A Facebook Rant from Eric

Someone named Eric left these comments on our Facebook page, and if they weren't strange enough by themselves, he left them on a listing aimed at trying to find a home for an abused dog.

Eric, I'm going to extend a courtesy to you that you didn't see fit to extend to me; I'm not going to call you names or call your intellect into question, because for one I don't think I really need to, but also because I believe your comments, however off base and inappropriate for the venue, come from a place of concern for animals. I'm going to address your statements, and maybe you'll understand what we do a little better.

First, I don't appreciate being called a "retard", not because I think even for a moment that there's a grain of truth to your name-calling, but because it's offensive to mentally challenged people. I actually care about people with disabilities, and I'd love it if you'd show them a little more respect.

You say that biting is never natural -- have you ever seen a dog's teeth? What do you think those are there to do? I promise you they're not decorative. But if common sense isn't enough for you, there are 4.7 million reported dog bite incidents in the United States every year, and those are just the reported incidents. Based on stats from the dogs we care for, fewer than one in twenty bites are ever reported, and that means that, statistically speaking, every dog bites someone a few times during its life. Guess what that means -- dog bites are a natural thing. If there were a few hundred or even a few thousand dog bites in the US every year, I'd say we had a problem, but there are millions, and as I said in the LA Times interview, that's not a problem, it's a fact of life.

You say the dogs run my life; I don't know how you would know that, but rest assured, I'm as much in control of my destiny and my daily routine as anyone can be, which is to say I decide what to do from day to day and I make plans for the future, and tomorrow I could be hit by a truck. You say my dogs are aggressive -- I say they're misunderstood, by you and by others like you. Some of them have been the victims of horrific abuse; others have been bred to be dangerous, but I don't consider any of them aggressive. Sometimes they're defensive; sometimes they're afraid; sometimes they engage in behaviors that are natural for a pack hunter. Also, your definition of aggression isn't accurate by anyone's account of which I'm aware.

You tell me to stay away from dogs -- if I do that, all the animals currently under my care and protection will die. Is that what you want? I suppose my best response to your suggestion is DUDE STAY AWAY FROM COMPUTERS!! Seriously, what goes through people's heads when they write this stuff? Most people wouldn't even respond to you, and rest assured I'll get flack for giving this my attention, but I do it for two reasons -- one, you can't possibly be the only one who holds these misguided opinions and by responding to you I can address the various issues you raise, and two, this is fun for me, and I'm allowed to have some fun once in awhile. Moving on...

As far as what I tell "all of humanity", and by the way, most of humanity doesn't speak English and has no idea who I am, here's my message: animals are not morally culpable for their actions and they are not property to be disposed of at will. It is our responsibility to care for companion animals regardless of how inconvenient that care may be. It can be boiled down to compassion and responsibility; along with pettiness and sarcasm, those are the main principles by which I try to live my life, both personally and professionally.

Next, you say "total freak show" and again, you're being very insensitive to disabled people, whether you realize it or not. Grow up.

"Canine rehabilitation exists to make dogs better" Eric -- what do you think we do here? We rehabilitate dogs; we make tremendous strides. For example, I have a dog that had literally hundreds of bite incidents before he came here, and since he's been here he hasn't bitten me a single time. He loves me, licks my face, plays with other dogs. That's not magic, it's rehab. I have feral dogs who were never touched by human hands, and after months of traditional conditioning they didn't improve -- now they sleep in my bed with me at night. That took years of hard work and rehab. You're completely off base -- if we didn't "make dogs better" what would be the point? You say that dogs are unhappy living with what you call aggression and with instability -- while we wouldn't use those exact words, that notion is one of our most basic tenets, and I'm unsure of why you would think it otherwise. Our goal for every dog here is that the animal be healthy, happy, and safe -- they can't be any of those things if they are constantly afraid and defensive. But what you seem to be missing is that, unlike what you've no doubt seen on TV and appear to be basing your criticism on, rehab is an ongoing process, not a short-term fix-all that can be completed and forgotten. The dogs still have their bad days, and we don't give up on them when they do.

When I first started out I believed that with sound conditioning I could take any dog with a problem behavior and turn the animal into a model citizen; it's the basis of a number of television shows, which, by the way, have the benefit of editing. After doing this work every day for several years, I have a better understanding of dogs and of rehab in general, and I know that it's often preferable to use management as my primary tool and save behavior modification for the issues that absolutely require it in order for the dog to be healthy, happy, and safe. That means if I have a dog who kills cats, rather than expend countless hours trying to reprogram that dog's behavior, I just keep the dog away from cats. Behavior modification can be stressful for the dog, and there are a lot of mistakes that can be made, so it's not the first place I go. And a funny thing happens; when you manage a dog's behavior, the habits and patterns begin to break down, and you end up modifying that behavior anyway, only you get to do it without being confrontational and risking undue stress to the animal.

Even when you have made tremendous progress with a dog, though, there's still a problem; I believe, like many rescue groups, that every dog is adoptable to the right person, but unfortunately the right person usually has five or six dogs already. I had nine before I finally purchased a commercial property and began doing this full-time. I can do a lot of work with a dog and all but erase the dangerous behavior patterns that made that animal a threat to people or other animals, but that doesn't change the fact that almost no one wants to adopt a dog with a bite record, or a dog that's killed another dog. And unlike what you've seen on TV, sometimes rehab takes years to make a profound change -- few people want a dog that's only going to live a few more years. Besides, if I was to rehabilitate my animals for the purpose of adoption, they would be competing with shelter dogs for homes -- dogs that would have a much better chance of fitting into a traditional home environment without serious incident. I know that my animals would have a much lower success rate and I'd be getting most of them back anyway -- they may all be adoptable to the right person, but realistically, it's me or they die. But just because making them adoptable isn't one of my goals, that doesn't mean I don't rehabilitate them and set other goals for each of them.

I think you're confusing rehabilitation with punishment. You appear to be advocating techniques that involve correcting a dog's behavior, and that's something that I, and most of the legitimate animal behavior community, are not in favor of; the mantra, 'reward the good, ignore the bad,' is the most progressive and effective approach to dog training. It's too easy to give a dog mixed signals otherwise, and techniques that use positive punishment (look it up) are dangerous both to the dog and the handler. I suggest you do more research -- reward-based conditioning is far and away the most effective method out there. It might interest you to know that most of the dogs here came to be here because of positive punishment-based 'rehabilitation' that only caused their behavior to further deteriorate. So-called "canine aggression experts" have kept me quite busy with the dogs they've traumatized and mishandled.

Regarding our "bad publicity for canines" I think you're completely out of touch. When Lassie and Benji are held up as the models for what every dog should be, and any deviation from that Hollywood image is seen as a problem, the result for dogs is horrifying. You may not see it, but I deal with it every day -- a dog in an animal shelter growls at someone, is labeled vicious and is killed. A frightened dog nips at someone who mishandles her and she's killed for it. I get emails every day from people making huge issues of minor incidents: 'My dog guards his food and if you don't take him right away I'll have no choice but to put him down.' What are people demanding of their dogs? Some of the worst cases are those that result from 'positive publicity campaigns' like breed ambassador programs; pit bull breeds, for example, are now held to a higher standard than other types of dogs because breed clubs have gone to such great lengths to promote them as gentle and loving, while dog fighters have continued to breed them to fight and kill. This 'good publicity' has led to an unrealistic idea of what a pit bull should be, and the majority, who can't make the grade, are killed. It's atrocious.

What it really comes down to, though, is that people, you included, don't really know what a dog is. You may know what a dog looks like, what it eats, how to walk it on a leash, but you don't really understand what dogs are -- they're wolves that came in from the cold. They're carnivores, predators -- it wasn't that long ago that fighting, biting, and killing were the very things human beings wanted these animals to do, and now that we've chosen a more civil and passive lifestyle (in theory anyway) we need to give our dogs some time to catch up, and cut them some slack when they fail to live up to our standards.

The last thing I'd like to address is the idea that I'm proud of being bitten by dogs, that I somehow enjoy pain, or that I'd rather take credit for being some kind of tough guy than for being a loving and qualified caregiver to my animals. When I first read the LA Times article about my work, I was a little taken aback because I felt like it focused a lot on my 'bravery' and 'toughness' and those aren't the things that come to mind when I think about who I am or what I do for a living. The fact that I'm not afraid of being bitten doesn't mean I enjoy it -- I don't. Maybe I am a little proud of my scars, but why shouldn't I be? I've earned them.

So Eric, I don't know who you are, what you do in your life, or what makes you qualified to pass judgment on me and how I do my job, but I suggest that if you have such a problem with what I do and how I do it, and you know so much more about it than I do, you start your own organization and you do this job better than I do it. I'd love to have another rescue to refer people to.

There are roughly three kinds of people who oppose what my organization does: the first type are those who think our animals should be killed on some kind of warped moral grounds; the second are those who believe we will fail because they have failed, and that their own incompetence somehow bears on our capacity for success; the third are those who think we have failed because we haven't achieved perfection and magical Hollywood results. It's time for that last group to come live in the real world with the rest of us. I work hard, I'm good at what I do, I have a lot of successes and a few failures. How about you?

Posted on January 11, 2010