sources close to Vick, he did not kill a single dog during his first 24 hours of freedom.

Reporters camped outside Vick’s Hampton, Virginia home, hoping to get a glimpse of his first hours of freedom. Vick was seen greeting family and friends, eating dinner, and watching television. No muffled canine screams were discerned, nor did Vick repair to his backyard to dig any shallow graves by the light of the moon.

“It’s hard to get used to life back on the outside,” said a family friend who wished to remain anonymous. “He just got out of the joint. He’s gonna wanna do all the things he used to do. He told me that when he walked in the front door of his house, the first thing he wanted to do was sit on his couch and watch a doberman get electrocuted.

“Before he went away, he totally woulda done it, too. I really think he wants to change.”

“Some people can kill just a few dogs a day and stop,” another friend told reporters. “But if Mike’s around people who are killing dogs, he’s gonna keep on killing and killing. So we can’t be bringing our terriers around here to get their throats slit no more.

“He can’t even throw a dachshund down a flight of stairs. That’s gonna take some willpower.”

Publicly, at least, Vick has vowed to curb his impulses. “I must admit, I tried to bargain with myself,” he said at his post-release press conference. “I thought that I’d be okay if I just killed one dog a day, or if I restricted myself to killing only smaller dogs, like chihuahuas.

“But I realized that if I did that, I would wind up back in prison again. Not a prison of iron and concrete, but a prison of constantly killing dogs. That is not a prison I want to go back to. And I’d probably wind up in real prison, too, which is no picnic either.

“I can’t think of it as ‘Oh no, I can never kill a dog again.’ I have to say, ‘I’m not gonna kill a dog right now.’ When I walk down the street, I have to say to myself, ‘I won’t crush that pitbull’s skull with a cinder block’. One not-killed dog at a time.”