Steve Markwell

This Explains A Lot

2011-12-19T18:37:19Z

A lot of common questions about animal rescue are answered here in a single screen shot. This is a correspondence I had with a woman in Nova Scotia over the last few days via Facebook. Some people use Facebook to connect only with actual friends and family, but in my case, most of my "friends" are people I've never met in person, and I use the page more as a public, online 'presence' that's available to anyone who wants to look at it. Because the vast majority of people who add me as a friend are doing so because of my rescue work, this is what it says in the 'About Me' section of my profile: "Please don't use Facebook to try to place an animal; go to www.olympicanimalsanctuary.org/placement.html. Please don't tag me in photos I'm not in, and please don't include me in messages to multiple people. Thanks for understanding." That's the only thing it says there, in fact.

I accept every friend request, and then I unsubscribe from the people I don't know. Sorry if that's you, but if I don't do it I won't see status updates from people I know in real life. So when I got a friend request from this woman in Canada, I accepted it as I always do. The next thing I knew, she had added me to a group called "SAVE BRINDI AND FRANCESCA FROM THE CITY OF HALIFAX!!!!" I don't like that feature on Facebook; I shouldn't be able to be added to a group without my permission. But I neglected to mention it in my profile information (although you'd think people would infer that I wouldn't be into it), so I couldn't be too upset. I looked briefly at the group page (very briefly -- not long enough to discover that the Francesca in the group's name was this woman, not a second dog) and messaged the woman who added me. The screenshot here is the exchange that took place; I don't expect you to read the entire thing, because I have no intention of doing so myself. (She also added me to a second Facebook group.)

I said at the beginning that this answers a lot of questions. Here are a few of them:

Why do rescuers burn out? The difference between me and a lot of rescue people out there is that they would have actually read that entire thing and welcomed this person into their lives. I'm protective of my mental well-being, and I don't indulge people like this or let them close to me.
Why do dogs get killed over minor offenses? I don't know the details of this case, but consider the fact that this person believes that her side of this exchange is completely reasonable. Imagine what she might be like in court, or when she talks to animal control officers? For that matter, what must the home environment be like?
Why don't rescues return my calls or emails? There are a number of reasons, but the fact that we have to deal with time-suckers like this lady is a big one.

There's a good chance that any rescue you know of is being negatively impacted by someone like this. This certainly isn't the first time I've dealt with it. The problem is that it's the dog (or other animal) that's paying the ultimate price when people refuse to behave in a reasonable manner. I hope Brindi can be saved, but with this lady as her advocate (who didn't know what an advocate was) I fear her chances are slim.

The Spill

2010-10-13T21:16:19Z

Yesterday I took Jimmy, a new dog from California, to the beach for a walk. About a half mile up the shore I noticed something a little out of place - a black and white, roughly spherical object on the sand about fifty yards ahead of us. I suspected it was an injured bird, which was confirmed when Jimmy and I came closer. Having been declared dangerous in San Mateo County after killing a couple of small animals in his neighborhood and being the kind of dog who would enjoy giving a bird a few, strong shakes, Jimmy was a bit of a handful, but I managed to get my shirt off and wrap it around the bird with one hand while restraining the dog with the other. (Fortunately I had a second shirt on underneath, lest my bare abdominal muscles and handsome nipples create a surge of desperate attempts at infidelity along the waterfront.) The unhappy bird, a western grebe, jabbed and snapped at me as I carried him back down the beach, and Jimmy begged for what he seemed certain was soon to be his for the shaking.

We approached a family we'd passed a few minutes earlier, and the father, not surprisingly, noticed the bird in my hand. "You caught a bird?" "Yeah," I responded, thinking it was a weird thing to ask a guy holding a grebe wrapped in a t-shirt, and then came the second question, "Why'd you catch a bird?" as if I could have captured a healthy grebe with nothing but my bare hands and wild animal reflexes. I explained briefly that the bird was injured and asked the man for help getting him and Jimmy back to my truck. He hesitated, seeming to have trouble deciding whether to be more afraid of the bird or Jimmy. "I don't know, dude..." "He doesn't have teeth. Just take him." Concluding that I was scarier than both dog and bird, he did what the big tattooed man told him to do. I instructed him to carry the bird the same way I had been doing, keeping its legs and wings wrapped in the shirt to prevent it from further injuring itself. We walked the rest of the way back to the parking lot, where the guy began asking me why the Twilight tour bus was there. "I guess it's not to annoy me, personally," I answered, "but sometimes it seems that way. "No really, why is the Twilight bus here? Does this beach have anything to do with Twilight?" "I don't know, I'm not a thirteen year old girl."

Jimmy went into the carrier in the back of the truck, and since I didn't have any small pet carriers with me, the grebe got a dog bed on the back seat. As I walked around to the driver's side, I heard the guy asking his wife why the Twilight bus was at the beach, and heard her answer, "I don't know, what are you asking me for?" He seemed like a nice guy, but seriously, dude, let it go.

Because the grebe was in severe shock, I had my doubts that he would survive the drive home, much less the trip to Sequim where he'd receive treatment. I spoke briefly on the phone to the area's wildlife rehabilitators and they asked me to keep him overnight, and if he lived until morning, to drive him over. As I pulled into my parking lot the bird's head dropped to his side and I thought he was dead, but when I opened the truck door to remove him, he perked up slightly. To my surprise the little grebe not only lived through the night, but had moved around his cage a little, defecated, possibly had a drink, and was alert, with his head held upright. I loaded him into a small carrier and delivered him to the vet's office in Sequim, and to be honest, I'll still be surprised if he lives, but we tried. I had only hoped that he'd die in a warm, soft resting place and not be picked apart by scavengers while he was still alive; despite what a natural end that would have been for him, I felt a little mercy was in order, mercy being that thing that we're told separates us from the lower animals.
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I'm pretty good at spotting wildlife, injured or otherwise. The first time my friend Jason visited me in Washington, I pointed out twenty or thirty bald eagles a day, of which I believe he saw two the entire week. In Jason's defense, if instead of eagles it had been Volkswagen Rabbits or marginally attractive women ten years on either side of dateable, he'd have had me beaten hands down. But the point is that I've gotten increasingly good at noticing the things that other people miss, perhaps always looking for what's slightly out of place, like the contrasting black and white of a bird on land that's rarely seen out of water - one that dozens of people must have missed as they walked past, perhaps some of them wishing they were seeing more wildlife on their beach trip.

The ability to detect what's not quite right and respond appropriately will make a person effective in just about any profession, and it's certainly the case in companion animal welfare. Theoretically, dog and cat rescue isn't much different than wildlife rescue: one rescuer sees something not quite right, responds, enlists the help of the public if needed, and then hands the animal off to the people best suited to meeting its needs, in this case a veterinarian and a rehab center, who accept the animal without hesitation. Each entity does its part and fills its unique niche for the greater good and for the good of each individual animal.

But if dogs and cats are like birds along the beach, then companion animal rescue is a colossal oil spill, with more floating lifeless in the water and sitting listless on the sand than flying overhead, and those lucky few who are in flight had better fly far, or it's only a matter of time before they join their doomed counterparts. It doesn't take a professional to see that something is wrong, but it might take one to find what isn't. When faced with a scene where far more is wrong than right, where do you start? Do you focus on containing and removing the oil that's already spilled? Do you try to stop the spill at its source? Do you pick birds from the beach, or do you receive the birds, clean and treat them, and then release them when their environment is safe again? Ideally people would be doing all of those things, working in concert to bring the disaster to a close. Emphasis on "ideally".

Animal shelters ought to be the equivalent of the rehab centers where the oil-saturated birds go for treatment and recovery. In theory, they take in homeless and wayward animals, returning them to the homes from whence they strayed or placing them with new, adoptive families, providing medical care and behavioral rehabilitation along the way as needed. It's important to note that some shelters do operate that way, but for some reason, most don't; they take in homeless and wayward animals, return a few to their homes, adopt out a few, and kill the rest before they can become a drain on resources - resources that, by the way, exist for the sole purpose of caring for homeless animals. They call all of it rescue, but such opposing courses of action can hardly be called the same thing. One animal is placed in a house with a family, while another is placed in a freezer - could both placements be considered rescue? Could anyone really believe them to be? Or could it be that the people responsible for increasing the length and quality of the lives of dogs and cats in America, who took on that daunting task of their own volition, have betrayed the public trust, and rather than admit their shortcomings, mistakes, and in some cases, crimes, have chosen instead to defend them, lie about them, and attack anyone who dares to suggest that killing healthy animals shouldn't be part of the rescue picture?

Did you ever hear someone, after the recent Gulf of Mexico spill or the Exxon Valdez disaster, suggest that the problem wasn't the oil, but that there were simply too many birds? Chances are you didn't, but talk to animal rescuers enough and you'll hear all kinds of crazy shit. 'We can't save them all.' 'Our kill rate is lower than average, so we're proud of that.' 'It's not fair to devote extra resources to one animal when we don't have enough as it is.' 'There are good dogs and bad dogs.' 'Maybe we kill them after five days, but we give them five more days than anyone else would.'

They'll tell you we're in crisis. They'll blame dog and cat breeders. They'll blame animal abusers. They'll blame local government for not throwing more money their way, despite their mismanagement of the money they've already been given. They'll tell you there simply aren't enough homes for all the animals, and that it's better they die at the shelter than take their chances on the street. Of course, no one has asked the dogs and cats what they'd prefer. And no one will point out that nearly all of them came from homes at one time, suggesting either that there actually are enough homes, or that the number of negligent or abusive people with dogs and cats is far higher than it would appear to even the most experienced rescuer.

Most shelter personnel would probably suggest the latter, but they won't tell you that if they increased their spay/neuter programs by a mere three or four percent there would be no surplus of dogs and cats, and they would actually save money that could be put toward the care of the special needs animals they so disdain. They won't tell you about the local rescues that they refuse to work with, or the way they've tried to stop others in the area from rescuing animals at all because it affects their intake numbers, with implications on their funding, if not their very relevance. They won't tell you about the dogs they kill based solely on their appearance, or the cats they kill because of easily treatable illnesses or injuries. They won't tell you about dogs that never get walked or dogs that get choked on the end of a catch pole or pepper sprayed daily because their staff don't know how to move them out of their kennels. They won't tell you about the wholesale slaughter of feral cats. They won't tell you about the cheap, toxic food the animals are fed. They won't tell you how they deny adoption applications from minorities. They'll just tell you there's been an oil spill, that dogs and cats are the oil, and that the public and the government are the tanker captains, drunk at the helm.

Then they'll congratulate themselves for having a lower kill rate than some other shelter in some other part of the country, or for being lower than the national average. They might even proudly proclaim themselves "low-kill", a term that belies an attitude that animals simply don't matter that much - certainly not enough to make killing them intolerable. They're just 'spilled oil' that needs to be cleaned up. No one in a homeless shelter or domestic violence shelter brags about only killing fifteen percent of the clients, and when someone is found to have murdered another person, rarely does anyone suggest excusing him on the grounds that he's not a serial killer. But those are people. Dogs and cats are just an inconvenient mess, and messes get wiped up and thrown away, not saved, transformed, cherished.

Have you ever heard someone say, "I rescued my dog from a shelter"? I hear it all the time, and it's a very fitting way of putting it. At some shelters, adopters are treated like partners in rescue, working with the staff to locate and provide the best home for each dog and cat. But far more often people feel like subversives, trying to save an animal in spite of the shelter staff's desire to kill it. Adopters, not shelter staff, are the rescuers. Foster care groups and other, small, independent organizations have been formed across the country to rescue animals from shelters where they'd otherwise be killed, some specializing in the most desperate cases - the ones that aren't worth the shelters' resources. In the oil spill that is companion animal welfare, they have the feel of first responders, even though, technically, they aren't. Maybe that's because they're the ones actually engaged in rescue. They're the ones that see the spill for what it is: they do triage, dogs and cats are the birds, and adopters provide long-term care.

And where do the shelters fit in? They're certainly not rescuers, and they don't provide long-term care. They lack the organization, effectiveness, or clarity of purpose of even the most inept government agency, or the skill and discipline of a drunken sea captain, and in our extended metaphor, that leaves only one possibility...

They're the fucking oil.

Meet me in LA

2010-08-18T00:43:54Z

Shame on You

2010-07-07T19:28:12Z

When I drove across the country a couple of weeks ago, something had changed since the last time I made the trek; what happened to all the pro-life billboards? When driving through the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin a couple of summers ago it seemed like we couldn't go a mile or two without seeing an 'Abortion is Murder' billboard with a picture of a hacked up fetus on it. And all that graphic, shock and shame-based marketing made me think of sandwiches.

Hold on, I can explain! Have you seen or heard a Subway commercial lately? The bulk of their advertising in the past few years has been focused on shaming and mocking overweight people.

OK, so it's not exactly saying, 'Have another burger, fatass!' but the implication is there: if you don't eat what we tell you to eat, you'll be fat, and if you're fat, you're miserable and unlovable. Just ask Jared. Maybe that's effective marketing, but it's also pretty slimy. Besides that, Quizno's is so much better than Subway, and Quizno's never gave me shit for going to Carl's Jr. They just told me their sandwiches tasted good. (And have you had that Batch 81 sauce? It rivals Arby's Sauce as the greatest condiment ever created.)

So Subway wants you to be ashamed of what you eat, and the Midwest wants you to hate yourself for the rest of your life if you've ever even considered an abortion, but it's not just Big Sandwich and the Religious Right who use shame to sell products and push agendas -- have a look at some animal rescue websites.

Check out Causes on Facebook, of which my organization has begun to make good use recently; the top animal rescue organizations on that site are showing you pictures of mangled fighting dogs, burned kittens, or just sad-ass puppies waiting miserably to be adopted. Don't you dare look away -- these animals need your help. And the fact that these top animal welfare organizations, including ASPCA, HSUS, and PETA, oppose the no-kill movement, meaning that in many cases they advocate the killing of the very same animals in their photos, all the while calling it 'rescue', you shouldn't be dissuaded from giving them your money, because after all, if you don't, more pit bulls will be mangled, and more kittens will be set on fire. Hell, you might as well be holding the match.

And then there's this delightful ad:

I can't tell you how many people have told me they turn the TV off when that one comes on. I'm surprised the networks will even air it. So I'd like to pose a few questions, to HSUS and the other organizations that use similar marketing strategies to raise money for their rescue (and animal killing) work -- Do you think the 'shock and shame' model changes hearts and minds? Do you think you make more money showing people disgusting images of torture, or showing them an alternative? And if you're showing people graphic images of animal suffering in order to raise money for your cause, aren't you exploiting those animals for gain, even benefiting from their pain? Is any of it really necessary?

I deal with the horror of animal abuse every day. I see the things in the HSUS ads firsthand. And I change the channel when those commercials come on. I don't deny that the ads are effective -- clearly they attract donors and volunteers, but I think it would be interesting to see psych evaluations done on the people who respond favorably to them. I can't responsibly hypothesize about what the results would indicate, but I will say that the reputation of animal rescuers for being 'crazy' isn't entirely undeserved, and furthermore, when I, who live in a kennel with a pack of feral dogs, often feel like one of the most sane people in our field, something's very wrong. I think it's entirely possible that shock and shame attract the mentally ill and repel the mentally stable. Honestly, if you think about it, how could that not be the case? If nothing else it's manipulative, and mentally stable people tend to walk away when they feel they're being manipulated.

I've stayed away from shock and shame in my own organization's website and promotional materials, preferring to show people images of healthy animals playing and having a good time. Sure, I tell their stories, but if I tell you a dog's face was torn half-off, do I really need to show you a photo of it? There's a big difference between not hiding the ugly truth from people and shoving it in their faces. Do I need to put a grotesque image in your head that haunts you for the rest of your life? Do I need to give your children nightmares? My Sanctuary may not be a multi-million dollar a year organization (yet), but for a nonprofit founded less than three years ago, I think we do pretty well. In the last five hours we've raised $150 with this photo:

It's not a ton of money, but we'll use every cent of it to save animals. Maybe we'd get more money if she was covered in wounds and lying in a pool of blood, but I'm not doing that. We'll build this organization without blood money, without shame money, without 'Please God make it stop!' money. And unlike the others, we won't be then using that money to kill healthy dogs and cats in some back room. Look -- I can be as negative and accusatory as anyone (this rant is the proof), but putting aside whatever foul mood I might be in or whatever's pissing me off today, even the very topic of this entry, 'at the end of the day' as they say, I'd rather create beauty than try to put a dent in ugliness. Sure, it's semantics, a glass half full/glass half empty kind of thing (or as my good friend Brent once said, the glass is half empty, and the other half is piss) but if I have the choice between showing you how ugly the world is or showing you another option, well, I think you know where I stand.

Home Again

2010-06-29T21:48:10Z

It's good to be home. Here's how the last couple of days went:

The night of my last entry I started to get pretty tired as we got into Montana, so I started calling Motel 6s. At the one in Billings, no one would answer the phone, so I figured 'screw them' and made a reservation in Butte. After trying to find a Pacific Pride (the members-only commercial fueling stations I try to use when I'm on the road) near Bozeman and discovering that all three of the ones in the area had converted to Commercial Fueling Network (the members-only commercial fueling stations I ought to be using when I'm on the road), which I discovered by driving all over the Bozeman area and going to all three stations, I filled up at Flying J, already fighting to stay awake, and made the rest of the drive to Butte. The Motel six in Butte is right at the junction of I-90 and I-15, and should be easy to find, but when you're exhausted and relying too heavily on GPS, things aren't as easy as they should be. Instead of having me exit I-90 and basically drive right into the motel parking lot, the GPS had me go down I-15, exit onto some middle-of-nowhere road, and drive into what looked like the hybrid of a trailer park and a train station, where I crossed no less than 30 sets of railroad tracks before ending up at the other end of the road that the motel was on. But even when I was going the right way, the GPS was trying to steer me back in the wrong direction, and when it started repeating, "When possible, make a U-turn," over and over without even a second's pause between repetitions, I threw it against the door of the truck.

I got all of the dogs inside the room and was ready to sleep by around 4:30 AM. Guido and Tony slept in crates, same as the night before. I slept about four hours before getting up and loading everyone out again, and this time it was an older, white, non-Russian man who kept asking me if he could clean my room yet. What the hell, Motel-6? Tell your housekeepers that check-out time is at noon and to leave me alone, especially when I've only been there four hours.

We got back on the road and had a pretty uneventful day. Either that or a lot of things happened that I can't remember because I was so tired. We got into Forks around 10 PM; all the dogs looked good, and my little ferals were all happy to see me, which was a little surprising, because in the past they've tended to revert slightly to their former, wilder selves when I've gone away. I took Maddie up to the small dog room and introduced him around; he was a little confused but he'll figure it out. Tony and Guido went into kennels, and Katie stayed in my room with me and the ferals. She is so good with other dogs, I may just keep her in here with me.

I have a couple of photos to share, taken with my phone again. The first is Maddie looking sad in the truck when I came back from lunch -- this was the sight that greeted me every time I returned to the truck after leaving him, even if it was only for a minute. (Don't worry, I always left the engine on during the day.) The second is Maddie when he smelled the ocean for the first time, as we crossed the Tacoma Narrows bridge.

More from the Road

2010-06-27T17:33:11Z

I'm sitting at a truck stop with some dogs in the back of the truck, and I have to take a leak, so I'm going to try to write this quickly. Here's what's happened since I left the hotel with the old guy in his pajamas sitting in a chair in the hallway:

First, I got my pizza, thanks to a late start when I left Madison:

That's at Gino's East in Chicago, and sorry about this, vegetarians and vegans, but there's a sausage patty that covers the entire surface of the pizza. (I can get into a whole meat discussion some other time.) It took me 2 days to eat this thing.

I had hoped to be able to get to the Anchor Bar in Buffalo in time for dinner, to have a repeat of my last drive to the east coast where I ate Buffalo wings in the place where they were invented, but it wasn't to be this time. So instead I pulled an all-nighter to get to Massachusetts and pick up Maddie, my first rescue of this trip. That's right -- Madison, WI to Templeton, MA without stopping to sleep, and then to Warwick, NY, where I grabbed a shower, picked up another dog, and hung out for awhile before finally sleeping. It took over 36 hours. It was only 1,300 miles or so, but there was a ton of road construction, plus the stop for pizza, the time it takes to do a rescue, the time it takes to get lost in Warwick, NY, the most confusingly laid out town I've ever been to, where despite having been there twice before, I couldn't find my way around. Anyway, the dogs:

Maddie is a cockapoo (a huge one) with numerous, severe bites in his history, including at least one that sent someone to the ER. He's been good with me once we got over the initial meeting. He sleeps with his head on my lap while I drive.

Katie is the dog from Warwick; the reason I have Katie is a little complicated, or maybe it's not. I got an email from a woman named Eileen in NJ who volunteers at a shelter in Trenton that had a dog named Dillon who had knocked heads with a small boy at a Petco adoption event. The shelter decided Dillon was probably dangerous and hired an outside firm to do a behavior assessment. The people who did the assessment were imbeciles and chose to interpret normal dog behavior as unpredictability, and decided to deem Dillon non-adoptable. Eileen wanted me to take him, but being in the hands of idiots and assholes isn't enough to qualify a dog for placement with me. So I worked it out with Warwick Valley Humane Society to take in Dillon, assess him, and if he turned out to be truly dangerous I'd take him, either now or in the future should his behavior change over time. In return for them taking Dillon, I took Katie, a little pit-type dog with a pretty interesting behavior pathology. Katie obsesses over objects, and her obsession can escalate to the point of losing control and becoming dangerous to anyone trying to handle her at the time. It's a behavior I've seen in other dogs, but where I've seen it the most is with wild cats. Katie loves plastic water bottles, Frisbees, blankets, but she can also obsess over things like grass or a person's fingers. It starts with nibbling and progresses to biting and shaking, so she has to be diverted. So far it hasn't been too difficult, but as she becomes more comfortable and settles into the Sanctuary, we may see some changes. Anyway, here's a picture of Dillon, now at Warwick, where he's available for adoption -- he looks like a boxer/pit mix to me:

From Warwick I went to Noblesville, IN. I picked up Guido and Tony; Guido was kind of a high profile dog -- here's the story. That's the first search result I found -- there are a lot more stories about this if you want to hunt around. Guido is interesting; he definitely has barrier issues. When I first met him he was very 'mouthy' but I could keep him under control fairly easily; when I left the yard and came back a few minutes later he bit me. The bite didn't do any damage, but probably could have. He went for me again when I was lifting him into the back of the truck, but since then has been fine with me once he is out of his travel crate. Inside the crate, he's pretty defensive. We'll get through it. Here's Guido:

Tony bit a couple of Hamilton Humane's board members, and truthfully, I took him because board members of animal rescues are usually a total pain in the ass and a thorn in my side. I instantly liked Tony when I heard he'd bitten not one, but two of them. Here he is:

Tony was named Toby before I took him, but I have a dog named Toby who looks just like him, so that needed to be changed.

From Indiana, it was back on the road. I stayed at a Motel 6 in Sioux Falls, SD last night, and this morning the Russian maids were hassling me at 10 AM to get out of the room so they could clean it, even though check out time was noon. So I've had bad experiences with Russians on both road trips I've taken to the east coast, the previous experience being at a restaurant in Jackson, WY, staffed entirely by Russians who wouldn't take anyone's order. But I'm not willing to give up on you yet, Russia.

So now I'm at a Flying J, and this entry ended up not being so short, didn't it? And I still have to pee. So I'm going to wrap this up. Seacrest out.

Motel Hell

2010-06-23T16:11:17Z

I'm not really the 'planning ahead' type when I travel. I'd rather be spontaneous and just see where the trip takes me, whether I'm getting dumped off in a foreign country or driving across my own. But the downside to spontaneity is that during the peak travel season, the hotels and motels fill up pretty quickly, and since I like to drive until I can't keep my eyes open anymore, getting a room can be a real problem. The first night of this trip I ended up spending $150 on a suite with a huge jacuzzi because all the cheap motels were full. The bed was uncomfortable, and bear in mind that my bed at home is a homemade wooden shelf with an old futon mattress and a bunch of dogs on it. Night two I stayed at a Super 8 with a really nice, soft bed, spent around $80, and slept for around 14 hours. I guess I needed it. Night three was a Best Western in Bismarck, North Dakota, where I was given a key for a room that already had someone in it. I opened the door and saw the TV on and the person's feet sticking off the end of the bed. I stood there for a few seconds debating whether or not to say anything, because s/he hadn't heard the door open. I opted not to roll the dice, and I got the hell out of there, but I think the person heard the door shut and came out into the hallway. I didn't look back. The guy at the desk gave me a free breakfast coupon that I didn't use, because I don't care that much for eggs. Once in a room that wasn't previously occupied, after opening the door slowly and calling out, "Anyone in here?" I slept pretty well, or at least well enough that I didn't get out of there until lunchtime. And then there was last night...

My GPS lied to me yesterday and told me I'd be in Chicago by 10PM. What the irritating little lady neglected to mention was that while she could tell me where I was in the US at any given time and how to get wherever I wanted to go, suggest restaurants to me, find gas stations and hospitals for me, she couldn't manage to tell me what time it was in the place where I was actually located at any given time or what time it would be at my destination when I arrived. So the arrival time I was looking at was in Pacific time, which, guess what -- is not really of any use to me when I'm trying to get to Chicago and have some pizza before I go to bed. I kept thinking, I don't remember Madison being ten minutes from Chicago...' and it's not. It's about 150 miles -- 2 hours with no traffic. But not realizing that my GPS was so good at some things and so bad at others, I called the Super 8 booking line and asked for a room in the Chicago area along the I-94 corridor. The woman on the other end asked me which location I wanted to stay at, and I said, "You're the one with the map." Seriously, if I wanted to look through the Super 8 book I wouldn't be calling. So she suggested three places and asked me which one I wanted to book, and I asked for prices, because again, she's the one with all the information, and that's why I called. Downtown was $120, but the one by O'Hare was around $60, so I booked it. When I got to Madison I called and canceled, and not wanting to have a similar telephone experience, I got out the Super 8 book and looked for Madison locations. The one I chose had the "Pride of Super 8" designation, and free HBO and Wi-Fi, so I called and asked if I needed a reservation. I was told I didn't, so I headed over, passing two other Super 8s on the way.

When I got there, I saw a guy with a weird gut, pointy man boobs, and fanny pack rushing across the parking lot to get into the lobby ahead of me, so I made sure that didn't happen. As I made my reservation, he got inpatient and started asking about the rooms -- he wanted a double room, but he didn't want to pay for a double room, so he was trying to finagle a single room with a fold-out couch. I'm serious -- he asked for a fold-out couch, and when the girl told him there wasn't one, he got really upset, like fold-out couches were standard in other motels. I've stayed in hundreds of hotels and motels, and I can't say I've ever seen a fold-out couch in any of them, but this guy had an idea and he wasn't letting go of it. As I left, he was trying to explain that he and his son weren't accustomed to sleeping in the same bed. Then get accustomed to paying an extra $20, jackass.

In the middle of the night I was awoken by a woman ranting in the hallway about something to do with disrespect and 'what she's been through', and I considered yelling at her to shut up, but then she was quiet and I fell back asleep. I was awoken again by the same woman, and considered going to the door and telling her to shut up face to face, but I quickly drifted off again. The third time she woke me up I decided to go into the hall and punch her in the face, but I was too tired and fell asleep again before I was able to fully measure the pros and cons of such an action. So what will tonight bring? I shudder to imagine it, but at least I'm not sleeping in my truck at a rest stop where I can't put the windows down because of the insects swarming outside. I'll leave you with a picture I took with my phone in the hallway of the place I stayed last night:

It was that kind of place.

Montana and North Dakota

2010-06-22T14:55:02Z

I'm heading to the east coast on rescues, and I've been 'tweeting' from the road, but I took a few pictures yesterday and wanted to get them online. They're not good pictures, and as bad as they are, they seem especially bad after working with Amber Chenoweth to take pictures of the Sanctuary dogs, but they do document the trip, so here:

I was driving on US-2 south of Glacier National Park and noticed a herd of mountain goats sleeping on the hillside above the highway. Just after that was a parking lot for people to use while they looked at a mineral lick that the goats used on the other side of the river. Everyone was crowded around the railing, and I assumed there must be more goats, and maybe they were closer, but it turned out that people were clamoring to see a single goat on a hillside about three times as far away as the ones I'd just seen. And since they were part of a guided tour, they couldn't go up to the highway to look at the larger herd. Suckers.

In eastern Montana I shot this out of my window while I drove. It's inspirational.

I made my way across Montana and into North Dakota, where I finally got tired of driving on secondary highways where I had to slow down to 25 MPH every 20 miles to go through some rundown farm town, so I cut down to I-94, but on the way my GPS showed that I was passing some kind of park (green thing on the GPS). I thought to myself that it would be cool if it was Theodore Roosevelt National Park, one of the only national parks in the west that I've been wanting to see but haven't had a chance to visit yet, but it looked too small on the map. Then I saw the entrance sign, and it was Theodore Roosevelt, so I jammed on the brakes and went in.

I'm sure Theodore Roosevelt has a lot to offer, but for me it's mainly interesting because of its bison. I'm kind of a bison fan, and there are a few places in the Dakotas where you can see herds that, while contained within the parks by fencing, are surviving in a wild state, vulnerable to predators and the elements. It was getting dark as I drive into the park, and I thought I might not see any bison, but about 15 miles in, I drove into a herd of them.

This bull was as tall as me -- the pretty obvious dominant male of the herd, although .
the 'leader' of a bison herd is a cow. Big as this guy was, he was tiny compared to how large bison used to get before the US government tried to wipe them out in an effort to starve the Plains Indians. This guy weighed about a ton, but a large bull 200 years ago might have weighed 3,000 pounds.

Here he is again with some calves in the shot.

This one was getting a bit frisky with me, and sent me scuttling around the side of my truck for safety a few times. I'm pretty cautious around these guys; I never left the side of my truck and tried to keep 'some truck' between me and them at all times. None of them took any threatening postures or anything, I just try to be safe.

On the way out I came across this longhorn bull and his herd -- compared to the bison I'd just seen they looked tiny. This guy was kind of a character, jumping and kicking when my truck got close.

More to come in the next few days; I'm leaving North Dakota this morning.

Dogs Matter

2010-04-07T22:09:08Z

Whether we're lavishing them with affection, maligning them for their violent behavior, parading them around as fashion accessories, or utilizing them as tools to aid us in our work or recreation, dogs are a pretty big deal. They mean different things to different people, but they mean something to just about everyone on the planet, and that's significant - you can't say that about cell phones, Volkswagens, hedgehogs, ball bearings, or lemon trees. You can't say that about most things in the world.

Click here to read the full article on the Olympic Animal Sanctuary website.

Another Strange Trip

2010-03-12T03:31:20Z

Last week my neighbor and I drove to Spokane to pick up two great Danes named Juno and Satina; the dogs had been declared dangerous after killing another dog on a neighbor's property, and they were facing an uncertain future with their usual pet-sitter leaving town and their guardian having an out of town job approaching. The dogs had been imported from Germany and were being bred, pretty regularly from the look of Satina, the older of the two. Satina was outgoing and happy to meet us, but Juno was shy at first, and did his fair share of growling and lunging. Once we got the dogs into the truck, they settled in nicely, and from Spokane, we headed south.

I dropped my neighbor off in Oakland, CA to visit with his family for a few days while I went on to Los Angeles, where I would visit friends and family and meet with some producers to talk about a possible TV show. Juno and Satina traveled well and seemed to be enjoying the ride. Satina was old (for a great Dane -- six years) and overweight, so she needed help getting in and out of the truck, but seemed otherwise content, so you can imagine my surprise when I returned to my truck after eating lunch at a Carl's Jr. in Chatsworth and found her dead in the back seat. The temperature was cool in the truck and as I replayed the last thirty hours in my mind, I couldn't think of anything that had happened that would have caused her to die. A bit in shock, I made a few phone calls, postponed my first meeting, and drove to the office of the veterinarian I had always gone to when I lived in southern California, so that he could perform a necropsy. Getting 160 pounds of deceased dog out of the truck wasn't the easiest thing in the world, but we managed, and I left Satina on the operating table, still a bit in shock, but more worried about poor Juno, who had just lost the only remaining thing from his prior life.

Juno surprised me a bit. I took him to my mom's place in San Juan Capistrano for about half an hour before we had to return to LA, and he seemed relaxed, even playful. We drove back north and arrived at the Hell's Kitchen set for our first meeting, and Juno was a hit. I had initially considered not taking the Danes to my meetings because I felt it might be too stressful, but with all that had happened to Juno, I wasn't going to leave his side. In the meetings, he did what big dogs usually do -- he slept.

I got a call from my vet about Satina; he had found cardiomyopathy to be the cause of death -- the walls of her heart were twice the thickness they should have been. He also found a diseased spleen and a large tumor on Satina's bladder that had spread to the spleen. The doctor asked if I wanted him to continue pulling tumors from the dog or to send tissue samples out for analysis, but there was no point -- the dog was essentially full of little time bombs. Had I known, I wouldn't have taken her to California, but I had no way of knowing. I was upset to have lost Satina so quickly; she never even saw the Sanctuary, but I had to focus on Juno, who was still very much alive and well.

We had two meetings that day and three more the following one, and Juno was a star -- a perfect example of why dangerous dog legislation is ineffective. Juno, who, if he was in Washington at the time, would have had to have been leashed and muzzled for the protection of the public, was a gentle, shy, quiet dog, and in the meantime, in Astoria, OR, a little girl was killed by her family's Rottweiler, who had no such restrictions placed on him. It was a tragedy that probably could have been easily averted, and as one family mourns their terrible loss, legislators and 'concerned citizens' are no doubt devising ways to prevent such an awful event from happening again, and the laws they are writing will no doubt punish dogs for the irresponsibility of those who possess them, and this tragedy will reach much farther than Astoria. It is already taking a toll; not until I looked up the story myself did I learn the breed of the dog involved -- everyone who had told me about the incident had said it was a pit bull. More bad press for pits.

But I'm getting off track. Juno, the "dangerous dog" was proving himself to be anything but. It was Friday and my meetings were all over; I gave some brief presentations to three elementary school classes at St. Margaret's where I had gone to school as a kid, and brought Juno out to meet my mom's fourth grade class, with a fence separating him and the children. He wasn't allowed on the campus, but being a little afraid of children, Juno was happy to keep his distance.

From the school we headed off for lunch with my friend Bob from high school and then back to LA where I had two rescues waiting. The first was Jill, a wolf-dog that had ended up at SPCA Los Angeles after no one could handle her in a home environment. Jill was shy, smart, scrutinizing. It was hard to gain her trust. I ended up spending about an hour at the SPCA with her until I was able to walk her on a leash, but even then getting her into the back of the truck was going to be a problem, so I opted to crate her and transfer her into the transport cage from there.

Next we went to a dog training facility where I met some previous clients and some new ones; I was there for Tesla, a doberman pinscher who had been accumulating a significant bite record and for whom the style of training the facility was using had not worked. The facility's owner and I had had an argument on the phone the day before that essentially amounted to her insisting that my methods would not work in an urban environment because the dogs needed to be under more control. In short, I can only do what I do because I live in rural Washington. I still don't understand the argument -- I have the same safety concerns that people in 'the big city' have, and I grew up in southern California, remember? I'm not some yokel who just rolled into town.

When we met in person, it was more of the same. I started out by badmouthing punishment-based dog training, to the delight of half the people there and the chagrin of the rest. Once inside the part of the facility where the dogs were housed, I saw a number of the items I had just finished disparaging: shock collars, spray bottles, choke chains -- Items used to cause pain and discomfort. I watched a yellow Lab jump and spin when he was shocked by his collar; his crime -- barking. The dogs weren't allowed to put their feet up on the fence when they greeted visitors. They weren't allowed to mount each other during play. They weren't allowed to communicate vocally. It was all about control and dominance. It was disgusting. Tesla was so stressed in that environment that she ran around nervously with a tennis ball in her mouth; she wanted to interact with people, but it was clear that she was on edge. I attempted to work with her a bit, but my gentle methods were entirely foreign to her -- she seemed to be waiting for the punishment to start, and the presence of her 'trainers' wasn't helping. The dog was a wreck.

I opted to just get Tesla the hell out of there. I took her out to the truck and had her jump up onto the tailgate, but she was afraid to go into the cargo area at first; I asked one of the young staff members to hold onto her for a moment while I grabbed some treats from the cab. He took hold of her so sharply, almost violently; it occurred to me that it wasn't only the dogs who were being trained inappropriately. Tesla went into the back of the truck on her own and I ended up not needing the treats. I stayed for awhile and talked with my new clients, got some firsthand accounts of a certain celebrity dog trainer's shortcomings, then got on the road. We got as far as Buttonwillow, CA before I was too tired to keep going.

Juno stayed in the hotel room with me, while Jill and Tesla slept in the back of the truck. Tesla had gotten into a bag of Juno's dog toys, which she had gathered around herself and made a sort of nest. She seemed stressed and didn't want to come out of the truck, but once I offered her a treat, it became clear that she wasn't stressed at all, just very comfortable. When I took her up to the hotel room for a little while, I realized what was really going on with Tesla -- she was feeling safe and secure, maybe for the first time in her life. Tesla was coming to me because of a history of biting; she was didn't like her head or feet touched, and she was a severe resource guarder. In the hotel room with me, she rolled around on the bed, and I touched the top of her head, pinched her toes, and tested her limits. She never bit me -- never even growled.

The next day we visited my friend Jason in King City, where I spent the night before heading to San Francisco to hang out with Melissa and Rick, then over to Loomis to see my cousin Tim and his wife Ali. I spent the night in Davis before going back to Oakland to pick up my neighbor, Chuck, and head north again. We made it back to Forks early the next morning, and I promptly got sick for about a week. The dogs settled in nicely; Jill got along great with the male wolf-dogs, and Juno and Tesla got along with everyone.

I wish I could say things slowed down, but with a little wild basenji mix from eastern Washington coming in, along with the last five of the Kennewick Eskimos, and Jack... sick or not, I stayed pretty busy. Maybe I'll get some rest next week.

Helpful People

2009-12-19T02:43:19Z

So a few weeks ago I visited a frequent flier forum to see if any of the members knew of a way for my organization to take donations in the form of air miles, as I know a lot of people travel for work and have a ton of miles but not a lot of money. For the Sanctuary, it would be helpful to use the miles for rescue trips, and I could also take miles in lieu of a paycheck, since I don't currently get paid anything. I didn't get any replies for a few days, and then this came:

"i believe that nothing is wrong by your thoughts concerning obtaining donated airmiles for charity purposes,but if i were the owner of any airline,i would insist that any or all donated airmiles do not involve charity website only,but involve having those interested to donate via your website,but your website would direct all donors out of your website linked to that airline.
That way,the airline could track each and every aspect of any donation.
the airline could ensure all miles being donated belong to those whom are donating them
i do not know anything about the process,but merely stating how i believe the process is probally maintained for the protection of all involved.
As to your mention of your own charity getting added to some list, i would tell you to telephone each and every airline to be directed to the correct department that handles those actions.
good luck, hope my thoughts enlightened you to atleast call the airlines on the phone,since that is the 1st thing i would have done,even though i know as much about the subject as you."

I know I'm being petty, but this really pissed me off. I stopped myself from blasting this guy two or three times and ended up not responding because I think he was really trying to be helpful, albeit in a really annoying, patronizing, self-indulgent way. Seriously -- what the hell? He says he knows nothing whatsoever about the process, and then states that, based on his complete lack of knowledge on the subject, he believes things to "probally" work a certain way. Then he says I should call every airline and ask them to add my tiny charity to their lists of huge nonprofits that they partner with; I may not be an expert on air miles, but I am an expert on nonprofit management, and that's about the stupidest business advice I've ever heard. I tell you what -- you call every one of the world's 120 plus airlines with frequent flier programs and see how far you get. In fact, call one of them and get back to me.

He then has the gall to suggest that his utter lack of knowledge on the subject would be enlightening to me and that he hopes I will take his advice, because, even though he knows only as much as I do on the subject, it's the course of action he would have taken, before bothering the busy, overworked frequent flier community to see if any of them might actually know something. God forbid I would try to gather information and do research before going to the airline directly -- wouldn't want to know what the hell I was talking about ahead of time, right? He says he knows as much as I do on the subject, but as it turns out, he knows quite a bit less, and that's impressive, because I know next to nothing. "If I were the owner of any airline?" Come on out of your ass some time -- it's much nicer out here. Of course, to be fair, that's an assumption, but I think it's a safer one than the ones this guy makes about how airlines handle their charity mileage programs.

Sometimes people try so hard to be helpful they end up just being a pain in the ass. 'I don't know the answer to your question, so I'll make some shit up.' Have you ever been driving on a city street and had to slam on your brakes because the person in front of you is stopping to let someone pull out of a parking lot? In being courteous to one person, he's pissing off the ten people that nearly wrecked behind him. Or what about that friend that insists that you sleep on her lumpy-ass couch instead of checking into a hotel with a nice, big bed and free HBO? She cooks you disgusting food for dinner so you don't have to spend your money at a restaurant. Thanks to her generosity you feel like a prisoner in some creepy David Lynch movie.

A few years ago I met a guy in Bangkok, and after we talked for a few minutes, I asked him if he knew where there was an Internet cafe. He said he did, and rather than give me directions, he walked there with me. The only problem was that he had no idea where there was an Internet cafe -- he was just a really helpful guy. After wandering around for nearly an hour, I told him I was hungry and wanted lunch; he showed me to a restaurant where I had the worst meal I ate my whole time in Thailand, and he told me he'd be back in half an hour to continue 'helping' me find Internet access. He was a really nice guy, and honestly, I was a bit amazed at how hard he tried to help me even when he had no actually ability to do so. And I still sneaked out the back of the restaurant and ditched his ass.

Last year in Costa Rica my friend and I had a flat tire -- a scenario I'd dealt with plenty of times, complicated by the fact that the vehicle was parked on sand, making it tough to jack up high enough to get the spare on. I had it under control, but then another guy showed up to 'help'. He was trying to impress my friend and show that he was handy and would make her a good husband or something, so instead of getting the tire on and going home, we dicked around in the rain for an hour, it got dark, and we had to have someone else come in the morning and take care of it. Nice guy -- I thought she should have gone ahead and dated him, but I wasn't as much of a fan the first night we met.

Running a nonprofit, my whole life is about helping, so I guess that makes me somewhat of an authority on the subject. There are a lot of ways a person can help, but sometimes helping isn't helpful. Sometimes you have to let people help themselves, or get out of the way so someone who actually has something to offer can step in. A little discernment is in order. Help where you're needed, leave it alone where you're not, and learn to tell the difference.

I realize this probably makes me sound like an ungrateful jerk. I guess I'm OK with that.

On the Road Again (soon)

2009-12-05T15:54:46Z

In a few days I'll be heading to St. Charles, Missouri on what will probably be the last rescue trip for awhile. I thought this would be a good time to start using Twitter, so if you're interested in the play-by-play, I'm @stevemarkwell. I have no followers yet and it's embarrassing, but on the other side, I'm not following anyone. Is it bad that I don't really want to? Regardless, Twitter can be a valuable promotional tool and I felt I needed to use it, along with Facebook and blogging, to give people multiple ways to connect with my work. With the article about the Sanctuary coming out in the LA Times soon, I figured I'd better get on it quick, too. Funny about MySpace... anyone still using it?

So check me out on Twitter if you're a ... Twitterer? Tweeter? What a stupid site. But I'm still going to give it a fair chance.

Slow Down, We're Going to Fast

2009-11-26T15:28:40Z

It's not a typo. American culture as a whole is missing something, and those who know me are probably sick of hearing about it every Thanksgiving -- fasting. We've got the feasting part down, but what about fasting? Fasting is an exercise that helps us focus on things that really matter, and what better day of the year to be mindful of important things than Thanksgiving?

I blew it this time, because I should have written this entry a few days ago, not this morning, but next year, consider fasting for 24 hours before your Thanksgiving meal; an easy way to do it is to stop eating when it gets dark Wednesday night and make sure you don't start your family feast until after dark on Thursday. During your fast, every time you feel your hunger gnawing at you, remember the people around the world who live with that feeling every day, but who can't just walk to the refrigerator or drive to a fast food restaurant to quench it. Have you ever not known where your next meal would come from, or when? If you've ever been hungry and without money, you know that it's more than just hunger, there's also a panic that sets in, that however unpleasant, is something all of us should probably have to experience at least once to know how it feels.

I learned this principle while living in Jerusalem; Jews and Muslims alike have fasting as an integral component of their religious rituals. Think about this: if you want to be especially mindful of the things for which you're thankful, which is more conducive to that state of mind, indulging in those things, or going without them? We have so much in this country; even the poor in America live like kings compared to people in some of the places I've visited. Sure, the economy's in trouble, but you're reading this on a computer that's connected to the Internet -- over 5 billion people don't have access to this thing that we can't live without. A short fast can give us a minute insight into a fraction of their experience.

A Word of Advice

2009-09-21T23:54:25Z

I received an email this afternoon asking my advice on dealing with a dog who tended to be defensive around strangers. The dog, a Doberman pinscher, had jumped up and nipped a man who had approached too quickly. The sender of the email said that all of the resources she had consulted had recommended a dominance-based approach, and upon reading an article about me in today's paper, she had become curious about what I did differently. Here is my brief (brief for me, at least) response:

I guess I'll start by saying that I used to go for the alpha dog approach, and I found that a few things happened. First, the dogs were stressed, which made them defensive and more prone to fighting. Second, when a fight broke out between two dogs, a third dog would usually nail me when I was busy trying to break it up. Third, the dogs were confused about their roles with regard to me, and tended to treat me as a resource that needed to be protected, against each other and against other people. It basically made for an intense, volatile environment.

When I started working with more timid dogs, I began using a submissive approach, and found that when the dogs were at ease and didn't see me as a threat, they were less stressed. I began using the same techniques with my other dogs, and found that they fought with each other less, and I wasn't getting 'sneak attacked'. I changed my attitude as well, from 'I'm the boss' to 'I'm the guardian' -- my job is to protect the dogs, and I don't have to be a pack leader to do that. I'm not a dog, I'm a human, and my role is to protect. When that's my attitude, the dogs eventually pick up on it and begin to feel safe and secure. They also see me as an ally, not a rival. In contrast. the pack leader is the most vulnerable dog in the group, because there's always another dog looking to depose him/her. What's more, the pack dynamics that are preached with regard to dogs are wolf behaviors, not dog behaviors -- a healthy social group of dogs does not have a pack leader. Healthy dog packs are loosely organized, and dominant/submissive roles are traded back and forth. Genetically, dogs are wolves; behaviorally, they're not. When we try to force them into a wolf behavior paradigm, they become stressed and start acting like wild animals, because that's what wolves do. So ask yourself, do you want a wolf, which is a dangerous, wild animal, or do you want a dog, which is a faithful companion?

Dominance-based training uses positive punishment, which legitimate behaviorists agree is outmoded and dangerous. Unfortunately, the "Dog Whisperer" and his ilk have brought about a resurgence of these inappropriate conditioning techniques that, at best, use discomfort to control animals. Freedom from discomfort is a pillar of the western animal welfare philosophy; choking, physically dominating, and intimidating are wholly inappropriate. Instead, we need to reward the behavior we want to perpetuate, and ignore what we don't like.

Don't put yourself at risk of physical harm, but work on a couple of things: first, be the human guardian, not the pack leader. You can adopt submissive postures that tell the dog you're relaxed, not worried, and he shouldn't be worried either. Often, by lying on my back, performing play bows, and mimicking other submissive postures, I end up with the dog basically demanding that I take a more dominant role, for instance, trying to crawl under my body when I'm lying on the floor. Consider how much more powerful that role of protector is when the dog has asked you to take it on, as opposed to you demanding it. Second, in tense situations, use body language to communicate to the dog that everything's OK. The trainer Turid Rugaas is the pioneer here; she calls this body language "calming signals". For example, if I am dealing with a dog that sees me as a threat and wants to defend himself, I may turn away slightly and yawn -- this tells him I'm not interested in fighting and don't intend to challenge him. You can use calming signals directed at other people, dogs, etc., too, which will communicate to your dog that those 'scary monsters' don't have you concerned. Do a search for "Turid Rugaas" and "calming signals" for more examples of these techniques. They're great for catching shy strays, too.

Look at the dog's triggers -- what are his problem behaviors and what sets him off? 99% of the time, his problem behaviors come from him feeling threatened. Decide which triggers you can reasonably remove from his life, and which ones will have to be addressed. I am a proponent of behavior management first, behavior modification second. This means that what you're already doing, taking small steps, and not giving him more than he can handle is the most important thing. Sometimes merely the passage of time is what's needed for a dog to shrug off some of the old behaviors. For example, if you have a dog that's threatened by strangers, it's better to give him time to forget how much they scare him than to expose him to them day after day, which only further cements the defensive response into a habitual reaction. I have a small terrier here that used to go crazy when he heard children's voices; here, he doesn't hear them very often, and when he does, he has no reaction. He's forgotten how much he dislikes kids. Another example -- I have some resource guarders here that are as bad as you can imagine -- 'kill you for a bread crumb' kind of resource guarding. But by not challenging them, they get better over time; they'll probably always be resource guarders, but nowhere near the level that they used to be. Had I responded every time to that behavior and physically taken the food or toy away from them, they'd have only learned to guard even more fiercely.

Regarding the pinch collar, I'd ditch it, because it uses discomfort to control the dog. I have a very simple technique for leash training, that can be a bit tedious, but it is gentle and effective -- when the dog pulls, I simply walk in a different direction. It sometimes looks like I am walking in circles, or even like I've been drinking, but by changing my direction, varying my speed, and keeping the dog guessing, he has to pay attention to me and follow my lead. There's no choking, tugging, or punishing here -- just redirection. You can use treats to augment this if you like.

Remember to take small steps and keep your expectations realistic. If you want a dog that will play at the dog park and go into Home Depot with you, you may need to adjust your goals a bit, but if you want a dog that can go for walks when there aren't thousands of people around and isn't going to break his teeth on the car window every time a jogger runs by, your chances of success are pretty good. Remember also that his happiness, not your convenience, is what's at stake here. You're his guardian, which means your job is to protect him and do what's best for him. You belong to him, in that sense. Keep his interests at the heart of your decisions, and you should be fine.

MBTI ESTJ INFP STFU

2009-08-16T06:51:39Z

In my freshman year of college I was enrolled in an applied psychology course, which it turns out is not a psychology course at all, but rather, a course intended to show students what academic and career paths they should pursue -- sort of a 'what you should be when you grow up' class. At that time I was committed to becoming a visual artist, so I found the search for what I should be doing with my life to be a complete waste of time, but the class was an easy A, so I stuck with it. But one day, the instructor had us all take the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator test (MBTI), and she then put the students into groups, based on their results.

I pulled my desk over to the group of people that were supposedly like me, and they began to speak, while I sat and listened. They were all very excited to meet other people 'just like themselves' and went on and on about it. It didn't take long before I asked myself, if we're all the same, why am I sitting here, quietly stewing, while the rest of them won't shut he hell up? So I decided to join the conversation, and said, "I'm nothing like any of you; this is total bullshit." Then I walked to the instructor's desk, informed her that personality typing was a pseudo-science and that I was going to the registrar's office for a drop slip, which I would return with before the end of class so she could sign it. So yeah, I guess I've always been this way.

The MBTI was developed by a mother-daughter team during World War II to help women determine what type of employment to seek during the war. The two had no formal background in psychology, but the theories on which the typology was based were from a book by Carl Jung. That does make it sound more scientifically sound, but the theories in Jung's book, Psychological Types, weren't scientifically tested. Oops.

You would think that would be the end of it -- that educators, employers, and anyone else with an interest in people's personalities would, upon realizing that the MBTI had no basis in science, dismiss it as lacking validity. But whether due to people's bizarre desire to neatly categorize things or their need to sum each other up into known quantities, the Myers-Briggs test has remained perhaps the most common measure of personality used in America. It's also shown up as a Facebook quiz, which is what prompted me to write about it. I know my friends who took the test did so for fun, not because they needed it to tell them what kind of people they were, but the tendency to cooperate in our own categorization is still a little disturbing to me. Maybe that's just me -- any time I hear someone say, 'There are two kinds of people...' I cringe a little, and immediately begin making a mental list of all the additional kinds of people there are out there.

If the only strike against the MBTI was that it wasn't backed up by experimentation, I could still see some potential value to it, but that's not its only problem; for one, the test consists of a series of forced choice questions, meaning you're given a choice between two answers, and you have to pick one or the other. You're also supposed to be able to leave a question blank, but that option doesn't always exist on Internet-based tests. So take, for example, one of the questions from the Facebook version of the test: "Would you rather be a scientist or a senator?" For me, I was equally inclined toward each answer; I could see myself doing both of those things. If I had to pick one, I don't know which one it would be, and it might be a different answer today than it would be tomorrow.

In fact, the answers to a lot of forced choice questions could go either way depending on the mood of the person answering, or what he saw on TV last night. People can overthink their answers. They can lie in an attempt to get the result they want. They may not know themselves well enough to answer accurately, or they may answer based on value judgments that may not even apply to the topic of the question. One version of the MBTI asks the test-taker to answer yes or no to the statement, "You are consistent in your habits." Might a person answer yes, thinking that consistency is a good thing, when in fact she is anything but consistent?

Forced choice questions often, if not usually, present the test-taker with a false dilemma, which is a formal fallacy. Formal fallacies are statements, arguments, or ideas that are logically faulty by virtue of their very structure, but the false dilemma might be the most common one. We're surrounded by them every day: Coke or Pepsi, Republican or Democrat, gay or straight, dog person or cat person, pro-choice or pro-life, creation or evolution, and on, and on, and on. Frankly, the lack of any room for a third choice in our national psyche strikes me as pretty, well, stupid, but it's pretty easy for us to fall into the false dilemma trap.

Besides most of the questions on the MBTI being false dilemmas, the possible results are false dichotomies. The results of the MBTI are split into four parts, in which a person is said to exhibit one of two traits: extroversion or introversion (actually they spell it 'extraversion', but I'm not going for it), sensing or intuition, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving. The first letter of each term is used to make up the label for the subject's personality type, except for intuition, which is represented by the letter N, so a person can be an ESTJ, and INFP, or some other combination. Saving you the math, there are sixteen possibilities. People are said to have a natural inclination toward one or the other.

Each of the dichotomies is measured by percentage, so if you answer 83% of the questions like an introvert, you're an introvert, and if you answer 52% of the questions like an introvert, you're an introvert. The test itself is designed to force respondents to fall on one side or the other by asking an odd number of questions in each category. Go back and change one answer and you're suddenly an extrovert; and they say people can't change... If you have a hard time answering a lot of the questions, finding yourself leaning only marginally one way or the other, you might get a result showing a very high percentage on one side, instead of only a slight tendency.

And what about those traits? Introversion and extroversion are pretty clearly opposites, but sensing and intuition? Thinking and feeling? I both think and feel that to be a bullshit dichotomy. I'd pick it apart bit by bit, but it's not that interesting. Let's just say that the theory gets increasingly convoluted and arbitrary the deeper into it you get, and honestly, what's the point? Do we really need to understand people based on their 'type'? Here's an idea: people are unique, they don't fit into our metaphorical boxes, and our perceptions of personality are entirely subjective anyway. Even if the four dichotomies are valid (and you know what I think), the healthy place to be is right in the middle. If the theory and structure of the MBTI were completely valid and effective, the only measurable result would be evidence of personality flaws, not type, and as a friend recently told me, no test is needed to show what mine are.