DogTown

by Stefan Bechtel

  On January 2, 2008, Georgia and the other dogs were loaded into carrying crates and stowed aboard a small cargo plane in Virginia. Everything went very smoothly during the five-hour trip to Utah. “I was more nervous than they were,” John said, as he went back into the hold to do visual checks every half hour. It was still daylight when the plane landed in Kanab, only a few miles from Dogtown. By the time they got the dogs off the plane and safely resettled in their runs at the sanctuary, it was two in the morning and John was exhausted.

  In contrast, the dogs seemed newly revived—excited and somewhat unsettled by their new environment. But there was no mistaking Georgia’s mood. In the dim glow of the compound’s security lights, John could see her taking her favorite toy bone and flipping it up into the air over and over again. Once consigned to a kind of half life of isolation, blood, barbarity, and forced breeding, Georgia was now playing like a pup.

  She was home.

  ROAD TO REHABILITATION

  Now that Georgia had arrived at Dogtown, she began the hard work of overcoming her past. For John, one of the primary tasks for Georgia’s rehabilitation was helping her get over her food guarding. When Georgia ate from a bowl, her stocky body lowered close to the ground while she scarfed down her food. If a person approached, she would look up, growl, and curl her lips back in a snarl, warning the intruder to stay away from her bowl. Georgia never attacked anybody from Dogtown, but her handlers still proceeded with caution. In fact, before the Dogtown team’s arrival, the ASPCA had made assessment videotapes by giving each dog a bowl of food and then trying to take it away using a mechanical arm. Georgia first snarled and then viciously attacked the false arm.

  The playful side of Georgia has emerged since she’s come to Dogtown. Her bone is one of her favorite toys.

  It’s not unusual for dogs to guard their food, John said. But if they are raised in environments where food resources are scarce—for instance, in a slum, a war zone, or a kennel for fighting dogs—their guarding behavior can be genuinely dangerous, especially when they transfer to a new environment, such as a home with young children. If a stray piece of food hits the floor, and both the child and the dog go after it, a tragedy can result. Since the goal is to find an adoptive home for Georgia and dogs like her, helping them overcome food aggression is a critical step.

  The first technique John tried with Georgia was hand-feeding her her dinner. The theory is that instead of allowing her to associate food (which needs to be guarded) with the bowl, she would associate food with people (which reinforces the idea that good things come from people, not bowls). John explained, “You are controlling all the food in their life, and you can give it to them whenever you want. You can take it away from them whenever you want, but it’s always going to be available to them. They don’t have to feel like they always have to fight for it because it may not be coming again.”

  In one of their first feedings, John carried a bowl of food into Georgia’s enclosure. Rather than setting the bowl on the floor, he dipped his fingers into the dog food and scooped it out into his hand. Instead of taking large gulping bites, as she would from a bowl, Georgia very gently, but enthusiastically, began licking the food off his fingers. When she finished, Georgia sat patiently and calmly, still watching John intently with her alert, intelligent eyes. John scooped out another batch of food, and dinner continued. Gradually, over a period of two months, this approach broke Georgia’s association between bowl and food, leaving her with nothing left to guard.

  Sergeant Stubby, a bull terrier mix, served in World War I with the 102nd Infantry, Yankee Division. He survived 17 battles on the front lines in France and became (and remains today) the most decorated war dog in history.

  John also used another technique called trading up. The idea is simple: If the dog has a zealously guarded, high-value object, like a rawhide bone, you distract her with something that is even more valuable—say, a juicy piece of hot dog. You “trade up” to something more attractive and thus break the guarding behavior with that particular object. Every dog has different high-value objects, so a trainer must work with each one to find out what it is. Georgia responded to both these training techniques very rapidly. She was bright and eager to please. Today, said John, “Georgia, I’m proud to say, does not have any food-guarding issues with people that she knows.”

  Still, he knows that his goal of rehabilitating Georgia, a champion fighter forced to kill in order to survive, will be difficult and slow. “In order to rehabilitate a dog with a traumatic past, you have to have patience,” John said. “You have to ‘go big or go home.’ You have to really commit to it.

  “I feel so bad for her, put in all those terrible situations by people,” he added. But he is determined to change that. There’s no way to completely erase her traumatic past, but John can ensure that her future is a loving one. “It’s all about loving on her—that’s something she never experienced. Dog training is not all about love, but that’s a big part of it.”

  As of this writing, Georgia is still at Dogtown. Her journey to adoption still has a few miles left to go, partly because she is still aggressive toward other dogs and not entirely comfortable with children. “Georgia and all the other dogs have a lot to overcome—not just behavior they learned in the fighting pit, but the fact that they’re pit bulls, they’re fighting dogs, and they’re Michael Vick’s pit bulls…. But tails, teeth, eyes, and heart—they’re all just dogs.”

  LIFE AS A SPOKESDOG

  Georgia’s rehabilitation has gone so well that she is becoming a leading spokesdog for the rehabilitation potential of pit bulls and other bully breeds. When making public appearances, Georgia dresses up for the occasion. Her everyday green collar and leash are replaced by a special matching pink leather collar and leash encrusted with Swarovski crystals. When Georgia wears her sparkly collar, people seem more at ease with her, as though the stylish accent indicates that she’s a nice dog. Georgia herself loves her pink collar and shows her exuberant side when she sees it, for she’s smart enough to know that when it comes out, something fun is going to happen.

  The pink collar was in full view when Georgia wore it to the set of the Ellen show in December 2008. Host Ellen DeGeneres, a big fan of Best Friends and DogTown, had invited Georgia and John Garcia to Los Angeles to appear on her show. Despite John’s experience in filming DogTown for the National Geographic Channel, appearing on an afternoon talk show unnerved him.

  “I was really, really nervous,” he said when he and Georgia were driven down to Los Angeles for a taping of the television show. But Georgia handled it like an old pro. Almost oblivious to the audience and bright studio lights, Georgia sat at John’s feet while slurping down treats from Ellen’s hands and then, somewhat greedily, looking for more. John recalled how Ellen “was obviously a huge animal lover, and she warmed up to Georgia right away.” And Georgia warmed up to Ellen and to the crowd. She exuded her calm, big-hearted, pit bull energy into the studio audience and across the airwaves into countless houses of viewers.

  It was as though Georgia had come full circle. Instead of being goaded on by a crowd who saw in her only the power to destroy other dogs, she was now being cheered on by people who saw in her the potential to save other dogs like her. Georgia’s remarkable ability to love and trust people, despite all that she had been through, is a testament to the universal abilities of a dog to heal and to go on. Her partnership with John had come to represent all that is good in human-canine relationships. Having survived the unspeakable cruelty of man, she emerged victorious, seeming to return nothing but affection and a thousand licks.

  While at Best Friends, Ava worked as a greeter in the Welcome Center.

  02

  Ava: Welcome to Best Friends

  To visit the Best Friends Animal Society, first you’d have to make your way to the tiny town of Kanab, a dot on the map about a three-hour drive from the city of Las Vegas, Nevada. Kanab, just a few miles north of the Arizona border, lies in an area of such scenic
splendor that huge chunks of it have been made into national parks—Bryce Canyon, Zion, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and of course the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, which is 90 miles away.

  Once you get to Kanab it’s quite possible you may recognize where you are. The first hint is the statue of a lone cowboy on a white horse, which stands along Main Street. Ancient red-rock buttes surround the town, like the backdrop for a Western, which, as it happens, may be how you know this place. What is now known as Angel Canyon, just north of town, has been used as a backdrop for dozens of TV and movie Westerns dating to the 1940s, including the Lone Ranger television show. Even more remarkable, the 140-million-year-old canyon walls are marked by dinosaur footprints from the Jurassic Period and mysterious thousand-year-old petroglyphs left by the Anasazi, the “ancient ones.” It’s a setting that inspires and humbles at the same time.

  Best Friends calls this remarkable place home. The largest no-kill animal sanctuary in the United States lies in 3,700 acres of raw western landscape, surrounded by 30,000 more acres that the sanctuary leases from the federal government. At any given moment it is home to about 1,700 animals—mostly dogs and cats but also birds, horses, burros, goats, rabbits, pot-bellied pigs, and even some wild animals like raccoons and owls. The Best Friends sanctuary, with over 40 buildings, provides care and housing for all these companion species, in various “gated communities” for each sort of beast. Dogtown, which generally houses several hundred dogs at any one time, is one of the liveliest of the animal communities at Best Friends.

  Visitors to Best Friends make their first stop at the Welcome Center, where they are given a warm welcome by the sanctuary’s official greeters—the animal residents themselves. The greeters say a good deal about what goes on here, as many of them are animals who have been injured gravely, sometimes permanently, and who are in recovery from wounds both psychic and physical. They are also lovable, adoptable, and unique, special kinds of creatures, albeit with special problems, who will provide special pleasures to those who open their hearts and homes.

  Dogtown goes through more than 200,000 pounds of dry dog food every year.

  Dogs are among the visitors’ favorites, and to be a greeter is to serve as an ambassador of Dogtown, providing that valuable first impression. A recent favorite was Ava, a splendid golden retriever. Ava is a beautiful dog with a sparkling personality, but when she worked as a greeter, most people noticed her attire before anything else. She sported a plastic Elizabethan collar around her head that kept her from bothering the bandages on her left front paw. Ava could be seen making her rounds in the lobby, alternating between trying to get the plastic collar cone off her head and happily approaching people for a good scratch behind her floppy ears.

  Ava’s personality is high-spirited and gregarious, goofy and giddy. Despite her injuries and cumbersome apparel, she always seems ready for a romp. But a look beneath her playful exterior reveals the dauntless spirit of a fighter. She survived a grave injury, thanks to the medical experts at Dogtown.

  Ava came to Dogtown after being found in the desert with her paw caught in a coyote trap. It was unclear how long Ava had been out there with no access to food or water, but it was obvious that her injuries were serious. When she was brought to Dogtown, her injuries were “very, very severe,” said Dogtown vet Dr. Patti Iampietro. At many crowded shelters, a badly injured animal like Ava would have three to five days to live, or even less. In most shelters, she would almost certainly have been “put out of her misery” or, at best, had her leg amputated. Even at Dogtown amputation seemed a genuine possibility, because once Dr. Patti took a close look at the injury she found that severe infection had set in. If the infection had been allowed to spread, it could have killed Ava. “I really wanted to make an effort to see if we could save the limb, so she’d have four legs and she could run around and be happy,” Dr. Patti said. It would take multiple surgeries, a lot of time, and a lot of attention to heal Ava’s injuries, but Dr. Patti and the rest of the Dogtown staff were going to do everything they could to save her life.

  Ava’s front left paw was severely injured when it got stuck in a coyote trap. The Dogtown team fought to save her leg from amputation.

  And it was clear that Ava appreciated it. When she was on the job as a greeter, Ava was still not out of the woods and needed more surgery—and yet here she was, bouncing around the waiting room like a frolicsome pup, seemingly unaffected by her desert dance with death.

  Ava’s message is that no creature is too damaged, too difficult, or too insignificant to be cared for here. If the world “out there” tends to be cruel and neglectful of dogs, this is dog heaven, or at least something close. It’s Dogtown, where every animal gets a second chance. The goal is to treat the medical and behavioral problems of the dogs—many deemed unadoptable—who are brought here, and then to find them a permanent adoptive home—a “forever home”—if at all possible. If no home can be found, these dogs are not euthanized. They are free to stay for the rest of their lives. The pact that’s made with animals when they come to Dogtown is something akin to unconditional love.

  “A SPIRITUAL AND CONSCIOUS LIFE”

  Even a casual visitor to the Best Friends sanctuary will notice that the soul-stirring surroundings seem entirely in keeping with the humanitarian mission of this place. When the small group of friends who created Best Friends first bought this property back in the early 1980s, they loved the land because it created the perfect environment for the work they wanted to do. Here they could build a retreat center that would “take people out of themselves in this monumental landscape, that would eliminate ‘poor me’ in the majesty of the whole thing,” according to Francis Battista, one of the founders of Best Friends.

  Taking care of animals had always been one of their core concerns, Francis said, “part of the collective aspirations of the founders. It was kind of baked into the cake.” There were quite a few different things “baked into the cake” when a couple dozen friends, British and American, first came together during the cultural upheavals of the late 1960s. In a nutshell, Francis said, “We were trying to pursue a spiritual and conscious life—activity that would take one out of the confines of the self.”

  Kindness, as an expression of the spiritual, was regarded not simply as a virtue but as a path in its own right. Kindness to animals, the weakest members of society and often its victims, was regarded as an avocation of particular value. Other activities included work in prisons as well as programs to brighten the lives of terminally ill and seriously injured children. The group was also very active in the animal rights arena. They wrote and distributed tracts opposing animal vivisection while calling for an end to animal testing and experimentation.

  Angel Canyon in Kanab, Utah, home of the Best Friends Animal Society, is decorated by petroglyphs that are a thousand years old.

  LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

  In the late 1970s, the group’s focus had begun to shift toward animal rescue and rehabilitation. It had become clear that, although they had always been drawn together by spiritual and humanitarian work of various kinds, one thing they all had in common was a love of animals. They understood spiritual leader Mohandas Ghandi’s observation that “a society can be judged by the way it treats its old people, its young people, and its animals,” and knew they could help change the plight of animals in the United States. It would be an uphill battle, though, because millions of animals were being put to death in shelters every year.

  First, several members had settled on a ranch in Arizona where they began to take in strays and abandoned animals. Francis, fellow founder Faith Maloney, and a half dozen others began taking in strays and unwanted pets at the ranch, but the pet population soon outgrew the property. So the group began shopping for a larger place to house their swelling population, looking at rural properties from coastal California to an island off the coast of Honduras.

  One day in 1982, Francis had to drive from the Arizona ranch to Salt Lake City
, Utah. Whenever he drove anywhere in the West, he would stop and pick up U.S. Bureau of Land Management maps, which showed what parcels were privately held, and take little side trips to visit them. On this particular day he drove up Highway 89 through Kanab, Utah, past an enormous parcel of privately owned land in the inspiring canyon lands of southern Utah, a region known as the Golden Circle. He took a hard-packed dirt road back into the property and stared around him in awe.

  “I thought, wow, this is fantastic!” he remembered. “But it’s probably not for sale, and we couldn’t afford it anyway.”

  But when he returned to Kanab and asked around about the property (then called Kanab Canyon), he was surprised to discover that it was, in fact, for sale. The property had been purchased by a group of enterprising businessmen in Kanab, who wanted to use it as a tourist destination and also rent the Kanab Canyon “movie ranch” to film-production companies. Westerns having since fallen out of fashion, the owners tried to sell the land to ranchers. But the property, too steep and dry for ranching, had turned into a white elephant. No doubt it was beautiful, but as people like to say in the West, “You can’t eat the scenery.” Francis and his friends didn’t need to eat the scenery; they just needed a place to change the world. Francis got on the phone to tell the rest that he had found it.

  THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE FOR ANIMALS

  What Francis had found, as it turned out, was something akin to the Louisiana Purchase for animals. The town fathers were only too happy to part with the property—$5,000 down, easy terms, for 3,700 acres, plus an additional 33,000 acres leased from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The total price: $1.2 million, all for a chunk of land the size of Manhattan.