Office Doodle Notebook: Sketch, Scribble, and Monkey Around WITHOUT GETTING CAUGHT

Office Doodle Notebook: Sketch, Scribble, and Monkey Around WITHOUT GETTING CAUGHT Written and Illustrated by: Susan McBride
2006
Weight: Gifting it to someone

Depression is draining.  How can one be so empty and yet so heavy all at once?  Waking up and living each day feels like a massive burden.  It is impossible to communicate with all the people I felt like I knew so well just weeks ago.  I am ashamed and unable to look them in the eyes.  I need help, but I resent it.  There is nothing more irritating than being misunderstood, but why?  Aren't we all misunderstood to some degree every single day?

I know what it is like to distrust all the strangers.  To see them as possible pain points instead of people.  It seems it would only take a less stellar background or genetic flaw to make the leap and be someone much more sinister.  I can understand that now, but that just makes me feel more hopeless and more unable to "be the change I wish to see in the world."  That gives me no hope that any of those raging psychos emulating the president can or will change.  That he can or will change.  This just makes me more likely to stay in bed.

I am so irritable.  I feel like I have no control over myself.  I am just watching.  When I can put in the energy to do anything, I feel like the puppet master.  I made that happen, with my hands, but I am emotionless.  I cannot feel what the puppet can.  I think of those classic biographies where the author is sent away on doctor's orders to get some sunshine and overcome.  Who has that life?  Unlike the folks in those books, I think that would help me.  This is what depression looks like for the working class.  Struggle to get up for work, struggle through work, work overtime unpaid and be disappointed in your work, go home, struggle to stay awake, go to sleep dreading work.  Repeat.  Maybe throw in the stress of bills here and there.

Move on dark cloud.  Life was hard without you, but it is impossible with you.

Cesar's Way

Cesar's Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems by Cesar Millan

2006

Weight: 12 oz

Method of Disposal: Recycling

I am tempted to burn this thing just to ensure that no one tries to get it out of my recycling bin but, with all the natural disaster surrounding us, I am not sure I should risk adding to the problem--either by not recycling or by burning down my neighborhood!  As a shelter manager, I cannot begin to describe the harm done by Cesar.  So many adopters assure us that they will be great homes for our pups because they use all of Cesar's methods and they are THE Alphas in their homes.  They do not know that every last one of us is cringing.  We try to gently, without embarrassing them, lead them in another direction and encourage them to see a professional dog trainer that is more modern, more positive.  We know that being uneducated does not mean that they will be bad dog owners in the long run, but we also know that if we let them walk out the door and use Cesar tactics on their new dogs that many of them will come back with a set of issues that is different and more challenging that the ones they might have left with.

It is not common that a dog is euthanized for aggression at our shelter.  We see a trainer that specializes in working with aggressive dogs, and we try to screen and prep our adopters with all the information and everything we know.  We do have to say goodbye to them sometimes and one of the consistent things I have seen is that these dogs have often been through some fairly intense Cesar-style training and that it has broken the dog's spirit.  When they see people they see someone alien who does not have the faintest idea how to communicate with them.  There is something broken in these dogs that ,when you start to become aware of it, will make you break down into tears because you will feel the guilt, the disappointment, and the shame of a shelter worker who knows there was a different way.  It must be incredibly frustrating for these dogs to live each day with their families, trying to express themselves in so many creative ways and the only thing that makes people listen is what will ultimately get them surrendered and/or euthanized, and that is biting.  It is a last resort for many when they first begin trying to communicate but, by the time it becomes their go-to, you have a real problem.

I know there are people out there who use Cesar's methods or methods like them and have great success in molding the dog that they have always envisioned having.  Many dogs are so amazing that they learn and love us in spite of us.  That is often described as the magic of dogs.  Unfortunately, it is the intelligent, the fearful, and the aggressive dogs that usually do the worst with this type of training, and it is those dogs that people are most commonly willing to seek outside help from trainers for.  There are a lot of trainers out there that use old school methods of punishment and dominance, and there are many people who are not even certified but, after having read books like these and working with their own dogs, feel like they are experts and can help you.  These people seem to be drawn to working with aggressive cases.  I do not know why they are drawn to it--maybe it is the challenge--but I can understand why the dog owners are so desperate for a fix that they will try anything, even if it does not sit right with them.  It breaks my heart to see a loving owner who never thought they would give up on their dog, who has funneled so much time, energy, and money into mis-training their dog, come into the shelter in defeat.  All of those resources could have been used in other, more successful ventures but, by then, the owner is burnt out and cannot hear it.  Sometimes, in rare cases, the dog has given up too.

Cesar is right that dogs need exercise and that being calm and collected is essential to communicating with your dog.  That is what you might read that is useful in this book.  The things that might cause harm are assuming that your dog is like a wolf, that you and your dog are having a power struggle to be the more dominant one, that flooding is a useful tool in overcoming a dog's fears, and Cesar might even encourage you to read the wrong things in your dog's body language.  For some dogs, they will continue to be the loving, wonderful pups they were born to be with a little extra fear of their owners but, for other dogs, these methods can make them react and become dangerous.  There is a reason his show comes with the warning not to try his methods at home.  I would recommend you don't.  And, when given a copy of his books or one of his cds, do not pass it along.  If you read it, please also talk to other dog trainers and read other books to see if something feels a little more right for you and your pets.  I think that many people know in their gut something is wrong with his method, but they want so badly to see a change in their pet that they push that down and dominantly proceed ahead without listening to their own dog.  A relationship is built on mutual trust and respect, and it cannot be maintained without good communication.  Your relationship with your dog is not different.

San Francisco Panorama

McSweeney's No 33 San Francisco Panorama
2009
Weight: 3.4 lbs
Method of Disposal: Donated to Goodwill

I see hard things every day.  I watch baby kittens die for reasons completely unknown to us as humans, though mama cat seems to know which will live and which won't.  We fight nature.  I watch dog's hearts break into thousands of pieces while their owners drop them off and don't look back.  A mom telling her children in a chipper tone, "kiss your dog goodbye but don't touch him with your lips!"  Dogs with chemical burns all over their body.  Dogs who will live but are currently so sick that the life seems to leave their eyes, and they just lay in a heap in a cage no matter how much affection you shower on them.  I see dogs and cats being misunderstood. Every. Day.  People say, "that dog is just mean."  Really, she is just terrified and having the worst 6 months of her entire life.  I jump from one broken heart to the next to the next to the next.  This description is of just some of the animals I cared for this week.  Sometimes, the animal will be busting at the seams with gratitude and joy, which is wonderful and, yet, still so sad that they expect so little out of life that 15 minutes with me is enough to change their world.

I rarely break down.  I always power on.  After 10 years you would think I had seen it all, but I still get surprised almost weekly.  Then something not surprising at all, that I have seen many times before, will hit me with all the force of my first day all those years ago and my stomach will turn and my breath will leave me.  It catches me completely off guard.  The other day we sent a senior mastiff to be spayed.  She'd had many many litters, but we had her for awhile and she showed no signs of pregnancy.  She's old and ready to retire.  The vet tech brought her back, and the dog had the most forlorn expression.  The tech said, "She had one big baby in there.  She couldn't have passed it anyway." A solitary puppy.  But it was the word "big" wasn't it?  Or the expression on the dog's face?  Or the fact that she would have to "sleep it off" in a kennel all by herself along with all the other suffering pets.  No peace, no giant dog bed in a cozy home with doting humans.  She was truly and completely on her own.  More alone now, as her one big baby would have died or had to been euthanized after the spay.  No one expected to find that baby. She likely did not expect to lose it.  She just woke up, and it was gone.  Maybe it was painful but a relief or maybe it was devastating,  Her face seemed to tell me it was the ladder.

I wanted to bring her home but, with 5 dogs of my own and 3 foster dogs, all of which had made my stomach turn at some point, I knew I had nothing left to give her and, even if I could take her home, I would have to leave all the other broken hearts behind.  I covered her in a warm blanket from the dryer, pet her, spoke gently and then left with my partner to try to rescue two feral kittens who had been abandoned at the fire department.  No time to cry or to register what had happened to that beautiful mastiff.  It haunts me, like so many other things, though she was much happier today when I saw her just a couple days into her recovery.  I am so ready to see that dog go home and know that her new family will not have to carry the sadness of having seen her that day.  That they will be able to look at her and love her with pride and not the guilt of closing the cage and walking away from her on what may have been the worst or one of the worst days of her entire life. 

Helter Skelter

Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry

1994

Weight: 1 lb

Method of Disposal: Leaving in a Lending Library

Just reading this book and writing about it gives me the creeps.  I want to always be 500,000 miles away from anything The Family.  There is also a fine line between understanding what happened and glamorizing it--which has been done by countless magazines, books, tv shows.  I felt much more secure with Vincent Bugliosi.  I felt like I was getting accurate information, and I felt like I could trust him.  I will say that I bought this book many years ago, and I would not likely have bought it at the age I am now, knowing what I know now.  I just struggle with true crime.  I also resent the idea that Charles Manson craves and enjoys attention and that people give it to him.  Still!  He took away the lives of so many people (the exact number cannot be proven) and he just keeps on living, controlling, and making puppets out of people.  It is disgusting.  Reading this book made me struggle with my more recent (last 10 or so years) anti-death penalty stance.  I wanted him and Susan to be put down.  I recognized it was partly from fear.  Reading about them sent chills down into my stomach.  And fear should not rule your moral decisions, but it was hard.  I hate to admit that I do have regret that they were not euthanized before California changed their laws.  I think Vincent had every right and reason to write about Charles Manson and Helter Skelter because he lived it, breathed it, fought it for so long.  I am not so convinced that it is appropriate for many other people to do it, particularly after he has done it so well.

Strider

Strider by Beverly Cleary
2000
Weight: 4.8 oz
Method of Disposal: Leaving in a Lending Library

I am reading children's book in between all of my others.  I need something a little less heavy from time to time to get by.  Working in rescue, every day feels like a life and/or death day.  Survival, Fight or Flight, the best and the worst of people.  Living under a Trump Administration is like an ongoing nightmare.  Besides, with my eyesight going, the print is a little larger ;). 

I remember reading Cleary all the time as a kid, though I did not read Stryder.  It was nice to revisit her work and pleasantly surprising to read about the rescue of an abandoned dog.  It was not my favorite Cleary book by far.  That might be the Mouse and the Motorcycle, Dear Mr. Henshaw, or it might be one of the Ramona books.  I am pretty sure the mouse wins.