Zack Skow – Pawsitive Change – How Shelter Dogs Saved a Dying Man
Zack Skow came from a high performing military family. But taking a few wrong turns almost killed him. Find out how a former alcoholic and drug addict facing liver failure at a young age – found his way back to healing and commitment to life through helping shelter dogs. Now Zack has created a program for incarcerated people to learn to train shelter dogs and prepare them to be adopted in forever homes. Over ten thousand inmates have graduated, and 500 dogs have been saved from euthanasia in shelters. Find out how these dogs changed the lives and the fate of serious offenders and helped them turn their lives around. And how loving a dog can change the fate of a man.
Listen to Episode #37 Now:
BIO:
Zach Skow, Marley’s Mutts Founder rescued Marley, a Rottweiler-Pit Bull from the Mojave Shelter in 2002 at eight weeks old. He used to carry him around in a backpack with just his head poking out.
When Zach was diagnosed with end-stage liver disease, it was Marley who helped pull him from despair and into the fight. It was his relentless love, omnipresent affection, and “today can be the best day of our life” mentality which helped Zach live again.
When Zach contemplated suicide, Marley looked at him with a blinding affection that just couldn’t be ignored. He forced Zach to love himself by giving unconditional love.
Zach founded Marley’s Mutts in 2009 and nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status was granted in 2010. Growing from a nonprofit about dog rescue providing second chances and rescuing the unrescuable dogs, was the Pawsitive Change® Prison Program and Miracle Mutts® Therapy Dog Program.
Sadly, Marley was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 15 and fought a courageous battle. He crossed over the Rainbow Bridge in 2016Marley’s Mutts and the Mutt Militia are his legacy.
Transcript:
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Announcer: This is Pet Life Radio.
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Announcer: Let's talk pets.
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Announcer: Welcome to The Human-Animal Connection show, where we believe we can communicate with all animals.
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Announcer: Join us as we explore the 33 principles and healing methods of The Human-Animal Connection.
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Announcer: As animal lovers, we know that you share our commitment to making the world a kinder place for all creatures.
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Announcer: Together, let's embrace the transformative healing power of The Human-Animal Connection.
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Genie Joseph: Hi, everyone.
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Genie Joseph: It's Jeannie Joseph from The Human-Animal Connection.
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Genie Joseph: So glad you're with us because this show is going to be life-changing, I know, for you and the animals who share your life.
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Genie Joseph: I'm speaking with Zack Skow, and he is the creator of Marley's Mutts, I'm sorry, Marley's Mutts, and the Positive Change Program, which works with incarcerated people, bringing shelter dogs that might not have a good chance of getting adopted into work with people who are incarcerated, and a whole training program that trains not only the dog, but the person to really find a whole new way of approaching life.
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Genie Joseph: And the moral of the story is that we're not at the mercy of our past, that we can make change, and this is just so exciting.
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Genie Joseph: So, Zack, tell us your story, how you got involved in this.
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Zack Skow: Well, in all fairness, with your little Freudian slip, we did have a Marley's Mittens.
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Zack Skow: So we did have a cat rescue component to our organization.
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Zack Skow: That was called Marley's Mittens.
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Zack Skow: So, it's not entirely incorrect.
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Zack Skow: Yeah, so my name is Zack Skow, and I founded Marley's Mutz 15 years ago in 2009.
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Zack Skow: I've always been in love with dogs.
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Zack Skow: I've always really loved dogs, always been very good with dogs.
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Zack Skow: My first memory is being bit by a dog, believe it or not.
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Zack Skow: A wolf hybrid in the bum.
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Zack Skow: That was literally my first memory.
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Zack Skow: But I didn't let it dissuade me from loving dogs in every way, shape, and form.
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Zack Skow: But to kind of give you the synopsis of my story, I did not always want to be involved in animal welfare.
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Zack Skow: I had no real desire.
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Zack Skow: I didn't know how that worked.
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Zack Skow: I was not intrigued about becoming part of the pet industry.
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Zack Skow: That was never part of my trajectory.
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Zack Skow: My dad was an aeronautical engineer and a pilot, so I wanted to be a fighter pilot.
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Zack Skow: That's what my dad did.
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Zack Skow: He was a top gun instructor.
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Zack Skow: My heroes have always been fighter pilots, so that was what I wanted to do.
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Zack Skow: Long story short, I fell victim to the rigors and the pressure and the attractiveness of alcohol and drugs.
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Zack Skow: At a very early age, without going into all of my childhood traumas and the rest of the sociocultural kind of surroundings, I just became enveloped with that.
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Zack Skow: I started drinking at an early age, started using drugs at an early age, and became head over heels addicted to that process of filling myself with alcohol and drugs so that I could be with myself.
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Zack Skow: It was very, very difficult for me to be with myself if I was not intoxicated.
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Zack Skow: I had just a deep self-loathing, a deep unappreciation of myself.
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Zack Skow: I didn't see what other people saw in me.
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Zack Skow: I was just kind of, as I shared before, just an egomaniac with a tremendous interiority complex.
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Zack Skow: I didn't think much of myself, but that's all that I thought about, if that makes sense.
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Zack Skow: And I started my work experience with dogs started in the early 2000s, when my dad moved up to Kern County, and I started volunteering at the Kern County animal shelter in Mojave, at the Mojave Air and Space Port.
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Zack Skow: And that really changed my life.
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Zack Skow: I got two of my dogs there, Tug and Marley, and I started volunteering for several local organizations.
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Zack Skow: And I did that because I was just careening towards rock bottom.
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Zack Skow: I mean, I was drinking at that point 24 hours a day.
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Zack Skow: I was waking up to drink.
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Zack Skow: I was drinking as much as I could physically ingest just to get through the days.
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Zack Skow: And I knew that wasn't sustainable, so I was just trying to find anything that would offer me some sort of redemption, if not in the eyes of myself, like in the eyes of other people, so that I could tell other people, oh, yeah, well, I may be an absolutely perilous alcoholic and drug addict, but I'm volunteering for the animals, for the animal organizations, and you can't hate on me that much because I'm spending a lot of time with the Tehachapi Humane Society.
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Zack Skow: And that was a wonderful experience because I got involved in how it all works.
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Zack Skow: I got to see a lot of the deficits, like what they're failing at in terms of fostering and true rehabilitation, training rehabilitation.
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Zack Skow: Back then, it was mostly much older women who were involved in rescue, who couldn't take on much, but were doing everything they possibly could to make a difference, but did not provide a lot of training, did not apply a bunch of comprehensive rehabilitation.
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Zack Skow: And that process led to me working for a bunch of those organizations early on, and then I went into liver failure.
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Zack Skow: My body just couldn't take it anymore.
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Zack Skow: I started to turn yellow in 2007.
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Zack Skow: I started to take on weight in my belly.
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Zack Skow: I started to have these moments of non-mental clarity where I didn't understand what was happening to me.
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Zack Skow: I know now that's because I had ammonia building up on my brain because my liver wasn't filtering it out.
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Zack Skow: I did my best to lie about what I was going through until I was essentially leaking blood from both ends.
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Zack Skow: And I couldn't hide it any longer.
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Zack Skow: And yeah, I'll never forget.
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Zack Skow: I went into the hospital locally here, and I sat down with the nurse.
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Zack Skow: She called me over to sit down with her, and she put her hand on my hand, and she just started to pet my hand.
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Zack Skow: And she goes, honey, here's your blood test results, and you're in acute liver failure, and you're really, really sick, and you need to go to a hospital right now, and you can die from this, and you need to take me seriously.
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Zack Skow: And I, of course, did not.
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Zack Skow: I went home, and I lied to my dad about what they said.
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Zack Skow: I told him, only wine with dinner and blah, blah, blah, just anything I could to keep the charade going until I couldn't keep it going any longer.
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Zack Skow: And it was very obvious that I needed to be hospitalized.
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Zack Skow: So I went into the hospital a couple of weeks after that.
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Zack Skow: I was checked in for long-term care.
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Zack Skow: The doctors gave me less than 90 days to live without a transplant.
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Zack Skow: Just basically said, look, you need to live with a transplant, and you're not going to get one.
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Zack Skow: You need six months of sobriety just to qualify for a transplant, and you're not going to survive six months.
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Zack Skow: So we're going to try to keep you comfortable.
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Zack Skow: We're going to feed you pain medicine to deal with what you're trying to cope with.
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Zack Skow: And we just hope we can be there for you.
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Zack Skow: And I stayed there for almost six weeks, and towards the end, they were trying to send me home on hospice care, and I was just getting sicker and sicker.
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Zack Skow: I'd become addicted to Dilaudid by that point, because I was getting it.
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Zack Skow: You know, Dilaudid is like opiates on steroids.
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Zack Skow: You know, it's a very highly produced, effective opiate.
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Zack Skow: And it took me, it grabbed me the moment I was first injected with that.
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Zack Skow: And so I just, if you graphed my wellness on a chart once I went into the hospital, I got sicker and sicker and sicker every day I was there.
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Zack Skow: I was just in an absolutely hopeless scenario.
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Zack Skow: It was just really my dad and I living at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital.
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Zack Skow: And by the grace of Doug, at one point, my dad had been communicating with some nurses at UCLA through my insurance, who then put us on to the comprehensive transplant program at Cedars Sinai.
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Zack Skow: And I was granted a meeting with their transplant team at Cedars, which is where I was born ironically.
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Zack Skow: And so we, you know, pulled everything out against doctor's orders, signed all the paperwork, you know, basically liberating me from Bakerfield Memorial Hospital.
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Zack Skow: And we sped down to Cedars Sinai, and they admitted me into the transplant program.
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Zack Skow: And what Dr.
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Zack Skow: Tran basically said is, you know, this is very close, this is very touch and go.
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Zack Skow: And, you know, you're as sick as it gets, but I'm afraid if we keep you in this hospital, you're going to die.
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Zack Skow: And so the only chance we have for you to survive six months so that you can qualify for a transplant is to send you home.
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Zack Skow: So we're going to send you home to the care of your dad and your dogs.
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Zack Skow: And you need to stay near an emergency room because you're going to need one.
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Zack Skow: We're taking you off most of your medications.
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Zack Skow: You're going to have to kick opiates also.
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Zack Skow: And they sent me home.
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Zack Skow: And it was terrible.
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Zack Skow: It was the worst experience of my life.
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Zack Skow: I mean, there is a dread, there is a full body, full transom dread that comes over you when you are kicking opiates.
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Zack Skow: And I was so physically ill that just the process of getting through opiate withdrawal was potentially deadly.
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Zack Skow: I was convulsing.
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Zack Skow: I was having a really hard time mentally, spiritually.
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Zack Skow: All I could, my brain kept defaulting to suicide.
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Zack Skow: It was just to get out to leave.
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Zack Skow: I wasn't going to physically survive.
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Zack Skow: So what am I even trying to survive for?
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Zack Skow: I couldn't cope.
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Zack Skow: I didn't know how to be strong.
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Zack Skow: I didn't know how to be strong outside of my dad and my dogs.
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Zack Skow: No, they were the only strong things in my life.
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Genie Joseph: And how were the dogs responding to you when you were in that condition?
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Genie Joseph: What did they, you know?
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Zack Skow: Oh, well, Tug was my main boy, Tug and Marley.
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Zack Skow: And Tug, it was very interesting.
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Zack Skow: While I was hospitalized, my dad used to come.
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Zack Skow: He used to tell me, this is going to make me emotional.
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Zack Skow: He used to, my dad had a hard time because he was the only one staying with me.
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Zack Skow: And I was at the hospital for six weeks.
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Zack Skow: And so he was there every day with me.
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Zack Skow: And he would tell me, son, I need you to come home.
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Zack Skow: I need you to come home because I can't get Tug to come in the damn house.
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Zack Skow: Meaning Tug was just standing at the top of the driveway waiting for me to come home.
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Zack Skow: And Tug was my soul dog.
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Zack Skow: Like we were so bonded.
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Zack Skow: He took on all of the personality defects that I had.
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Zack Skow: He was very anxious.
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Zack Skow: He was very nervous.
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Zack Skow: He was reactive.
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Zack Skow: And that's what he would always tell me about Tug is that he couldn't get.
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Zack Skow: Tug was just waiting outside for me until I would come home.
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Zack Skow: And then when I did get home, going through opiate withdrawal with my dogs was the only thing that saved me in that moment.
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Zack Skow: I was so chronically suicidal.
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Zack Skow: And I just didn't know what was real.
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Zack Skow: I was having hallucinations and having that 90-pound Rottweiler in bed with me, just grounding me.
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Zack Skow: He was just breathing.
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Zack Skow: I just remember feeling his chest go up and down and having that be rooted into that strength, because I was terrified.
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Zack Skow: Full stop terrified.
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Zack Skow: 10 out of 10 terrified every second of every day.
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Zack Skow: I just really didn't know how to cope with what was coming at me.
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Zack Skow: And I didn't know what was real.
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Zack Skow: And Marley, just his strength and his poise and his confidence really helped root me in what was real and what wasn't real.
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Zack Skow: So he really helped me get through that.
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Zack Skow: And really what occurred was after going through withdrawal, I was still not ready to face the world in any way, shape or form, but I started fostering dogs again for the Humane Society.
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Zack Skow: I started to bring in some dogs into the pack because I knew I needed to walk.
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Zack Skow: One of the things the transplant hospital told me is you need to move.
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Zack Skow: If you have any hope of surviving six months, you need to move your body.
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Zack Skow: I had all this terrible edema.
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Zack Skow: My ankles were gigantic.
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Zack Skow: Anything down from my knees was huge.
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Zack Skow: I was just very, very ill.
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Zack Skow: And so the dogs would help me put one foot in front of the other, get out there.
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Zack Skow: But they really facilitated an entire shift to take the focus off of me and put it into something else.
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Zack Skow: And that was the most critical development that occurred with me was all of my days.
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Zack Skow: I mean, it took a while to get there, but my days quickly became absorbed with facilitating rescue and rehabilitation for these dogs.
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Zack Skow: You know, I would take their pictures.
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Zack Skow: I would write their stories.
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Zack Skow: I would write these really beautiful, creative stories that I didn't have any creative outlet prior to that.
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Zack Skow: So taking these images and writing these fictional stories about why the dogs were at the shelter and what their life experience was and who they were and what made them tick, they were very funny and I was putting them up all over town.
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Zack Skow: So just the process of getting out of my own egotistical self-loathing into facilitating a new life for this animal, writing these stories, taking these pictures.
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Zack Skow: I then had to take them into town and put up all the posters all over town.
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Zack Skow: So I was yellow at the time.
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Zack Skow: I had a huge belly.
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Zack Skow: I used to duct tape.
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Zack Skow: My belly button was herniated.
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Zack Skow: I used to duct tape my belly button down so you couldn't see.
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Zack Skow: I always wore sunglasses so you couldn't see how yellow my eyes were.
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Zack Skow: And so I had to face a lot of my fears in advocating for the dogs, just getting out of trying to interact sober, or just trying to do anything sober for the first time in my life.
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Zack Skow: And I always had Marlee with me.
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Zack Skow: Having that boy with me really helped me overcome a lot of personal fears and anxieties, like unfounded anxieties that prevented me from going around the public.
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Zack Skow: I just would much rather stew in my own self-pity than get out there, and Marlee just really didn't let me do that.
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Genie Joseph: So it's just so amazing that loving an animal can take us out of our self-loathing hell.
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Genie Joseph: It can just connect us to something bigger than ourselves, and the dogs, they don't judge us.
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Genie Joseph: They're like, okay, just take me for a walk.
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Zack Skow: Community recovery is service.
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Zack Skow: There is no other way.
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Zack Skow: If people wanted to boil down recovery or service rehabilitation into one sentence, it has everything to do with being of service.
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Zack Skow: You will not recover.
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Zack Skow: You will not fundamentally rehabilitate unless a good portion of your life and your focus and your energy is put towards serving something else.
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Zack Skow: What I learned the hard way for many, many years is that overindulgent self-criticism and critique, it will kill you slowly.
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Zack Skow: It's very difficult to exist between my ears.
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Zack Skow: It really, really is hard to be me.
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Zack Skow: I'm not saying that to feel sorry for me, but I just have a repetitive narrative that tells me I'm not good enough.
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Zack Skow: And when you start to get out there and work for something other than yourself, you start to build value in yourself, and you start to gain self-esteem.
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Zack Skow: That was the one thing that lacked.
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Zack Skow: And I think your recovery is only as successful as the self-esteem you can facilitate in yourself.
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Zack Skow: And the dogs did that for me.
00:14:48.780 --> 00:14:58.200
Zack Skow: Just putting one foot in front of the other quite literally, just taking our walks several times a day, and just getting out there and trying to face the challenges of the day.
00:15:00.760 --> 00:15:03.920
Zack Skow: For me, the only way for me to be successful was in a service capacity.
00:15:04.380 --> 00:15:06.940
Zack Skow: And then that quickly became my addiction.
00:15:07.320 --> 00:15:07.620
Genie Joseph: Yeah.
00:15:08.940 --> 00:15:10.420
Zack Skow: It was a much more healthy addiction.
00:15:10.600 --> 00:15:11.580
Genie Joseph: Hold that thought.
00:15:11.600 --> 00:15:12.780
Genie Joseph: We're going to take a short little break.
00:15:12.800 --> 00:15:19.620
Genie Joseph: When we come back, I want to hear all about the program for incarcerated people and how you were able to translate what you learned for yourself for others.
00:15:19.900 --> 00:15:21.300
Genie Joseph: We'll be back in just a moment.
00:15:21.320 --> 00:15:21.840
Genie Joseph: Stay with us.
00:15:25.300 --> 00:15:29.720
Announcer: Hey friends, if you like what you're hearing and want to learn more, check out Dr.
00:15:29.740 --> 00:15:36.560
Announcer: Joseph's book, The Human-Animal Connection, Deepening Relationships with Animals and Ourselves.
00:15:37.280 --> 00:15:43.920
Announcer: Or visit the website, thehumananimalconnection.org, to book an online consultation.
00:15:44.440 --> 00:15:46.320
Announcer: Thank you for loving animals.
00:15:46.840 --> 00:15:47.800
Announcer: Now back to the show.
00:15:49.900 --> 00:15:53.020
Announcer: Let's talk pets on petliferadio.com.
00:15:59.060 --> 00:16:03.944
Genie Joseph: Welcome back to The Human-Animal Connection, and we're going to hear all about how Marley's Mutts got started.
00:16:05.384 --> 00:16:15.804
Zack Skow: Yeah, so, you know, after I was released from the hospital and started working with local organizations again and fostering, you know, people in my community started to say, started to take a lot of notice.
00:16:15.824 --> 00:16:19.744
Zack Skow: There was this yellow, swollen guy putting up dog posters everywhere with black people.
00:16:20.524 --> 00:16:22.724
Zack Skow: And they just kept pushing me and said, hey, you ought to do this.
00:16:22.784 --> 00:16:25.964
Zack Skow: You ought to do this for a career.
00:16:25.984 --> 00:16:26.944
Zack Skow: I was like, do what?
00:16:27.084 --> 00:16:28.364
Zack Skow: They're like rescue dogs.
00:16:29.464 --> 00:16:29.744
Zack Skow: What?
00:16:30.264 --> 00:16:33.004
Zack Skow: I'm just a recovering drunk in liver failure.
00:16:33.384 --> 00:16:34.224
Zack Skow: How's that going to work?
00:16:34.684 --> 00:16:36.404
Zack Skow: You know, how's the IRS going to view me?
00:16:36.424 --> 00:16:39.024
Zack Skow: And what, you know, that's, that's, that's foolish.
00:16:39.044 --> 00:16:40.364
Zack Skow: That's, that's, that's crazy talk.
00:16:41.144 --> 00:16:42.784
Zack Skow: And it was not crazy talk.
00:16:42.864 --> 00:16:54.964
Zack Skow: You know, that, that those nudgings and those, that the belief that people had in me and that the support that I gained, you know, was it was a lot of people that had taken notice in those early months of me going around town and advocating for these dogs.
00:16:55.004 --> 00:16:58.624
Zack Skow: And so we went ahead and did it in relatively early on.
00:16:58.644 --> 00:17:06.844
Zack Skow: In the springtime of 2009, we filed for nonprofit status and became a nonprofit organization.
00:17:06.864 --> 00:17:08.264
Zack Skow: Marley's Mutt was born.
00:17:08.284 --> 00:17:10.584
Zack Skow: Now we're in our 15th year.
00:17:10.604 --> 00:17:12.824
Genie Joseph: That's so incredible.
00:17:13.284 --> 00:17:16.604
Genie Joseph: So I want to make sure we get to talk about the program for incarcerated people.
00:17:16.884 --> 00:17:18.824
Genie Joseph: Tell us a little bit about how it works.
00:17:18.844 --> 00:17:20.364
Genie Joseph: So you're working with shelter dogs, right?
00:17:20.384 --> 00:17:22.424
Genie Joseph: So you're picking dogs from shelter?
00:17:22.764 --> 00:17:30.884
Zack Skow: Yeah, so Positive Change Program is a comprehensive in-mate camp and training program that's focused on providing hope and opportunity to incarcerated people and pets.
00:17:31.324 --> 00:17:36.264
Zack Skow: What I mean by that is the dogs that we pull are young, large, juvenile dogs, right?
00:17:36.804 --> 00:17:42.524
Zack Skow: Pitties, huskies, shepherds, the most euthanized dogs in our shelter environment without the tools for adoption.
00:17:42.684 --> 00:17:48.744
Zack Skow: So most of these dogs are liabilities on a leash, liabilities at a dog park, liabilities in your house, etc.
00:17:48.764 --> 00:17:49.244
Zack Skow: and so forth.
00:17:49.284 --> 00:17:50.764
Zack Skow: And for those reasons, they're not adopted.
00:17:51.784 --> 00:17:55.644
Zack Skow: So we bring those dogs off the euthanasia list into a number.
00:17:55.664 --> 00:18:02.004
Zack Skow: We've worked at eight California state prisons and juvenile facilities, federal prisons over the last eight years.
00:18:02.404 --> 00:18:23.124
Zack Skow: We started in January 2016 at California City Correctional Facility, and the program is 14 weeks long, two weeks of really kind of inviting people into the process and helping them understand what we're about to endeavor into, bringing dogs in to teach basic things.
00:18:23.144 --> 00:18:29.144
Zack Skow: But the focus of the 12 weeks, the full three months that they're living in there is the Canine Good Citizen Certification.
00:18:29.164 --> 00:18:32.824
Zack Skow: So these dogs and students are working on, there's three students per team.
00:18:33.084 --> 00:18:34.744
Zack Skow: We are in maximum security prisons.
00:18:34.764 --> 00:18:37.124
Zack Skow: These are prisons controlled in large part by gangs.
00:18:37.624 --> 00:18:50.284
Zack Skow: So we are working with the entire prison environment, bringing people in outside of the race, pairing them up outside of the race, working with the gang population and whatever we have to do to make it successful.
00:18:50.304 --> 00:18:59.184
Zack Skow: And the goal is to provide the structure needed for these dogs to rehabilitate, get their Canine Good Citizen Certification, obviously, and get them adopted and stay adopted.
00:18:59.704 --> 00:19:06.244
Zack Skow: And then for our students, the goal is empathy training, is trauma-informed learning of various degrees.
00:19:07.044 --> 00:19:13.784
Zack Skow: It's the idea that a dog represents home, that a dog represents something to strive towards, that it represents unconditional love.
00:19:14.264 --> 00:19:15.564
Zack Skow: Prison is a very dark place.
00:19:15.644 --> 00:19:21.864
Zack Skow: It is a very, very, very tangibly dark, viscerally dark place.
00:19:22.004 --> 00:19:24.444
Zack Skow: You feel it in all your whole body when you go in.
00:19:24.464 --> 00:19:25.484
Genie Joseph: Your whole body when you go in.
00:19:25.524 --> 00:19:26.364
Genie Joseph: Yeah, I know.
00:19:26.424 --> 00:19:36.904
Genie Joseph: I've done some therapy dog work in prisons and also with miniature horses in prisons, and you walk in there and it's like, man, you know, just walking through there is like...
00:19:36.924 --> 00:19:45.044
Zack Skow: But at the same time, if you wear it the right way and you bring the right energy, there's no greater opportunity for you to leave a positive streak than when you visit prisons with dogs.
00:19:45.564 --> 00:19:55.704
Zack Skow: I've been to so many prisons with my two dogs, and the smiles and the connections and the laughs and the realizations, the little epiphanies that we get to create.
00:19:55.724 --> 00:19:57.744
Zack Skow: A lot of these guys haven't seen a dog in decades.
00:19:58.324 --> 00:19:58.784
Zack Skow: Decades.
00:19:59.824 --> 00:20:01.624
Zack Skow: And in many cases is when they were apprehended.
00:20:04.324 --> 00:20:10.524
Zack Skow: So we're providing just an incredible resource in there because we are lowering violence.
00:20:10.604 --> 00:20:16.724
Zack Skow: We are changing the energy, the energetic setting of the pod and of the yard by having dogs present.
00:20:17.104 --> 00:20:23.244
Zack Skow: Those dogs are getting a training and a structure and a format that's going to change their lives forever positively.
00:20:23.264 --> 00:20:34.744
Zack Skow: And then on the other side, we've had 27 of our formerly incarcerated students enter the pet industry as dog trainers, behaviorists, kennel technicians, employees at various board and training facilities.
00:20:34.764 --> 00:20:43.324
Zack Skow: So a lot of our guys are really hustling out there on social media as small business owners, some of them employing other positive change students.
00:20:43.764 --> 00:20:50.184
Zack Skow: So it's just been the most positive thing I've ever been a part of by far.
00:20:50.664 --> 00:21:12.224
Zack Skow: And to be able to tap it, there's just no better feeling than being able to relate to someone who's absolutely downtrodden, who has maybe like this much hope left, who's just grasping at any just nanoparticle of positive energy that you can provide them and really trying to do something with it.
00:21:12.284 --> 00:21:20.684
Zack Skow: And what we give these guys, they always take on gratefully, and they really wear it with pride.
00:21:20.704 --> 00:21:35.004
Zack Skow: And the Positive Change Program is probably, they're so proud, and they're so plugged in, and they're so committed, and they just want to do better by these dogs, they want to do better for their families, and this really provides an opportunity for them to be seen by the outside through our social media.
00:21:35.464 --> 00:21:47.424
Zack Skow: We get to post about them, we get to reconnect families, we get to talk about something positive for once in their lives, as opposed to just the humdrum of prison culture and society.
00:21:47.444 --> 00:21:50.984
Genie Joseph: It's just the most important thing I've ever been a part of.
00:21:51.304 --> 00:21:52.984
Genie Joseph: That's great, that's great.
00:21:53.264 --> 00:21:55.984
Genie Joseph: When they finish working with one dog, do they get another dog?
00:21:56.004 --> 00:21:56.964
Genie Joseph: Or how does that work?
00:21:56.984 --> 00:21:57.524
Zack Skow: Yeah, they sure do.
00:21:57.544 --> 00:21:59.424
Zack Skow: They can enroll as many times as they want.
00:21:59.444 --> 00:22:02.704
Zack Skow: So we've had guys who have been in our program for years and years and years, many years.
00:22:04.304 --> 00:22:07.604
Zack Skow: We've graduated 500 plus dogs and over a thousand students.
00:22:08.524 --> 00:22:17.144
Zack Skow: We've been at Wasco State Prison, Corcoran State Prison, North Kern State Prison, both A and M yards, the Hatchby State Prison, Charlie Yard, California City Correctional Facility.
00:22:17.364 --> 00:22:21.884
Zack Skow: We have a women's program at the Bureau of Prisons, Federal Prison Complex in Victorville.
00:22:21.904 --> 00:22:27.424
Zack Skow: We had two juvenile programs, one in Malibu, run by former graduates.
00:22:27.444 --> 00:22:31.104
Zack Skow: So these are long-term incarcerated dog trainers who got out of prison.
00:22:31.304 --> 00:22:34.404
Zack Skow: Two of them were juvenile lifers who were given life as juveniles.
00:22:35.184 --> 00:22:39.544
Zack Skow: And they're now teaching our program, training the young who are incarcerated.
00:22:40.704 --> 00:22:47.244
Genie Joseph: And do the people who have been in the program for a while teach the new people in the program, or do you have other trainers come in?
00:22:47.264 --> 00:22:47.984
Genie Joseph: What's the structure?
00:22:47.984 --> 00:22:53.524
Zack Skow: Our trainers go in once a week, so we have two trainers per facility.
00:22:54.104 --> 00:22:58.504
Zack Skow: And those trainers go in once a week, and they're working on the K9 Good Citizen certification.
00:22:58.524 --> 00:23:01.224
Zack Skow: They're working on the homework that we submit.
00:23:01.744 --> 00:23:04.804
Zack Skow: They're working on our Students Give Reflections.
00:23:05.384 --> 00:23:06.924
Zack Skow: There's a variety of different...
00:23:07.764 --> 00:23:12.004
Zack Skow: The way it differs from most dog programs is a lot of dog programs work out of a binder.
00:23:12.124 --> 00:23:16.284
Zack Skow: They work out of a booklet that maybe a lifer or a long-term incarcerated will hold on to.
00:23:16.764 --> 00:23:22.564
Zack Skow: We have a lot more involvement with our staff, so I'm going in as a trainer and also as just a facilitator.
00:23:23.004 --> 00:23:31.004
Zack Skow: We have trainers that are teaching them the basics, and then the longer you enroll, the more information, the more comfortable you get.
00:23:31.024 --> 00:23:36.984
Zack Skow: I mean, a lot of our guys are real professionals by the time they get out of prison, and they've been in our program for years.
00:23:37.304 --> 00:23:42.184
Zack Skow: They've rehabilitated a lot of really difficult dogs, and that's very special.
00:23:42.204 --> 00:23:46.684
Zack Skow: I mean, considering the issues that we have here in California, Arizona, Texas, etc.
00:23:47.264 --> 00:23:52.104
Zack Skow: there's a big dog euthanasia crisis, but it is as bad as it gets right now.
00:23:52.124 --> 00:23:54.844
Zack Skow: We've got about 40% of our young large dogs are being killed.
00:23:54.864 --> 00:23:57.584
Zack Skow: I mean, these are man's best friend.
00:23:57.604 --> 00:24:00.104
Zack Skow: These are animals that have all the potential in the world.
00:24:00.124 --> 00:24:05.444
Zack Skow: They're just filled with potential, just like these individuals are filled with potential.
00:24:05.464 --> 00:24:20.564
Zack Skow: They have so much potential, and for whatever reason, our society can kind of scooch over to these shadowy realms of our culture and kind of just get away with this wholesale elimination of true potential.
00:24:20.684 --> 00:24:24.084
Zack Skow: And that's both with our students and our dogs.
00:24:24.504 --> 00:24:28.884
Zack Skow: We see how much people prioritize man's best friend and that relationship.
00:24:28.904 --> 00:24:32.744
Zack Skow: And oh my gosh, would you look at how animals have dogs are treated in America.
00:24:32.764 --> 00:24:34.624
Zack Skow: They're worshiped as deities in there.
00:24:35.164 --> 00:24:36.984
Zack Skow: They call a man's best friend of all the love.
00:24:37.464 --> 00:24:37.804
Zack Skow: True.
00:24:38.184 --> 00:24:44.144
Zack Skow: But at the same time, we're sneaking over to this little black shadowy corner, and we're just killing them.
00:24:44.484 --> 00:24:45.944
Zack Skow: And it's not because of the shelters.
00:24:46.264 --> 00:24:53.404
Zack Skow: If I hear one more person talk about that euthanasia is because of the shelter, quote unquote, it is a sociocultural virus.
00:24:53.904 --> 00:24:56.924
Zack Skow: And unless we address it socioculturally, it's never going to change.
00:24:56.944 --> 00:25:03.244
Zack Skow: The shelter is simply an expression of a manifestation of the problem.
00:25:03.264 --> 00:25:08.924
Zack Skow: If we keep bringing them in the front door, their resources are limited in what they can do.
00:25:10.724 --> 00:25:13.084
Genie Joseph: So let's talk about love as a healing power.
00:25:13.804 --> 00:25:22.384
Genie Joseph: Just the people incarcerated getting a chance to really love a being that's living and breathing, like you said, Marlee breathing next to you when you were so sick.
00:25:22.624 --> 00:25:24.784
Genie Joseph: Do they sleep with the inmates?
00:25:24.804 --> 00:25:26.984
Genie Joseph: No, they sleep.
00:25:27.004 --> 00:25:28.584
Zack Skow: They're not allowed to sleep in their cells.
00:25:28.744 --> 00:25:33.164
Zack Skow: This is their maximum security prison, so we're not even really supposed to have them.
00:25:33.184 --> 00:25:39.184
Zack Skow: At some of our lower level facilities, they're allowed to be near the beds in the cells for training purposes.
00:25:39.444 --> 00:25:42.844
Zack Skow: But outside of that, no, they sleep in travel crates in the pod.
00:25:43.704 --> 00:25:45.984
Zack Skow: But they're with them 14 hours a day.
00:25:46.004 --> 00:25:50.644
Zack Skow: The only time they're not with them is when they're at the chow in the morning and then when they're sleeping.
00:25:50.804 --> 00:25:56.944
Zack Skow: So they are that that element, I mean, I can try to paint a picture for you.
00:25:58.244 --> 00:26:06.564
Zack Skow: You know, when I walk into Charlie Yard and I have Cora, I have a two-legged poodle and I have her in the backpack and I have my golden retriever that I brought back from Lebanon.
00:26:07.504 --> 00:26:18.304
Zack Skow: And when I walk into a prison, you know, you feel this oppressive darkness, this is energetic confusion and just this malicious vibe that you just can't get away from.
00:26:18.744 --> 00:26:34.304
Zack Skow: And the second you walk on to that yard with those two dogs and people start to fall out of the housing units and they start to come up to me and you see everything about them change and then forget about it if they actually get to train a dog, if they actually get to coexist and reciprocate love.
00:26:34.324 --> 00:26:40.184
Zack Skow: Like, it's not, you know, showing love, expressions of love in prison is a weakness.
00:26:40.684 --> 00:26:42.184
Zack Skow: And weakness gets you hurt.
00:26:42.464 --> 00:26:45.684
Zack Skow: And there's a constant threat of violence in prison, constant.
00:26:46.104 --> 00:26:52.924
Zack Skow: And when I mean constant threat of violence, it's not just violence, it's like terminal violence, you know, this is the mortal violence.
00:26:52.944 --> 00:26:55.644
Zack Skow: There's a threat of literally losing your life in these places.
00:26:56.724 --> 00:27:06.184
Zack Skow: So to supplant, to replace that threat, that constant threat of danger with love, with something that they can actually pour love into.
00:27:06.204 --> 00:27:18.324
Zack Skow: A lot of our students, our parents, too, who haven't got to express those feelings of love, that parental love, probably have a lot of shame associated with it, that is not hard to conjure up.
00:27:18.544 --> 00:27:29.724
Zack Skow: And we now get to have them bring up that love that they have to offer, express it towards something, pour it into something, into a rehabilitative trajectory.
00:27:29.744 --> 00:27:33.564
Zack Skow: So their love and their application is being used for positivity.
00:27:34.224 --> 00:27:37.744
Zack Skow: And it's transformative, it's transformative for every one of them.
00:27:38.404 --> 00:27:48.664
Zack Skow: And most of our guys, too, have been politicking, living in prison as typical inmates, working the prison politics that are kind of required for you to be there.
00:27:49.104 --> 00:27:56.604
Zack Skow: So the dog program sometimes is the first time that our students will have stepped away from that prison culture and focused on bettering themselves.
00:27:57.064 --> 00:28:03.744
Zack Skow: So they're revelatory experiences, they're beautiful, beautiful, loving, just the definition.
00:28:04.224 --> 00:28:17.784
Zack Skow: And if you boil the human-animal bond, if you boil that man-mutt-love synergy down to its simplest form, that's what I see in there, because you've got a human that's tragically terribly suffering.
00:28:17.804 --> 00:28:22.724
Zack Skow: They might not always express it on the outside, but they're suffering in a way that's hard to explain.
00:28:22.964 --> 00:28:24.744
Zack Skow: So in a way that's hard to contemplate.
00:28:25.344 --> 00:28:27.544
Zack Skow: And in many cases, these dogs are also suffering.
00:28:27.564 --> 00:28:28.804
Zack Skow: They don't know their place in the world.
00:28:28.824 --> 00:28:29.944
Zack Skow: They're very formative.
00:28:29.964 --> 00:28:43.904
Zack Skow: They don't have a lot of context, and when you bring those two things together and you provide a home for one another's love and a way for that love and all of it, not just the love, but the bad things, too, they're able to be synergistic with the bad things.
00:28:44.284 --> 00:28:48.764
Zack Skow: They can interact with their own deficits as well and realize that it's going to be okay.
00:28:48.784 --> 00:28:51.164
Zack Skow: You don't have to be perfect with a dog, you know?
00:28:51.624 --> 00:28:52.884
Zack Skow: It's just beautiful.
00:28:52.904 --> 00:29:03.704
Zack Skow: And to see, you know, one of the most impactful things are the stories of the families when they see their loved one working with the dogs, you know, when they see an interview that's posted on our social media.
00:29:03.724 --> 00:29:11.784
Zack Skow: And they haven't, a lot of these kiddos haven't seen their parents in years, much less had something positive to think about in reference to them.
00:29:12.084 --> 00:29:22.444
Zack Skow: And so to see your TO or your dad or your whatever, working and putting their time towards rehabilitating and saving the life, it's just, it's immeasurably valuable.
00:29:22.704 --> 00:29:23.864
Genie Joseph: Yes, that's wonderful.
00:29:24.024 --> 00:29:24.704
Genie Joseph: Absolutely wonderful.
00:29:25.124 --> 00:29:27.864
Genie Joseph: If people want to learn more about your program, how do they get in touch?
00:29:28.364 --> 00:29:36.344
Zack Skow: You can follow us on social media, Positive Change, P-A-W-S-I-T-I-V-E, Positive Change Program, Marley's Mutts.
00:29:37.224 --> 00:29:42.604
Zack Skow: Our Facebook page, which had almost a million followers, was hijacked, so we're still trying to get that back.
00:29:42.864 --> 00:29:43.584
Genie Joseph: Oh, yeah.
00:29:43.924 --> 00:29:46.884
Zack Skow: At Marley's Mutts, at Positive Change Program.
00:29:47.484 --> 00:29:52.844
Zack Skow: I'm Zack Skow at Z-A-C-H-S-K-O-W, and you can also go to marleysMutts.org.
00:29:52.884 --> 00:29:54.484
Zack Skow: So, marleysMutts.org is our website.
00:29:54.504 --> 00:29:56.084
Zack Skow: You can donate there.
00:29:56.104 --> 00:29:56.724
Zack Skow: You can get involved.
00:29:56.744 --> 00:29:57.004
Zack Skow: You can...
00:29:57.384 --> 00:29:58.424
Zack Skow: And we're always looking for...
00:29:58.444 --> 00:30:05.184
Zack Skow: You know, we are probably going to be pivoting to attempting to add different types of therapeutic programming for the prison system.
00:30:05.764 --> 00:30:11.344
Zack Skow: We're talking about, again, trauma-informed learning groups, substance abuse program-related type stuff.
00:30:11.364 --> 00:30:21.404
Zack Skow: None of this is finalized or it's all formative currently, but we're looking for dog teams, for folks who want to take themselves, you know, their own magic and their own energy.
00:30:21.424 --> 00:30:21.884
Zack Skow: There you go.
00:30:22.324 --> 00:30:22.644
Genie Joseph: Yeah.
00:30:22.664 --> 00:30:29.244
Genie Joseph: Sophia has been in the prisons and yeah, I've worked with lots of dogs going into prisons and it's a very powerful experience.
00:30:29.684 --> 00:30:33.564
Genie Joseph: Even just visiting for a short time, yeah.
00:30:33.984 --> 00:30:40.284
Zack Skow: Selfishly watching my love be received and the love of my dogs be received the way it is.
00:30:40.304 --> 00:30:50.924
Zack Skow: You know, we go through life acknowledging someone at the gas station and have them not wave back or, you know, we're kind of like let down sometimes on how we express ourselves and how we experience love.
00:30:51.124 --> 00:31:05.864
Zack Skow: When you give of yourself in prison, if you go in there with a positive mental outlook and you share that love with people, there is no better place to be received because every bit, every particle of your positive energy is going to be soaked up and recirculated through that prison.
00:31:05.884 --> 00:31:22.044
Zack Skow: Like it is, if you care about that, if you care about second chances, if you care about, and I'm not trying to portray the incarcerated as totally worthy of sympathy necessarily, but they deserve our empathy.
00:31:22.164 --> 00:31:26.704
Zack Skow: And there is a tremendous amount of potential behind the walls in these prisons.
00:31:26.864 --> 00:31:31.344
Zack Skow: And they're getting out to 97% of them are going to get out of prison.
00:31:31.364 --> 00:31:49.984
Zack Skow: And we might as well provide them a trajectory of encouragement and love and understanding and programming and tools so that they're not going to create another victim when they get out and can instead enter into, for instance, the pet industry as a dog trainer and a productive member of society.
00:31:50.344 --> 00:31:51.824
Genie Joseph: Well, Zack, thank you so much.
00:31:51.844 --> 00:31:57.024
Genie Joseph: We'll have to have you on again because I know we've just touched the tip of the iceberg here, but it's just wonderful.
00:31:57.044 --> 00:32:00.704
Genie Joseph: Thank you for the good work that you're doing, and we'll be in touch real soon.
00:32:01.584 --> 00:32:02.304
Genie Joseph: Thank you for listening.
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