DOGS OF BROOKLYN out now!

That’s right folks after years of hard work both writing and walking DOGS OF BROOKLYN is finally here! DOGS OF BROOKLYN is Susie DeFord’s fresh poetic narrative about her colorful life as a dog trainer and walker in Brooklyn, NY with vivid photographs by Dennis Riley.

I’m really excited, however, a book no matter how good it is doesn’t sell itself. DOGS OF BROOKLYN needs your help to be a success. How you can help!

Like and share the DOGS OF BROOKLYN facebook page for updates on events, giveaways, and copious amounts of dog photos: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dogs-of-Brooklyn/201496963253879

Buy and review and share the book on Amazon and/or add to your Wish List. Reviews make the book easier to find online. http://www.amazon.com/Dogs-Brooklyn-Susie-DeFord/dp/0615565719

Help book and attend upcoming events! Please let me know if you have any ideas so far I’m thinking local animal shelter fundraisers/ readings but we need places to hold these.

Anyone good with computers/ social media? I’m trying to get the book correctly formatted for Kindle and other ebook places but could use some help. Also social media mavens please put the word out about the book!

If you write consider reviewing and pitching articles about DOGS OF BROOKLYN to blogs and magazines. I’m working on this but I can’t do it all alone.

DOGS OF BROOKLYN is a book that belongs to readers, dogs, Brooklyn and beyond. With help we can share our love of dogs and the city with the world.

Any ideas or help welcome- Please contact me at http://susiedeford.com/

The DOGS and I thank you!

Me and the Dogs

At 25 I made the naïve mistake of getting an MFA in Creative Writing at a private college in New York City. I had moved to Brooklyn, NY when I was 22 from Florida after finishing my BA in English at Florida State University. For three years I floundered around in various jobs at a tattoo shop, TV and film, public and private schools, baby sitting, dog walking, selling produce at street fairs etc. You name it I did it. One thing that’s great about New York is that you can always find work, it may not be the work you want but there are plenty of odd jobs. Somehow I paid the meager rent in my sub-basement apartment (that’s right, below ground, one small shoebox window under a sewer grate) and was able to eat. There were night I couldn’t sleep because I was so scared about money and the future, but I had hope because I was in New York and it seemed anything was possible here.

In 2003 I thought it would be a good idea to get an MFA to hone my craft and build a local writing community/ connections. I didn’t want to leave New York so I applied to three schools—two local and one low residency. I only got into one school, so that’s where I went.  There was no thinking about how I’d pay for it. The school helped me apply for and set up a student loan program.  They had no teaching assistantships or scholarships really, though I think I was able to get a yearly 2k scholarship. They didn’t care how I paid back my loans either as long as they got paid.

I hadn’t done any research on schools with funding or really given it much thought at all. I thought when I graduated I’d just sell my novel and pay my student loans with the book advance. Needless to say that didn’t happen and when I graduated in 2005, I had $37,000 to pay back. Not only that but the MFA program was super unsupportive—both the faculty and students. Despite doing well in the program and really trying to connect with people I finished feeling no better off than when I’d started. A few years later when applying to residencies and then PHD programs I couldn’t even get letters of recommendation from most of my former teachers. I had to hit up my undergrad professors who are thankfully lovely generous people who have always been supportive of my work.

In case anyone is unaware, the job market is not pounding down the doors of people with MFA’s—shocking, I know.  After graduating, I worked in publishing production for about 5 minutes. I got a job at McGraw Hill in the building above Madison Square Garden. My parents finally thought I’d made it. I had an office job with benefits and a somewhat decent starting salary. I commuted everyday to the clusterfuck of Penn Station during rush hour. I tried my best at a job I wasn’t properly trained for. I routinely got yelled to the point of tears at for making mistakes though I was really doing my best. The florescent ceiling lights and soviet block architecture had me sitting on the steps of the main library on 34^th street eating my lunch with the passed out bums just to be outside of that place. I got laid off 3 months later, had to move out of my apartment, and got dumped. 2005 was a stellar year.

When things fall apart sometimes it’s for the best. Some of the most painful times in my life have lead to the best changes.  I applied for deferment of my student loans. I thought about all of the jobs I’d had so far. The only one I somewhat enjoyed was dog walking. I called up a few dog walkers I knew in the neighborhood and told them I was available for work if they needed help. Luckily one did. I worked for her for a few months then started my own dog walking and pet sitting business full time since I’d always been doing this on the side anyways.

I was so angry at the world and the writing community for not publishing my book or being supportive that I quit writing and just played in punk/noise bands for a few years. Once I was making a little money I started doing minimum payments on my loan though I was really resentful and angry. I felt like the school had taken advantage of my naiveté  by charging all this money for essentially a useless degree. Resentment though is like drinking poison and hoping the other person (or school) will die.

My dog business continued to grow as my bands fell apart, now I was angry at music for the same reasons as the writing community. I even resented dog walking despite loving the dogs, because I felt like I was this super educated person picking up dog shit for a living. The truth was I was afraid it was all I could do and that it wasn’t  “good” enough in my eyes or in the eyes of the world. I started to have problems with my health- chronic ankle pain, a burst appendix that landed me in the hospital for a while, and then getting hit by a car. Thank god I’d started to hire people to work with me at that point with the dogs or I would’ve completely lost my whole business.  I’d also met and started dating a really nice supportive guy around that time which helped me get through it.

Some time on my ass in hospitals and at home helped me be grateful for the things I did have instead of always looking at what I didn’t have. Up till then I’d had my health, a family who loved me, and a job that supported me. I started to realize the least common denominator in all of my problems was me and my thinking. I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself for all the things life wasn’t giving me and start being grateful for what I had. As for my job I was clearly in this dog walking profession for a reason and maybe instead of thinking it was beneath me, I’d just try to do the best at it I could. I finally grew up and accepted life on life’s terms and decided to go out there and do the best I could with what I had. This is when things really started to change for me.

I began to learn about dog training and help clients train their dogs to make their relationships and lives easier. I let go of the rock scene. It didn’t really do much for my mental health—it was more of a spiritual vacuum than writing ever had been. I began writing again, working on a book of poems about Brooklyn and the dogs to give a voice to this odd life of mine, and the characters, animal and human, I encountered everyday.  My boyfriend began photographing the dogs to go along with my poems to help me with my book.

I took responsibility for my student loans and began to attack them with everything I had. I paid as much as I could every month instead of paying the minimum and being depressed thinking that I’d never pay them off. The dog walking business fluctuates—some weeks it’s great and some weeks are slow. When I’d have fear about money I’d pay more on my loans, or give an employee a raise, or contribute a little to a charity. I call this daring God to financially take care of me—faith in action. I wanted proof that I’d be taken care of. Initially, I’d do it and sort of cover my eyes afterwards waiting for the ceiling to fall in. It never did. Inevitably, I’d get a new client or business would pick up with training or pet sitting. I learned that instead of holding on so tight to money, if I trusted the universe that there would be more money, there actually was.

The most amazing thing that happened was that one day my parents (who are not rich) called me up and said they wanted to help me. They wanted to give me a yearly contribution of 5K for my student loans. I was really proud and hadn’t asked my parents for money since I’d left Florida and felt weird about it. I told them I’d think about it. After thinking about it I told them I’d take it, but only if I could match it every year. I figured it would be tight but I could try to pay $400 a month or more towards loans. This was in 2008, I think. I still had 30K in loans so I figured if I did this for 3 years I’d be done.

Dogs of Brooklyn cover designed by Claudean Wheeler

In 2010 I finished the poetry book I’d been working on and started submitting it to publishers. I got the same lackluster response as my novel did, though I had some poems published in magazines and even got paid for one by Dog Fancy Magazine. After a year and a half of this I was done. I talked to a friend in publishing about self-publishing and she actually said it was the best way to go these days. I hired a book designer and worked hard with friends to edit it etc. The result, Dogs of Brooklyn, can be bought by clicking here!

I had all these notions that I wouldn’t be accepted by the publishing world if I self-published. Maybe I won’t, but I’ll have something tangible to show for all of my work and that’s all that matters to me right now. I’ve had friends publish with major publishers and barely make any money or get any help with promotion from them—it didn’t solve all their problems in other words. Once again I found I needed to change MY thinking about things. I seem to be the only one limiting my own success with narrow ideas of what success means.

Dennis, Me, our dog Phoebe at Wedding in Prospect Park

This year I also married the supportive, non-punk rock/artist, but wonderful man I’ve dated the past 3 years. I never thought I’d marry someone who works for the government, but I guess two crazy/moody artist types just makes for double the crazy. Again, not who I thought I’d end up with, I had to be open-minded, and am so glad I was. He accepts me, and my crazy animals and is smart, funny, and easy on the eyes.

I sent in my final student loan payment last night. I only had to accept 2 of my parent’s contributions. The rest I paid myself and I’m proud of that. I believe so much is possible if I can just be more open-minded. Sometimes when one door closes or won’t open, you got to take a window.  Next on the agenda, trying to buy an upstate property for dog and Susie sanity, seems impossible but who knows! Happy 2012!!!

My kitchen table

When I started a dog walking business several years ago, I never expected to someday be a manager with a few employees. I really care about the quality of work we do more than quantity, which has probably hurt me financially but at least I can mostly sleep at night.

As my business grew I also began to have ankle problems from an old broken ankle injury. At 30 I had to start wearing orthotics in my shoes and while that helped somewhat, I started seeing that walking 5-6 hours a day was causing me a lot of chronic pain. I had to take on employees to help out so I wasn’t in constant pain.

Hiring and managing employees has been such a challenge for me. In this business we have peoples pets, which are like their kids and keys to their apartments. They have to trust us and I hold that trust as sacred. So I have to really train and trust employees that I hire which is tough. I’ve probably had an equal amount of good and not so good employees. I’m a pretty nice boss to work with when people care deeply for the dogs and quality of care we provide. I pay my workers more than other dog walking companies do, give raises and bonuses, try to give them time off when they ask, and thank them constantly for a job well done. People don’t realize dog walking is a tough job, we’re out in heat, rain, sleet, and snow for hours at a time running up and down stairs etc. And I really appreciate my loyal and hard working employees.

However, I’ve had to fire three people for either bad judgment, dishonesty, or inconsistency. Firing people is the last thing an employer wants to do. Lord knows I’ve lost jobs in my early 20s and I used to demonize those employers who let me go. Yes some were kinda jerks, but in hindsight I realized I absolutely had a part in things. I tried to show up and do a good job but sometimes when I was doing jobs that I didn’t care about, I’d have a bad attitude. I learned over time what kind of work I cared about and wanted to do, which radically changed my attitude and ultimately led me to start my own business.

Most of our clients are pretty reasonable, but we’ve definitely had a few who have been hard to work with. Not to mention that dogs sometimes have had serious behavior issues. If their owners are willing to work on the behavior with us we’ll usually work with them, but it’s been surprising when owner with dogs—often who are biting—don’t have time or want to deal with trying to fix the behavior. Needless to say I don’t work with those clients long term, it isn’t worth the risk to me, my employees, or the other dogs we care for.

I have enormous compassion for people in management positions. We are ultimately responsible for everything that goes down in a day even if we aren’t the ones doing every bit of the work. It’s a delicate balance when you have to turn over some of the control and trust others to do a good job when it’s your business/baby. There have been nights I’ve lost sleep, had serious heartburn from stress, and bawled my eyes out when I or one of my employee’s made a mistake. We are all human and doing the best we can, mistakes happen I realize. We do our best to amend any mistakes.

Sometimes I think I care too much about work and doing a good job. I recently had to get rid of my Blackberry email because my quality of life was really suffering. I wasn’t present to my family and friends in my down time. I’d often get emails at odd hours of the day and if I saw that the little red light on my phone was blinking of course I’d check it. I realized most of these emails didn’t need to be dealt with immediately. I check my email a few times a day from my laptop, that’s generally adequate. Clients can text or call me if they have an immediate need or emergency.

It’s really tough having your own small business. I cannot call in sick and I am responsible for a lot. However, I don’t think I could trade it and go back to working for someone else. I can mostly make my own rules that I feel okay with. I don’t want to work for places that have rules and regulations I don’t agree with and have to do it anyways.

I think some of it is that I really dislike being an adult sometimes. I know that sounds funny but it’s hard! It’s ironic because I can remember as a kid just wanting to be an adult and get out of my parents house and be on my own. Now that I am though sometimes I wish I could go back. Don’t get me wrong I’ve always paid my bills on time etc. but sometimes I just wish I could be some trophy wife or something and have someone take care of all the daily ins-and-outs for me. Sadly, I’m too fiercely independent for that. I really believe in being self-supporting and not being over dependent on anyone for money.

I guess we all just gotta deal with it. It’s a tough economy for most of us and  I’m grateful to have a job. I give props to all the other managers and grown ups out there. May you have restful nights and settled stomachs!

Phoebe doing Urban Agility

I’ve blogged many times about my dog Phoebe since  she was given to me last year by a client. When they got her from a shelter in 2009 she was a growly shaky mess at people and dogs. Phoebe’s previous owners had a baby in 2010 and despite her overall improvement, her aggressive displays when people came over worried them. She never bit anyone but she definitely nipped at heels and could be pretty nasty and scary looking when she was scared. I think they made the right decision for their family and I was grateful to keep her since she and I had developed quite a bond in the time we’d worked together.

When I got Phoebe in January 2010, I immediately enrolled us in an agility class. She had some basic obedience commands but as a scaredy dog she really needed to build her confidence by learning new skills. At the beginning of our 6 week class she was afraid of the jumps and tunnels. By the end she was showing off and so proud of herself to be able to navigate these new challenges. After that we turned Brooklyn into our own urban agility course. I’d have Phoebe jump on stoops etc. as we walked through the neighborhood. Anything that she could stand or walk on I’d cue her to jump on and give her treats. This made walks a lot more fun for both of us.

Phoebe still was a bit growly and barky when meeting new dogs on the street on leash. We realized we we not helping the situation by pulling her away with the leash and saying her name in a stern voice. In fact, we realized by doing that we were cueing her to freak out. I don’t recommend this for everyone, but we started dropping her leash when we met other dogs. We greeted them first using a happy voice while Phoebe snuck around and investigated them from behind. This seemed to help her anxiety meeting other dogs and she’s improved with that as well.

As for people who wanted to say hello to her, we would hand them a treat and have her give them high fives etc so she was more focused on doing tricks and getting treats than worrying about a new person. It also kept new people from scaring her by reaching over her head (which most dogs don’t like) and petting her inappropriately. Shy dogs appreciate a sideways approach and an underhand chin scratch greeting more than a stranger’s hand coming over their head and patting it.

We take her several times a week up to Prospect Park for off leash hours. Mostly she would stick close to us and occasionally growl or bark at other people or dogs. Sometimes she would play with us and run around if we were away from the other dogs. Again over time this improved but aside from occasionally sniffing other dogs, she’d stick with us.

So imagine my surprise the other morning when she met another little terrier named Toby and actually started to engage in play, jumping around, running, bowing in play pose with a big grin on her face. She had never played with another dog before! Then she met a little Pomeranian down the street from our house named Richie and started doing the same thing. I almost cried with joy.

It can be hard having a rescue dog with issues and sometimes you wonder if they’ll ever feel stable enough to come out of them. Phoebe is proof to me that with time and consistent positive training a dog can get better and have a happy life, despite how difficult its beginnings may be. A lot of it is being willing to examine my actions with my dog and improving those as well as being consistent with her. I feel like a lot of owners give up on their dogs too quickly or aren’t willing to look at what they might be doing that contributes to the problem.  Dog training isn’t so much about training the dog, it’s about training yourself to behave in ways that help your dog to understand what it is you want them to do instead of the behaviors you don’t want them to do. This doesn’t just mean yelling “NO!” at them every time they do something wrong. It means showing them other behaviors you want them to do instead so they learn it’s fun to work/live with you instead of just getting yelled at all the time.

Dogs are nonverbal, dog training should be quiet. I don’t say much to dogs when I’m training them. I give them physical and verbal cues but I don’t repeat myself. If I’m saying “Sit, Sit, Sit” then I’m doing something wrong and need to look at that. I want them to do the behavior on the 1st not the 3rd or 10th request. When I go to off leash hours I hear so many people yelling at their dogs over and over again. It annoys me, so I can only imagine how the dogs must feel considering their hearing is so much better than ours. What if everyone worked with cheese or hotdogs on recall at home then at the park making it super fun and awesome for a dog every time they came? What a peaceful morning it would be for all of us. I think the owners and dogs would be so much happier. We really have to ask what is important to our dog–its usually fun and treats. If we’re the most fun thing in our dog’s life with the best treats there’s no end to what we can teach them and what they can ultimately teach us.

19th century illustration of La Fontaine's Fables by Jean Grandville

I have been in the pit of despair, climbed out, and then jumped right back in. Living in Brooklyn, NY I am surrounded by successful writers and artists- some lucky ones are even making their living off their art. I have been writing stories and poems since the age of 9 or 10 and my dream has always been to publish a book. I followed this dream through undergraduate and graduate school. I rang up quite a bit of debt getting my MFA in creative writing at New School University. I thought I’d finish my novel sell it and pay off my grad school loans with the book advance. That didn’t happen. I finished a novel that was the best a twenty-something writer could do but probably wasn’t very good and needless to say didn’t get published. I also didn’t publish my first collection of poems despite publishing a few here and there in various literary magazines. I was so disgruntled I stopped writing for a few years and just played in bands screaming my head off and being angry at the world. Those bands sadly didn’t take off either.

During all of this I started to find my way in a career of dog walking and dog training. At first it was really humbling to see artists around me publishing books and having their bands succeed while I was battling the elements picking up dog doo. In 2007 I found myself a few years out of grad school with nothing to show for it except a lot of debt and bitterness. One of my awesome undergrad poetry professors David Kirby was nominated for a National Book Award around that time. He and Barbara Hamby, my favorite poet and mentor, came up to NYC for the ceremony and I had breakfast with them. I spewed all of my garbage and disappointment at them and they kindly said “Why don’t you write about being a dog walker in Brooklyn?” Thus began the my book of poems “Dogs of Brooklyn.”

I worked on it for 2-3 years carefully crafting and editing poems. I had other friends and writers look over the work, published some poems in various literary magazines, and did some readings. When the book was “finished” (are books every really finished?), I began sending it out to all the first book contests in the back of Poets and Writers Magazine and to lots of different publishers. My then boyfriend, now husband, Dennis Riley photographed the dogs and we thought about making it a photo/poetry book. For a year and a half I spent money and time trying to get other people to publish and approve of my work. I was also writing for BOMB magazine interviewing poets on their work. In combing through the pile of books they get sent for review I definitely saw that while my book wasn’t maybe the best it also wasn’t the worst. I’m constantly amazed by some of the amazing books that get published and some of the ones I cannot believe got published. I felt like while I may not be the best poet out their I certainly am not the worst. But I also came to understand that in the hyper-intellectual world literary world poems about dogs aren’t always accepted.

I realized the people who liked my work weren’t necessarily the literary world, but regular folks who loved animals and Brooklyn. While I could sit around and be bummed that The New Yorker (who’s poetry I rarely enjoy) won’t publish my work, I realized that being yet another disgruntled artist really wasn’t productive. I come from a background of publishing my own zines in high school and being in the DIY punk rock band scene who put out their own records. I decided that even if the literary scene doesn’t believe in me, I do, so I will publish my book.

I’ve been working on it the past few months with a designer and some volunteer editors. I can’t tell you the highs and lows of this experience. There are days where I’m really excited about it and days where I’m filled with so much doubt, despair, and self-hatred I find it hard to function. I’ve received some really lovely feedback from folks in the writing community and some not so nice feedback. The format I’ve decided to publish in probably won’t support photos the best so I may have to publish it without them to keep costs down, and that is disappointing. We are still figuring it out.

There are times where I question why the hell I’m even bothering doing this. I guess overall I’m doing this as a gift to myself. I’ve worked so hard on various writing/ creative projects that haven’t seen the light of day and when you spend years working on something I guess you want something tangible to show for that. Maybe its a huge mistake, maybe I’ll never have a writing career with a faculty position at some college and have the admiration of all my peers (sounds a little like high school right?) But at least I’ll know that I tried my hardest to respect the work I’ve done and time I’ve invested.

It’s funny though in talking to my friends who have “made it” and are having success with their artistic careers they still struggle too particularly with money. It seems odd to me that they have published books and still sometimes have to juggle multiple adjunct jobs etc just to pay the rent. I’ve been really lucky that I have established a career working with dogs and I’ve always been able to pay my bills for the most part and have time to write. It may not be the most prestigious job, but particularly since I started training dogs, I get to really help people and their animals. I guess in this “race” I’m the tortoise and not the hare. I’m slowly getting okay with that.

When we arrive in Accord we go to the farm. We drive on a little bridge over a creek onto the property. It’s a nice little cabin decked out in cowboy style décor. When we get there the owner is chasing chickens out of our yard, there are horses grazing, dogs, cats, and rabbits running around. Things are great Friday and Saturday. We go to Pizza Barn in Accord which is good Friday Night and hang out on the property with our dog and all the other animals they have on the farm. Phoebe our dog is psyched to chase the chickens and rabbits around. Saturday we go to Sweet Sues in Phoenecia for pancakes and we wind up going to Shandaken Day in a big field in town.

Pre-Hurrican Chaos, Shandaken Day

There were all kinds of booths set up and we wind up getting our pictures taken by this wild Parrot Lady. Then we drive to Woodstock. We head back to Accord for a while to rest. Then go to Saugerties to Fez for dinner and Lucky Chocolates for desert and had a nice chat with Rae the owner. Then the rain starts so we head back to the cabin thinking it’ll just be a bad rainstorm.

WE WERE WRONG! In the middle of the night the power, water, sewage goes out. We have no ability to flush the really full toilet that is backed up from all the water. There are crazy sounds outside and we and the dog are freaking out but can’t see anything because it’s so dark. We wake up early when it starts to get light out. It’s still pouring rain. We go outside. A tree fell crashed through our fence and just missed the cabin.

Tree in front of cabin

Outside Cabin

Another fell up by the main house and took out the main power line.

Power lines

The horses are running around the property. Then we look down towards the road we came in on. The small creek we went over is now a rushing river that has covered the bridge and is inching up the property to the barn and our cabin.

Road into and out of Farm

I’m freaking out that we’re basically trapped and I want to get in a fistfight with the farm owners since obviously the property floods and they lied to me to get my deposit instead of letting us out of it due to the coming storm.

Property Flooding

We start talking to people in our building in Brooklyn on our cell phones, they haven’t even lost power but our basement is flooding. They are taking shifts sweeping the water out. We ask them to go upstairs and check on our apartment and cats and everything is fine there. Only one small leak we already knew about and it’s not too bad.

We hang out in the cabin and try not to freak out more even though we have to go to the bathroom in the yard next to the fallen tree since the toilet is screwed up. Periodically, we go to the car to listen to the radio news. Apparently, the city is fine but upstate NY (where we are) and New Jersey are getting slammed with flooding. I’m keeping my mouth shut and not fighting with the people on the property even though they have a generator running in their house and we’re in the dark.

Finally, in the afternoon the rain stops. The water goes down enough for us to wade through and walk to “town” to see what damage has been done. The main roads are flooded and no one can get anywhere. We make it through another night hoping the water will have gone down enough for us to drive back to Brooklyn Monday morning.

On Monday morning, we get up and pack the car. The water has gone down enough for us to at least get off the property. I go up to the main house to try to get some of our money back since clearly we aren’t going to be staying here with no power, water, toilet for a whole week. I have to fight with the people to get our money back, but I’m from Brooklyn and I don’t take no for an answer! What assholes! We get out of there and drive back but instead of 2.5 hours to get home it takes 6 because there are all these roads closed and the news isn’t reporting it so we don’t know it till we hit traffic. When we finally get back to Brooklyn I want to kiss the sidewalk. I’ve had occasional thoughts about living upstate but I think after this I’m happy to stay in the city with my working toilet and electricity for the rest of my days.

The Catskills area got really messed up by the storm. More info can be found on how to help here.

Getting married is totally weird. First of all, I thought it was all about the couple getting married, but I see now that was pretty naive. It turns out its like planning a big event for your family and friends who often have their own ideas of what a wedding is or should be. I have been really surprised by some of the people I thought would come that aren’t going to make it, luckily a lot of people have come out of the woodwork to show up. This whole experience has made me re-examine some of the relationships in my life because a lot of them are not what I want them to be. I’ve had a lot of close friends move in the past few years and sadly we aren’t as close, I realize I need to put more effort into finding local supportive friendships with some new folks, and its hard to make new friends at 33 years old. I think running my own business I have often let my relationships take a backseat to work. I’ve gotten a lot of perspective and I know I need to make some changes.

So the wedding is happening this Saturday in Prospect Park at 930am, hopefully it won’t rain! The dogs are a part of the ceremony though we’re pretty sad that we lost our best man Rusty a few weeks ago. He had struggled with his health over the past few years and we finally had to let him go. He was an amazing dog and we miss him terribly. I wrote this poem for him a while back (of course wordpress is messing up the formatting)

Rusty photo by Dennis Riley

Tug of War

For Rusty

What happened to you? Gregarious guy knocking

me aside, running up slippery stairs ebullient, bone

in mouth, hopping on the hairy bed fit for a king,

you allow me in, but not to sleep. Stir morning

wake and all eighty pounds of you bounds down

upon me, sniffing and licking, painful paws digging,

giant head nosing and nudging me to my feet. Big

body barking like a girl, not even a bellow, a shriek.

Pulling me to the park, off leash beseech the squeakiest

ball, so you can feel like you’re a crazy killing machine.

Drop for catch, wait until I bend down to scream-plead

your demands into my panged ears. Once you’ve caught

your kill between big teeth you fake fetch tricking

any empty hand in your lair into and unwitting game

of Tug of War. You won’t let go, after only six years

no more Prospect Park’s green and trees. Your solid

stride scarred and clicking from surgery. A clock

making us all more aware of time and how little

of it there is. We are all going grayer, clinging

to anything solid in this turbulent sea.

——-

Rusty and all the dogs teach me to stay in the day/moment because that’s all we really have and we are lucky to have it. I’m very grateful to have met my match and to be going into this new phase of life with him. More soon about the wedding and our parisian honeymoon!

Me and Phoebe

I’ve been training dogs and working more with shelters and rescue groups over the past few years. I used to think animals only wound up in shelters because of over-population (no spaying or neutering) or severe behavior problems. Upon meeting many of the dogs in shelters I realize that a lot of them are just victims of bad circumstances. People often get a dog as a puppy or adult and get them home and realize how much work it is to own a pet, decide its too inconvenient and either drop them at a shelter or try to find a new home for them. I am completely alarmed by people’s willingness to dispose of a pet. I consider pets family members and even though family can occasionally get on my nerves I wouldn’t disown them.

Don’t get me wrong; I understand in cases of safety if a dog is aggressive towards you or others that is a difficult situation that sometimes has difficult solutions. But that isn’t the case with most of the dogs I work with. Mostly, they have quirks like trying to eat food off the sidewalk, go after squirrels, or get in the trash—these things are not extraordinary to me. Dogs do not naturally know how to live in our world, it is up to us to teach them what is and isn’t appropriate behavior. Imagine going to a foreign country where you don’t speak the language and the rules and customs are different from your own. That is what our pets face every day living in homes with us.

My own dog and cat are from situations like this. People got them thinking they were cute and then realized they had their own personalities with their own needs. My dog Phoebe is an amazing creature. When she came home from the shelter she was very scared and growly. I worked with the owners and showed them how to work with her to help her feel safe and know what was and wasn’t appropriate behavior in their house. They and she did well for a while and then they had a baby and her training and walks went by the wayside and she started getting growly and possessive again. I understand they had fears about her with a small child involved, however she’s done marvelously in our house so it is possible. She tried some of her nonsense when she moved in—chasing the cats, guarding us (sometimes from one another) etc. She got time outs in the crate anytime she did any of this. We addressed it immediately and she very quickly learned that behavior wasn’t going to get her anything good in our house. Behavior that doesn’t add anything to a dog’s life usually extinguishes on its own.  She’s learned to get our attention she needs to be polite, to sit and do other tricks. We give her long walks and chew toys to keep her busy and stimulated. Can you imagine how bored and into getting in trouble you’d be if you spent all day in an apartment and only got out for a few short walks to pee? I’d personally lose my mind. Yet people expect their dogs to be okay with this.

A lot of people wait to give attention to their dogs until they misbehave. They ignore the dog sitting around calmly and pay lots of attention to it yelling at it or whatever when it jumps up or gets into trash. Dogs learn the way to get attention is to misbehave. I believe in catching my dog exhibiting calm, good behavior and rewarding it instead of just paying attention to her when she pisses me off and she does sometimes. For instance, Phoebe thinks the cat litter box is a buffet. I can either get upset with this or clean it more often which makes the cats happier. This is a small example but it serves a larger theme. The problems we encounter are opportunities for growth. Sometimes we have to grow as people to deal with the responsibilities in our lives. There is no better feeling than stepping up to the plate and manning up and helping train a dog who’s been having trouble. I’ve had some of the most shut down dogs learn to trust me, and that trust is gold as far as I’m concerned. A dog that trusts you will do anything for you. They don’t want to piss us off or cause trouble, they want a stable home where they know the rules, it takes the pressure and stress off them as well not getting yelled at all the time. It usually doesn’t take all that much effort from us either. A little bit goes a long way. For example, I carry treats on walks to help my dog focus on me and feed her in food toys and she stays out of trouble for the most part that way. Little changes like this in your routine can help.

Basically, our pets want a relationship with us. They want us to be present, not chatting on the cell phone on walks and spacing out. They want to walk with us and be engaged. This is the Zen of dogs and we can learn a lot from it. Dogs are not disposable, they have needs just like we do, and when we meet them we grow and become better people for it.

Phoebe at Prospect Park photo by Dennis Riley

The new year has been full of ups and downs and we’re only a month into it! On New Years day I got an interesting email from the dog Phoebe’s (who I’ve talked about frequently) owners. After having a baby and some behavior backsliding (mainly guarding her people like a bone she wants no one to take) they decided to re-home her, and asked me if I would like to take her. I, of course, wanted to say yes but I had to clear it with Dennis and the cats first. We began by doing a few visits to see how the cats (and Dennis) would do with a dog in the home. Surprisingly, the cats were less offended by the dog than they were by each other. When the cats met there was  a lot more hissing growling and chasing around than when they met the dog. Phoebe tried to chase them a few times, but got a time-out in her crate each time, and has since stopped.

The two most valuable things to Phoebe are her people’s attention and her food. If we immediately cut off her attention when she’s practicing rude behavior and only give her attention for polite behavior she will practice the polite behavior more and the rude behavior less. She’s guards us a bit in the house when the cats or visitors want to interact with her so as soon as there’s a growl, bark, nipping, anything- into the crate she goes and can only come out when she can behave herself. We give visitors treats to introduce themselves to her and when she calms down we give her a food toy to keep her busy or a rawhide, she’s too busy working on that to worry much about visitors. She’s a work in progress, but hey, aren’t we all? We’re feeding her exclusively through KONG’s and other food toys where she has to work to get the food out which helps drain some of that terrier energy. She loves it, its far more stimulating than just eating out of a bowl. Its like getting to play with her food- a game and dinner all in one! We’re going to start an agility class soon also to give her an outlet for her high intelligence and energy.

People ask me what it is about Phoebe that makes me love her so, after all the years that I’ve worked with dogs and managed to keep a boundary of not actually taking any home. I think its getting to see the transition with time, training, love, and trust from growling shaking mess, to happy, loving dog. I never take aggressive behavior personally, its just behavior, growling, barking, and nipping has worked for her to keep people away and keep herself safe. We’ve had to teach her that people are safe and good to be around. I actually respect her self control, she’s been scared to death at times and never bitten anyone Like me, it takes her a while to trust people but once she does she’s a real love. It just takes some patience. We both adhere to the Reagan era saying “Trust, but verify.”

In other news, I’ve been having loads of problems with my feet and ankles from years of dog walking abuse. Apparently, walking for 5-6 hours a day, running up and down stairs, and getting yanked around by dogs is taking its toll. I’m seeing doctors but basically if I keep it under 3 hours I don’t have as much pain so I have to have more employees to take care of the dogs. I’ve had a hard time with employees, I’ve had a few amazing ones, and a few really not good ones that I had to let go. Its tough because I care about all of the animals as if they were my own and finding employees that take this business that seriously isn’t easy. People think its just a leisurely job but its serious, hard work, and a lot of responsibility. Plus you have to know or be willing to learn about dog behavior and training when you’re putting dogs that don’t know each other together or you could have a dog fight on your hands. Not to mention working outside is great when its nice outside, this winter I’ve felt like we were on an episode of Deadliest Catch, that show where they are crab fishing in the arctic ocean, except instead of crabs we have dogs. The weather has been the worst I’ve seen it in 10 years. Loads of freezing rain and blizzards. Thankfully, the weather will always change but there have been days this winter where I’ve been in pain walking in a blizzard and cursing my career decisions but obviously God has me here for a reason. I try not to question, just show up, and pay attention so I don’t miss the lessons and have to keep learning them over and over again.

Both Phoebe and I have been forced to trust others for our survival, if we can just let go it can be great, but we’re both in the “verify” state so we hang on trusting a little bit at a time.

Dog Nativity pic borrowed from Tamara Dormer's facebook profile : )

Happy Holidays everyone! I can’t believe it has been two months since I last blogged but a lot has been going on. I guess I’ll just start where I left off at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah. Despite it being an amazing learning experience and forming great relationships with the other trainers and the dogs out there they didn’t choose me for a Dog Trainer position. I am really disappointed on a professional level, but on a personal level I feel relieved. I would’ve loved to work with the amazing people at best friends but my fiance wouldn’t have been able to move out there for a while, if at all- there aren’t exactly a ton of archiving jobs in the middle of Utah. I hope to be doing some work with them locally with their Community Training Partners Program and have kept in touch with the trainers Pat, Jen, and Tamara since I got back to New York. It’s tough on the old ego but I think it’s for the best. Looks like the dogs I worked with are continuing to make progress. I spoke to pat the other day on the phone and he said Sir Uno is running around like a puppy playing which is huge. There’s some footage here. Firefly has continued to make progress with her dedicated caregivers/ trainers and was adopted! More here. So the good work is still being done and I’m getting to do work locally helping out with Pets for Life/ Safety Net Program and volunteering regularly at Sean Casey Animal Rescue in addition to training pet dogs in Brooklyn.

A week after I returned to Brooklyn I moved in with my fiance. Perhaps the old Higher Power knows what he’s doing. Had I gotten the job in Utah I would’ve had to postpone moving in and getting married and those are two things I’m glad I didn’t have to give up. They say “Rejection is God’s Protection” and perhaps our relationship wouldn’t have weathered the whole Utah Brooklyn separation well. Moving in has been great but its also been a trip since both of us have lived alone for the past ten years. So far we and the cats are getting along with minimal hissing. We’re starting to plan our wedding for Memorial Day weekend 2011. Hopefully also with minimal hissing.

On the writing front I’ve decided to stop blogging for BOMB after a year and a half to focus on my own writing, getting married, and doing more work with animal shelters. I love poetry and writing but ultimately my priorities are spiritual- the relationships in my life and being of service to the community with my skills. Creativity is important but at the end of my days I think I’ll be more concerned with how much I loved and helped people and not how much I published. I think the publishing thing is just ego. Ultimately it’s the being creative that makes me feel good, publishing anything only gives short term satisfaction.

Its funny how I let my ideas of what I think my life should be or look like effect my happiness in life. My life looks nothing like what I thought it would years or even months ago. When I can let go of my ego and ideas and accept that maybe I don’t know what will ultimately give me lasting satisfaction and be grateful and accepting of the blessings that I have today, only then can I really be happy.

Phoebe photo by Dennis Riley

For today I’m grateful that:

I get to have a sleepover party with my pal Phoebe.

I have awesome people and animals in my life and we’re all healthy.

I took Christmas weekend off work and am going to see Peewee Herman on Broadway.

It really doesn’t get much better than that!

Happy Holidays!