Cool, Calm & Contentious

by Merrill Markoe

  “What would you guys like to talk about?” I said.

  A heavyset girl raised her hand.

  “When is the drawing for the Avon basket?” she asked.

  Mr. Beer Ensemble raced to the front of the room. Impatiently he grabbed the mike away from her.

  “I am not going to announce the winners of the free Avon products and workout videos until after Miss Markoe has finished speaking,” he boomed. The next time I glanced at the faces of my eight-girl audience, it was with suspicion.

  “Are there any other questions?” I asked, still not giving up hope. “Anything I didn’t touch on that you would like to discuss?”

  “I’d like more information about moisturizers and cleansers,” said a second girl.

  “Well …” I said, after a beat, as the truth set in. It was time to take my own advice. “I believe it was Mark Twain who said it best: ‘Cleanse first, moisturize later.’ Anything else?”

  No one stirred.

  “Okay, then,” I said. “Without any further ado, let’s get right to that drawing!”

  I handed the mike over to our very green emcee. Then I bowed humbly as I got a nice round of applause.

  The Dog Prattler

  IN THE BEGINNING, LIKE MANY DOG-LOVING AMERICANS, I WAS transfixed by the Dog Whisperer. Between his self-described “calm-assertive manner,” his earnest, well-meaning solutions to dog behavioral dilemmas, and his genial, brush-cut good looks, Cesar Millan, host of his own hugely popular dog-training show on the National Geographic Channel, seemed to represent everything smart, sensible, and loving about the human-doggy bond.

  I was glued to my set as he backed each new snarling, tooth-baring delinquent canine into a corner, letting them know who was boss with just a few graceful, well-planned moves. I sighed in admiration as he basically saved one dog’s life after another by coercing them into rethinking the aggressive behavior they were exhibiting toward the human family who was footing their bills. I cheered as he convinced each dog that it was a win-win situation for them to stop urinating in the bedroom closet. I watched in awe as he glided down the street, on his in-line skates, surrounded by his own personal pack of familiars, none of them pulling him into oncoming traffic or causing him to roll full speed into a tree.

  For the whole first season, I looked forward to every new episode of his show, usually watching them more than once. I applauded as Cesar seamlessly blended the best traits of a behavioral psychologist and an animal rescuer into one affable, preppy-handsome, Ban-Lon shirt–wearing multiculti package.

  But by season two, something shifted. Though he wasn’t really doing anything differently, I had scrutinized him enough to wonder if, like all big television CEOs, he had accumulated some video mange. His problem-solving techniques, though still impressive, had started to feel a little pat and repetitious, maybe a bit suspect.

  As I watched Mr. Millan correct each poorly socialized dog by relocating him to the middle of his rehabilitated pack in South Central Los Angeles, confident that “the wisdom of the pack” would transform the problem dog into a better-balanced member of his species, I began to wonder about the recidivism rate after the cameras stopped rolling. How quickly did the dogs revert to their former troublesome ways once they realized that the alpha in the skates wasn’t around to dominate them with a full-body rollover anymore?

  Time and again I watched as Mr. Millan moved a dog’s collar higher up, to a spot just behind the dog’s ears, as a cure for the human caretaker’s complaints about being yanked along behind the dog during walks like some kind of improperly weighted racing sled in the Iditarod. In the context of the show, it was nothing short of miraculous the way that collar maneuver instantly transformed the newly enlightened animal from Vin Diesel to Anna Wintour. In a video moment, the once problematic dog would begin strolling languidly beside (and slightly behind) his or her calm-assertive owner.

  So after months of struggling with the rude leash manners of my dog, Hedda, I decided to give his method a try. I followed Mr. Millan’s advice and slid Hedda’s collar up behind her ears. And behold: it worked! But only because she was now uncomfortable and puzzled. After about ten minutes of tiptoeing beside and slightly ahead of the oddly subdued, overly upright, and lightly choking Hedda, I decided that this version of a walk with her was exactly the same amount of fun as accompanying a postoperative patient and their mobile IV unit on a stroll down the hospital hall the day after gallbladder surgery. In other words, it was about half as exhilarating as it had been when she was out of control and barreling down the street, filled with such an uncontainable amount of joie de vivre that she was pulling me like a waterskier. At least the old style of walk let me derive vicarious thrills from watching a creature in the throes of unbridled gleeful interest in everything.

  Then I started thinking about how part of the fun of hanging out with another species is, for me, readjusting my eyes to see the world as they do. Every day during the serving of breakfast, when one of my dogs becomes so excited that she rears up on her hind legs and walks backward into a table, I marvel anew at how deep her excitement is in that moment. I am impressed by how much she loves eating (while also astounded by what an unbelievable pinhead she is to not know that the table is going to be there again the next day).

  Sure, I could insist that she and all my other dogs sit quietly at attention while I display for them my considerable breakfast preparation skills. (And they are considerable. I believe my homemade “dog loaf” is the finest in the land.) My guess is that Mr. Millan and his staff probably require rapt attentiveness every time they make an appearance in front of the group. Yes, it would eliminate all the moaning and the pawing at the backs of my legs. But my dogs’ authentic responses amuse me. And I’m pretty sure that the divot in my calf will heal in time.

  Eventually I started wondering, Who exactly is this Mr. Know-It-All Dog Whisperer, anyway? And why am I taking his advice while he is ignoring mine?

  A little research* revealed no university-sanctioned credentials or important government titles or grants. Just a self-taught guy who, since childhood in his native Mexico, seemed to have such a “remarkable rapport with dogs” that he was given the nickname El Perrero, “the dog boy.”

  Damn! I said to myself. That is not all that impressive. Plenty of people think that I, too, have remarkable rapport with dogs. And there are other parallels: I have no credentials or grants. Plus, oddly enough, my childhood nickname was El Perrero Que Tiene una Vagina, even though I spent my early childhood in New Jersey. What’s to keep me from calling myself an expert and getting a show? After all, it only makes good sense! How many times have I adopted an abused, unwanted creature from a shelter and transformed him into a cherished, beloved family member? How often have I turned an insecure, starving beast into one who is so smug and overfed that he offers me no choice but to sleep in a tight little ball way over in one corner of the bed?

  Answer: Plenty of times! And I have the chiropractor bills to prove it! Sometimes the creature has even been a dog!

  Then it occurred to me: The first step is to start my own dog-training school!

  Yes! I can do it! I too have a method to share! After all, who’s going to stop me? The bottom line is that any advice taken from any dog guru … be it the Dog Whisperer, the kid who works at Petco, or me … is an act of blind faith. It’s a lot like buying vitamins, or believing the praise of a salesperson who tells you that, yes, you absolutely look beautiful in that bathing suit. By the time you find out that the service provided was mainly a lie, it’s not worth the stress it would take to bother getting a refund.

  Because let’s face it: when we hire an animal-behavior mentor, we are buying their invented vision of the human-animal bond. In almost every case, they made it all up. No member of the other species in question was actually consulted. Often no research, beyond firsthand observation, was even done. It’s a little like choosing a religion: you take a look at the holidays, then pick the one that will make your life bette
r, not worse.

  Naturally, a visit to my dog ranch to study my method of Flexible Cohabitation (patent pending) will afford a very different set of insights than a visit to the Cesar Millan Dog Psychology Center. It’s all a question of what set of rationalizations you are willing to buy. Ask yourself: Do you want a dog who will walk behind you and obey your every command? Or do you want a more casual, improvisational, fun-filled human-dog bond? If your answer to the second question is YES!, then read on.

  By using my method, and rejecting the methods of Mr. Millan, you will find that both the human and the dog will experience less stress. And the truth is that the more you accept your dog for who he is and not try to mold him into what you expect him to be, the more you will also accept yourself. At least that’s what I like to tell people who are vacillating about writing me a check because they are not so sure I know what I’m talking about.

  FLEXIBLE COHABITATION

  (Patent Pending)

  My Dog-Care Plan for YOU

  FAQ

  Q. How do I know if Flexible Cohabitation (patent pending) is right for me?

  A. Well, let me ask you this: Do you have the patience and follow-through necessary to work with your dog for an hour a day, every day, for months, even years on end? Do you want to endure the tedium and discomfort of repeatedly giving your well-intentioned, sad-eyed pet forceful commands that make them feel manipulated and unhappy while at the same time making you feel tyrannical? If you answered, “Will the program still work if I only do it once a week?” then I believe that Flexible Cohabitation is the plan for you. With Flexible Cohabitation, all that’s required is that you sit back in your favorite chair with the icy-cold beverage of your choice and enjoy life’s rich pageantry as it unfolds before you. Because unlike Cesar Millan, I was not raised a member of the male gender in the macho culture of Mexico, and therefore I am not inclined to ask my human clients to subject themselves to painful puncture wounds by performing an alpha rollover when their dog appears dangerous or aggressive. Instead, with Flexible Cohabitation, I will show you how to enjoy a meaningful human-dog bond anyway, while allowing the dog you love so dearly to behave exactly as he or she wishes.

  Q. You can’t mean that you are advocating letting dogs run all higgledy-piggledy through your home?

  A. To this I reply, “Obviously you have never been to my home.”

  With Flexible Cohabitation, I will share with you my very special form of Zen nonattachment to material goods, which, in these days of economic turmoil, your bank account is going to love! I wish I had known you back in the days when I had my blue pin-striped sofa, which was so full of holes from dogs circling and getting comfortable that the stuffing was pouring out of it in at least six different places. With my method, your life will be free from worries about how to get unusual stains off delicate upholstery. Gone are the days of wandering around with a spray bottle of Windex and a chamois, trying to remove smeary noseprints from gleaming reflective surfaces! In fact, no more delicate upholstery! No more gleaming reflective surfaces! Period!

  Q. Will I have to employ terrifying, guilt-inducing accessories like an electrified fence and collar?

  A. Not only will you never again have the need for so much as a choke chain, but I will show you how to make yourself believe that tugging on a rope toy is in itself a form of aerobic exercise that helps to shape and tone your calves, thighs, biceps, and abdominals while improving your dog’s physique as well. I will even offer easy diagrams to help you convince yourself of this!

  And that’s not all!

  With Flexible Cohabitation, I will help you feel good about the tendency you already have to give your dog full access to your plate at mealtimes by showing you how it can help you cut down on thousands of calories a day!

  You’ll be amazed at how much more free time you have when you abandon the tedium of traditional dog training and accept living alongside your dog in the harmony and chaos that nature intended! And when all is said and done, you will find that they love you exactly the same amount!

  Q. What about tooth brushing? Do I have to brush my dog’s teeth on your plan?

  A. No. My guarantee to you, the consumer: With Flexible Cohabitation, you don’t even have to brush your own teeth. And you will go to sleep at night knowing that 100 percent of your money will be spent not just to build a long-dreamed-of addition to my house but also to pay for the high-end canned food and vitamins to which my own dogs have unfortunately become accustomed. (Offer void where prohibited by law.)

  Q. Isn’t the relationship you are recommending here the kind of doormat relationship that you commonly rail against among human beings?

  A. No! Not in the least! Because in this case … well, okay … yes. In a way it is. But with Flexible Cohabitation, since the relationship in question is with a dog, it’s so much more appealing. Gone are the power struggles involving appropriate roles, the painful arguments full of humiliating personal insults. Gone are the gut-wrenching lawsuits over property and children. Now, at last, you are truly free to work out your troubling childhood issues with nothing more at stake than a few sofa cushions, some socks, and the occasional rug.

  * And when I say little, I am not kidding. I looked him up on Wikipedia.

  Virginity Entrepreneurs

  COME WITH ME NOW, IF YOU CAN STAND IT FOR A THEORETICAL second, back to those golden-hued days of a minute ago when George W. Bush, our dunderheaded former president, hadn’t yet announced the total collapse of the global economy and Barack Obama was but a hope-filled gleam in a potential voter’s eye. Come with me back to a time when a seemingly normal girl in her early twenties, after giving herself the pop-starry pseudonym of Natalie Dylan, publicly announced her intention to auction off her virginity on eBay and use the profits to finance her college education. This may have seemed like just one more offbeat listing for eBay shoppers used to bidding on “4 sets of 3 unused mortuary toe tags” or “Debra Winger’s childhood doll,” but it was new to me. It was my first encounter with the unsettling vocation of the self-employed virginity entrepreneur.

  The idea had apparently gotten rolling a few years earlier in Europe when a lesbian student at the University of Bristol sold her virginity online for £8,400. The next recorded case was in 2007 when a young British physics student at the University of Salford was offered a cool ten thousand pounds by a potential deflowerer. After that Natalie Dylan followed suit, becoming the first American to ride a winning horse in this particular derby. And once her story hit the throbbing jugular vein of Internet sensationalism, her auction price climbed up over a million dollars.

  Perfect, I thought as I sat in front of my computer, peering down from my wobbly perch in middle age at what appeared to be a disturbing new trend. Just what our culture was missing: another talent-free route to fame and riches through self-exploitation! As I began to drown in alarming visions of what it would feel like to be a young woman who had set herself up for an intimate encounter with some unsavory ne’er-do-well, I also started scrutinizing the barrage of quotes from the eerily articulate Ms. Dylan. Her words were more rational than I’d expected, which made me even more uncomfortable.

  “Like most little girls, I was raised to believe that virginity is a sacred gift a woman should reserve for just the right man,” she said to an interviewer at the time. “For me, valuing virginity as sacred is simply not a concept I could embrace. But valuing virginity monetarily—now that’s a concept I could definitely get behind.”

  Since the beginning of recorded history, civilizations in all parts of the world have assigned immense immeasurable and mystical worth to virginity. The vestal virgins of ancient Rome were thought to wield such otherworldly powers that a condemned criminal needed only to accidentally lay eyes on one during his march to the gallows in order to have his life spared. Joan of Arc’s vow of virginity at fourteen was so highly regarded by God that He chose her to lead France in battle against England in the Hundred Years War. (Okay, yes, this was according to the voic
es in her head. Then again, we all know the bio of the woman God is said to have picked to become the mother of His kid.)

  Even today, all these years later, having had sex remains one of the few things a young woman gets status points for not accomplishing. She will never, for example, get the same praise and positive reinforcement for not graduating from high school, not losing weight, or not learning to cook. Her window of opportunity for collecting rewards for her sexfree life remains very specific, however. The mystical powers ascribed to her purity have never been thought to grow stronger with age. Even back in 700 B.C., a vestal virgin who was recruited at the age of ten was out of a job permanently by the time she hit thirty. (On the plus side, at least in ancient times older virgins could all breathe a sigh of relief when decisions were being made about who to throw into a volcano.)

  “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” is one of those ridiculous homilies I remember hearing as a kid. It was, I suppose, a way for adults to scare hormonally charged girls like me into keeping their underwear on. But it never made sense to me because … were my friends and I supposed to be the cows in that scenario? I’d never thought of myself as a cow. Then again, it had never occurred to me to think of a cow as the CEO of a small milk-distribution center.

  Considering how hard it always has been to get a good job right out of high school, to say nothing of how ridiculous tuition and interest rates on student loans have become, I could certainly see how this virginity-entrepreneur idea might begin to snowball. And so, of course, in the last couple years a teenager in Germany closed a deal for $13,000, and a New Zealander who called herself Unigirl aced the full $32,000 she needed for college tuition.