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DALLAS — Some people who came to North Texas for the Super Bowl left with good memories, some with bad memories and many with souvenirs.

But Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick also took home something else: A ceremonial key to the City of Dallas.

Animal rights activists are furious that Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway would give the city’s highest honor to a convicted felon.

“I’m insulted by it,” said Jonnie England, Metroplex Animal Coalition. “Michael Vick is a convicted felon. He commited horrible atrocious crimes, violent crimes. He has done nothing to deserve a key to the City of Dallas.”

Other rescue groups agree.

“I don’t think he’s really earned that honor yet to get a key to the City of Dallas,” said Tara Harper, PAWS In The City. “I think that should be bestowed on people who are internationally famous for wonderful things they’ve done.”

Mayor Tom Leppert is upset, too, saying it’s against city protocol.

Richard Hunter of Dallas adopted one of pit bulls previously owned by Vick, who is now on probation after serving prison time for running a dog fighting ring.

Hunter says his dog, “Mel,” still carries the emotional scars of the fighting.

On Saturday, Hunter carried the curiosity of what Vick might say to him on video following an appearance at Dallas club. Hunter didn’t get a response from the NFL star.

But he did get a surprise at the same event when Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway presented Vick with a key to the city.

“People are going to think that the city — in the week that the eyes of the world were on us — gave the key to the city to a sociopath like that,” Hunter said.

On Monday, Caraway explained that he wanted to show children at the event they can reset their lives in the right direction after bad decisions like the ones Vick made.

“My thing is the message that it gets over to the children, and who it’s coming from — someone saying, ‘Look, don’t you do it,'” Caraway said.

Caraway said what he gave Vick was a ceremonial key to the city available to City Council members.

Last week, Council colleague Steve Salazar gave rocker Gene Simmons of the group Kiss a ceremonial key for Simmons’ effort to help servicemen and women.

But city protocol says only the mayor can award an official key to the city — usually to an elected official of international status.

Mayor Leppert calls what Caraway did “unfortunate,” and said he wants tighter rules to prevent something like it from happening again.

“There was no official connotation that was given to it,” he said. “My office is responsible for doing it; I was not involved in it. We did not designate anybody to do it, nor would we would have in this case.”

Caraway represents a southern Dallas district and holds the title of mayor pro tem at the will of the Council. Should Mayor Leppert resign to run for U.S. Senate, Caraway would become mayor until the next election.

But because of the Vick matter and other recent missteps, there are rumblings at City Hall that the Council could name another member mayor pro tem.

Here straight from Mayor Pro Tem Caraway right here