My Thoughts On "Oreo"

or, Another Open Letter to Nathan Winograd.

There has been a lot of recent hubbub about a pit bull that was thrown from a roof in New York about 6 months ago. This was pretty much the epitome of a cruelty case by commission: someone literally took his dog and threw it off a roof. Every day animals are subjected to all kinds of cruelty- from the worst, like dog fighting, to things like what happened to Oreo, to more subtle, but still bad, things like being tied up and left in the yard and undersocialized with poor shelter from the element, or left with matted hair and some kind of untreated ailment. If they weren't, I would be out of a job (and I wouldn't mind being out of my kind of job.)

Very few of these acts of cruelty make the New York Times. This story originally made the Times when the dog owner was first charged. I'm not sure why the story was news, but it was. Maybe it was news because pit bulls are always news (usually when they attack someone or something, or a dog looks like a pit bull when it does anything wrong), and recently they're semi-positive news due to some of Michael Vick dogs making it. Maybe it was news because many people saw this dog fall. Maybe the ASPCA made a big deal of the rescue of the dog. But speaking from someone who deals with human beings' shitty acts every day, let me tell you, this stuff doesn't normally make the news. And that's probably a good thing, because usually it doesn't have a happy ending.

This is something I struggle with a lot, and recently had an interesting discussion with a coworker about, in the euthanasia room, of all places. Each of us were going to put down one of our dogs- dogs we cared about. My dog was a cruelty case, one that will never make the news, and that no one would know about if I weren't blogging about it here. I went to post a picture, but it's on my work camera. I got a call about a dog in a kennel, in an abandoned house. I went out, and the house was empty. It didn't look abandoned to me, but it was messy, and maybe the people had just moved out. I don't know and will never know, because they never came in for their dog. The dog was indeed living in a kennel, if you can call it that. It was more like a cage, a 6x4 cage. The dog was a very large German Shepherd mix, maybe with husky or Akita. A VERY large dog, 80 or 90 lbs. The cage had a top on it and was closed up with a weird combination of wire and bungee cords. There was a build up of feces in it and the water was a bucket of green water. I was just looking at this situation, trying to figure out how I was going to get the cage open, and then, how to get the dog out, when the dog picked up one of the toys (toys?!) in the cage and started throwing them at me. Turns out, this extra large dog was actually quite happy to see me. So I took pictures, opened the cage, and walked the dog out. He was a NICE dog. He waited out his cruelty impound wait, 10 days in California, and was evaluated a week later. He didn't pass his evaluation. I had a friend who works with rescue come look at him, and he was really borderline. He was older than I originally thought, probably 3 years old, and he was very "doggy"- a term I learned from Diane Jessup- sort of intact male, interested in intact male things, and just not very social. He could be social for a minute, and tolerated handling, but didn't really have a place in an urban home. He was a backyard (well, a cage) dog, and couldn't compete with the adoptable dogs the shelter was bursting at the seams with. So his euthanasia day came, and I put him down.

I put a lot of dogs that I seize down. I keep a picture in the office of a puppy I seized that was about 6 months old and looked two months old. A pit bull puppy, so riddled with demodex that she had a secondary skin infection all over her body. There was not a spot on her body that was not infected and oozing and scabby. Every lymph node on her body was swollen- her ankles and jugular were swollen like they had tumors. Her hip bones jutted out. I put her and her sister down the day they came in, as they were suffering. What does it mean to put down dogs I seize for cruelty? It is not easy for me: I have *rescued* these dogs from some of the shittiest situations, some of cruelty by commission and some of omission, and then I kill them. Yes, Mr Winograd, I kill them. I euthanize them humanely, but at the end, they are dead. They aren't suffering anymore, but they're not living, either.

But no one is scrambling to place them, like they were scrambling to place Oreo. No one is following me around and writing up these dogs' stories. Thank Dawg. If everyone saw what I saw every day, they would be numb to it. They wouldn't care about every dog, or any dog. On the other hand, the three dogs I just described weren't aggressive. Why was everyone trying to save Oreo, a dog that a respectable organization, the ASPCA (read: not PETA or HSUS) deemed unadoptable? If Oreo was aggressive, why the clamour to save her? No one created a stir to save my shepherd and he was not aggressive, he just wasn't particularly awesome, either, and at most municipal shelters, only the awesome go up for adoption. No one clamoured to save my mangy pit bulls, either, and they certainly weren't aggressive. They were just very very sick, and needed so much medical treatment that it could have taken years to work them back to health. No local or national group took up their cause, and certainly not Nathan Winograd or the list of groups he gives.

Winograd is thrilled that a law is being authored to stop the "executions" of more Oreos. He says that this law is like the Hayden Law, which is in place in California. Interestingly, though, the Hayden Law only requires that STRAY dogs and cats (and rabbits and pigs) be made available to 501c3 rescue groups. (See SB 1785) And again, the Hayden bill only works if it's, well, working. My dogs were all SEIZED, not stray, and 501c3s are swamped. Would the Sanctuary that everyone was pleading for Oreo to be sent to have stepped up for my dogs if they weren't in the media? Honestly, my Shepherd would have been fine in a kennel at a sanctuary with daily play time. But for the pit pups and many other I seize, it would be another step in the wrong direction: they need an instant family, that would spend lots and lots of time and money. And what rescue group or family has room for all of that? Very few.

I hate that this is the truth. I hate that I "save" dogs and then "kill" them. It is one of the crappiest parts of my job. But I'm also distraught that an aggressive pit bull is the impetus for a bill that would make any dog available to rescue. Rescue is awesome. It's necessary. Cruelty is terrible, and the animals are not the ones that should pay. The idiotic, foolish, ignorant, and sometimes badly intentioned people should suffer. In the meantime, Oreo is the wrong posterdog, and I wish we could unite without pointing fingers at the ASPCA (armchair sheltering again) and rather work together to fight cruelty and to partner in rescuing.

Everything I Know, I Learned on Twitter

I'm behind on my linking, and my Twitter favorites are really starting to pile up. I'm going to attempt to roughly organize these, but they're really worth checking out.

Womanist Musings has a great reminder that it's never JUST all about gender, or JUST all about race. (I thought I had written here before about my annoyance with the "whiteness" of the "feminist movement", but I can't find it.) On the other hand, a new book, "The Accidental American," about immigration argues that it's ALWAYS about race. I haven't read the book, but the review alone is compelling. And check out these mythbusters about race and immigration. A few more interesting immigration notes from racewire. And since I haven't given my monthly shout to Racialicious, you MUST read "I'm for gay rights, but..." which discusses black/gay civil rights.

There's been much ado about health care reform, of course, and La Frontera Times has an insightful look at the effects of HCR on both abortion and health care coverage for immigrants. And while we're on the subject, 2,266 Veterans died last year as a result of being uninsured. Another disturbing article on health care centers on Chicago's mental health system. Prepare for nightmares. If you're not depressed enough about mental health, check out Jessa Crispin's article about her relief about getting the hell out of dodge, I mean the US, for mental health care.

With Maine recently voting against gay/civil rights, and DC voting for them, queerness has been all in the news. The Catholic Church has decided to take the extremely progressive stance of stopping all services in DC until they do something about that infernal gay-marriage law. Mother Jones thinks "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" might be repealed next year (though I'm not sure I know any (queer or other) people chomping at the bit to sign up for a wartime military, it must be a relief for current gays in the military). And LOVING this post about missing the point of queer advancement.

Think that will probably tide you over for now. If you got past one or two links...

An Official Definition of Seasonal Affective Disorder

I have just promoted myself to themacinator, PhD, MD, LCSW. Congratulations, and please pay me $2.60 an hour for the privilege of reading this blog.

For all of you doubting Thomases, Seasonal Affective Disorder is real. And I have discovered the root of all of the bio-chemical-feedback-loops that cause it (excuse me if my scientific terms are a little wobbly; my promotion has come very recently and I believe the diplomas may have been lost in the mail). Additionally, I am in the process of discovering a cure.

When standard time kicks in, many people start suffering from a vague malaise. They are hard pressed to define what this malaise is, or the root cause. There is more complaining: night comes sooner, and most people leave work when it is dusk or dark. This is something to complain about. Some people are able to compensate for this, but for many of us who are already sensitive to ... many things, are deeply affected, both by the complaining, and by the early nightfall. By the time we get home, it feels like nighttime. We don't want to go out again, it feels too dark to see our friends, too dark to walk our dogs or go to the gym, and driving in the dark is always dangerous and a pain in the ass. It becomes hard to motivate to do much more than our inside-the-house activities like TV, reading, sleeping. If we like to drink, we might drink inside (and alone) rather than out at dinner or a bar. Can you see where this is going? YES! Alcoholism, car accidents from driving at night, and TV addictions. Basically, nowhere good. Seasonal Affective Disorder is very real. And all due to short days and long, long nights.

For themacinator, the specifics are thus: we have the inability to go out and take pictures. I could patrol the environs with an ultra-heavy-duty flash, but I'm not so good at flashes, and the night is kind of a deterrent to leave the house, as aforementioned. I could just shoot in indoor locations, but many of these are semi-hostile to photography, and not nearly as fun as strolling the out-of-doors. Then there is the nervy Mac who loves to be walked but does not do well at night: every shadow is a cat or small dog, the better to be hunted. And finally, standard time always coincides with the end of baseball season. What is one to do for 2.5-3 hours when one can't listen to a baseball game? Sleep, I suppose, or read. But one cannot read for 2.5-3 hours without sleeping. And thus, one's social life suffers, one's exercise and creativity suffers, and one suffers in general.

My solution, which is still in the works, as my PhD, MD, and LCSW degrees were very hard to complete and I am still working on my engineering degree (what's that called?) is a very very large flashlight. Those SAD lights are fabulous, but my research shows that SAD is not actually a deficiency in light or vitamins in total, but rather, a deficiency in daylight time to do activities, see people, and get moving. Thus, this very large flashlight will project daylight blocks at a time, thus allowing people to do their normal outside activities in these heavily illuminated blocks. Photos can be taken, driving can be done, dogs can be walked, and friends can be seen, all due to this handheld, but extra strong flashlight, brought to you by themacinator. You heard it first here.

Scott Anderson: Moonlight Hotel

I guess Scott Anderson is a fancy war correspondent and knows how these things go down: who better to write a satirical novel about a fake war in a fake country that the very real US messes up and then ... "fixes." Though the novel starts off slowly, it picks up steam until it's extremely hard to put down. It's the early or mid-80s and David Richard and his unlikely cohorts get stuck in Kutar, the fictional country (something like Iraq or Afghanistan), after Richards is almost done with his two years of a foreign service tour. During the two years, it's all the State Department can do to even get the US to acknowledge Kutar exists. Although there has always been inter-country-strife (the borders were artificially created by colonial parties, of course), the Pentagon takes sudden interest and manages to create a mountain of trouble for everyone involved. Though "Moonlight Hotel" takes place in the '80s, Anderson writes with post-9/11 insight. The book nicely complements all of the nonfiction about the deceptive government policies in Vietnam, Central America, and for decades in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Doggy Jailer

Another thing I hear all the time when I'm out and about at work (are you sick of hearing about this, yet?) is something along the lines about how I must be out "picking up bad dogs." Or when people come into the shelter, how they're there to get their dogs out of "jail." Along the same lines of the lines of the comment about not being able to do my job that makes me bristle, is another: something about how my job is so dangerous because of all the horrible, vicious animals I must have to deal with. I've started to just tell people that actually, my job isn't really about dealing with nasty, bad, or even very dangerous animals. For the most part, it's about dealing with owners, and their poor decisions.

Here's a scenario: A dog bites someone (or another dog) while loose, severely enough to cause the person (or dog) stitches. Animal control gets a report of the bite, and a day or two later figures out where the dog lives. The dog (if the dog bit a person) must be quarantined for 10 days. If the dog bit another dog, or has a history of being at large, or if he is not securely confined, must be impounded for public safety. I show up at the address, speak to the owner, impound the dog. The owner, and the nosy neighbors, see me "jailing a bad dag."

Here's another take on the same situation. Not all of these factors may have happened, but they are factors I see every day, and for the sake of argument, I'm going to chain them all together to show that ownership is the main factor in the majority of cases I deal with, and to demonstrate that I'm more of a bad-owner-social-worker than a "doggy jailer."

Let's start two years before the date of the bite: An imaginary person (not the dog owner) gets some dogs. In this instance, I'm going to say they're pit bulls. If you've been paying attention to my blog, you know I'm not trying to malign pit bulls. I'm using them as an example because of the law of large numbers, and because I'm familiar with this particular ownership problem. So, Joe Jones gets two pit bulls. He gets one, and a couple months later, he gets another, this time a female. They're awesome, and he's sure he has homes lined up for them. So he breeds them, at about 8 and 9 months of age. He doesn't really know much about the two dogs, except that they are from "Champion" lines. They look healthy, and they have all of their shots. They stay in the yard, but they are nice dogs. They've never really left the back yard, but his kids play with them, and they've never gotten into a fight. The litter comes out pretty healthy- one seems kind of small, and one seems kind of growly, and the mom develops some hairloss during the litter and won't let people get too close, but other than that, the breeding experience is pretty smooth. Joe sells the first 5 puppies for 500 dollars each, which is some good money. By the time he gets to the last 5 puppies, they are 6 weeks old and the female's hairloss is getting worse. Joe's ready to be done with this whole thing, so he sells our dog owner his dog for $100.

Back to our dog owner. Our dog owner, John Smith, is a friend of a friend of Joe. He lives in a decent neighborhood in a city that is struggling with crime, bad schools, the usual. Basically, his neighborhood is going to shit. He is 21, and has a kid, and really, just needs a dog because he's always had one (his last one ran away, but it was just a dog he found anyway) and because there's some crime in his neighborhood. So a friend of his tells him that Joe has a few puppies left that he's selling at a discount. He picks up the puppy from Joe who says the dog has had a shot, but doesn't have any paperwork to prove it. The mutual friend says you can trust Joe, so the new puppy, Pirate, goes in the yard. John doesn't really have a doghouse set up for Pirate, but his tool shed is open to the yard, so John clears some space and puts down a nice blanket for him and buys a huge bag of food at the grocery store. He and his kid play with the dog every day. The puppy is super cute. The neighbors love him, so they leave the wrought iron gate open like they always do. They have to move their car in and out, anyway, and this way Pirate can go chill with Jr's friends.

Then Pirate gets a little bigger and starts knocking Jr's friends over, and the parents start getting annoyed. One of the neighbors who doesn't have kids calls animal control one time because of the "vicious pit bull" that's out in the street. Animal control comes out a couple days later but John is at work and the wrought iron gate is actually closed. Pirate barks and growls and sticks his head through the gate. Animal Control leaves a notice on the door that tells John in order to comply the dog must be confined and licensed. John comes home and is pissed off about his grumpy neighbors. He considers buying a chain for Pirate, but decides he'll just tell Jr to stop leaving the gate open, but Jr is only 5, and John forgets after about a week. Yeah right, animal control will take Pirate over his dead body.

Pirate becomes big and rather obnoxious. John doesn't walk him because even though he got him a choke chain and tried to walk him once or twice with that, Pirate is just really strong and pulls on the leash a lot. He barks when he's on the leash, and though he's just trying to greet people, dogs, and other animals that he sees, he's now 80 pounds of intact pit bull, and scares everyone, including John, though he'd never admit it. Pirate gets used to some behavior that most people consider rude, or disobedient: because he was separated from his mom and littermates at 6 weeks, he hasn't learned a whole lot of bite inhibition. When he jumps on people, he tends to do it with an open mouth, and he often combines his over-enthusiastic greeting by biting any available piece of clothing, and sometimes even humps a leg. When he gets pushed away, he feels like he's received an invitation to play and jumps and mouths even more. Sometimes he jumps on John and John yells at him or hits his but and Pirate hits the floor. But most of the time, Pirate tugs at people's clothing until he gets bored and walks away.

So one day, John leaves the wrought iron gate open when he goes to work. Pirate tosses a plastic 2 liter soda bottle around for awhile, sleeps for awhile, then when patrolling the yard for a good place to pee, sees the open gate. An older person walks by slowly on the way to the store. Pirate runs up to the older person and jumps on him, grabbing his shirt. The older person flails his arms, trying to get Pirate off. Pirate gets more excited, and rips the old man's shirt, and punctures the old man's arm in 3 places in the process. A neighbor sees that something is wrong and hollers at Pirate (everyone knows Pirate from when he was a cute puppy) and Pirate gets distracted long enough for the old man to get away. Pirate goes back to his backyard and sunbathes. Life continues for John and Pirate.

After the old man goes to the hospital for his wounds, the hospital reports the bite to the local animal control, as they are required by law to do, as every state is concerned about rabies. The old man describes Pirate and tells the officers where he thinks the dog lives. Animal control comes out to John's house. John tells the officers that Pirate never gets out, and is not happy when they take Pirate for his mandatory quarantine. When he comes into the shelter to find out about reclaiming Pirate and they quote his fees and explain that the dog will be neutered by law, he tells them he wanted to breed Pirate, because he comes from championship lines (remember Joe?) and because Pirate is so good with Jr. He tells them that Pirate has all his shots and that he is part of the family. When he hears the total fees, he tells them he will go get the money. John never comes back. Pirate is put to sleep: he is a pit bull with a bite history. He probably also had hairloss as he was the product of a female pit bull with hairloss (probably demodex). He may have ended up in a shelter that didn't out pit bulls anyway, or had too many. Odds are, John will have another pit bull soon.

It's likely that John thinks animal control "stole" his dog, and "just wants money." He thinks his dog "had all his shots," even though he only "had" the one that Joe claimed he gave the puppy. It's likely that many of John's neighbors feel the same way, as they are used to Pirate being in the neighborhood and doing what Pirate does. They may have dogs in similar situations. There may be a few neighbors who are glad to see Pirate go, as he was always jumping on their fences, or chasing them with his over-exuberant mannerisms. Jr will grow up thinking that dogs are expendable, and that animal control is a place where dogs go to die. He will think that dogs just act like Pirate acted.

So many factors played into this dog "being bad" and "ending up in jail." Dude got 2 pit bulls just to breed them. He bred them without knowing what they were about, health or temperamentwise. He bred them before they were mature. He sold them to pretty much anyone, without knowing where they were going to live. Another dude bought a dog without researching the breed, or the breeder. He put him in the backyard, which may be fine (topic for another day) but essentially turned him into a resident dog. He did not care for his health or training. He allowed him to roam the neighborhood and turn into a bratty, rude teenage, intact dog with no manners. The dog had no exercise than what he could manufacture for himself. This was a dog-problem waiting to happen, created by a people-problem.

I'm not suggesting that this is what happens in all bite cases, or that all pit bulls are owned like this, or that all pit bull owners are irresponsible, or any sort of generalization at all. I am suggesting, however, that there is a lot more to any given scenario that animal control deals with than a "bad animal." There is the breeder (and the breeder before that, and the cultural issues that come with "breeding") and the buying (and the cultural issues of "buying" and "owning") of the dog, and then the manner of ownership. There are issues of confinement, of training, and of stewardship: shots, health, and dogs/children. It's not about a vicious or dangerous animal, although many of our laws are worded in such a way so as to make the dog sound dangerous, not to make the owner sound irresponsible (California has a Potentially Dangerous Dog Provision). It is about choices we make, whether by omission or commission, that make my job about humans, rather than animals.

Marjorie Garber: Symptoms of Culture

This is one of the dorkiest books I've read in awhile. It's been on my shelf since I-don't-know-when: definitely after college, but years. And I don't know why I picked it up, I must have been inspired one day to read some sort of college-like textbook. Don't get me wrong, the essays are right up my alley, but really? Even the cover is dorky. Garber directs the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies at Harvard, and seems to be an expert on Shakespeare and all things Fruedian. I loved the first half of this book- she deconstructs (I know, right?) things like "culture" "symptoms" and "syndromes." The first essay, on what makes "great" things "great" was really fabulous. She looks at the connections between Christianity and sports and gentility and Jewishness. It's just that at the halfway point in this book, she got into her main obsession (or fetish, to use a Garber-ian term): Shakespeare, and lost me completely. I started skimming, something I never do. But hey, this was a book I really have no idea why I was reading, so I feel absolved. Garber writes with a wit that belies the serious nature of her topics, and any of the first 5 or so essays is well worth reading.

Snug as a Bug in a Rug

My dog has a very rough life.

(taken by Running With Dogs while I was at work)

Stewardship, Futility, Enforcement, Education

"Nature Noir," the book I finished last night or this morning, I've already forgotten, has really made me think about animal control, as a profession in general, and in my case specifically. I think a lot of my preconceived notions of park rangers are probably pretty similar in hue to those people have of animal control officers. And I imagine that I probably had some of the same illusions as Smith did when he joined the Park Services. These misconceptions are not quite the same ones as the general public has, because Smith and I both knew what we were getting into, for the most part (I had scooped plenty of shit before I became an officer almost 2 years ago, for example; I was no animal welfare rookie), but it really takes putting on the boots to get it.

I have been to a lot of national parks, and a lot of state parks, and I've met a couple rangers. I've met people in green and khaki that I assume are rangers. Some of them take money at parking kiosks and hand out little maps. I met some cool rangers in Yosemite that explained that they're basically federal police, and carry guns, and have to be able to do everything, including all kinds of first aid. But I have no idea what they do. I wanted to be a ranger once- how cool would it be to sit somewhere bucolic or picturesque and write books like John Muir? See how naive I am? Smith writes about how the work is seasonal, and you're constantly moving from park to park for work. In order to get job security, you have to go places where ranger work is year round, like Auburn. Which is a pretty sheisty placement. And you start over there. "Now, as a junior permanent, you're back at the bottom of the heap. So you gladly take what you can get. Then, to get back to the places that were the whole point of rangering in the first place, you begin to make calculated moves instead of moves of the heart. That's when the trouble begins." Here's how Smith cynically (or realistically) sums up his career trouble: "For most of us, our career prospects ended when we went there. The Auburn Dam site wasn't the kind of place that looked good on a resume. The department preferred to think of its rangers chatting with families in neat little picnic grounds or giving wildflower walks. Most of us were never promoted again. What we did there mattered only to us, and to the river."

I'm pretty sure lots of people have met animal control officers, or seen people they thought were animal control officers. What do they think we do? I've summed up some of the things I actually do, and some of the things I think people think we do, but I know there's a lot of misconceptions out there. There's the old stereotype of the bumbling dog catcher (sort of like my view of the toll taking kiosk ranger) and the glorified rescuer of "Animal Cops" (As Seen On TV). I think a lot of people think we love animals so much, and that we pretty much do cool animal stuff all day long, sort of like my childish dream of sitting by a bubbling brook and writing nature poems. In my case, like for Smith, animal control was a sort of career move (though I hate thinking in those terms- life plans stress me out): I did lots of "smaller" animal welfare jobs and wanted to do something a little more permanent, and with more impact. But every day I feel more like what I do matters only to me, and maybe to an individual animal.

The park that Smith worked in for the majority of his career was slated to be under water "sometime in the future" for the entire time that he worked the land. Though rangers are supposed to protect the land, there is an amazing sense of underlying futility in Smith's writing: how can you protect land that the government you work for is going to destroy? Stewardship becomes a moot point when the land being tended is about to be at the bottom of an artificial lake. This is a feeling I grapple with daily. My jurisdiction is not going to be under water in any literal sense, but some days I feel like it already is under water. Who am I protecting? The animals? From whom? Their owners? With what laws? If I enforce the laws, or seize the animals, who will prosecute the offenders and make sure that history is not repeated? I am also supposed to be protecting people, in my public safety role. But if people are going to continue to manage their animals irresponsibly (or not at all), how can I help steward a safe community? And if what is in existence is already broken, is it stewardship or plugging a dyke with a pinky finger? I often feel like my job is a juggling act, to keep the situation at bay, and the bar that has been set is very low. Futility.

Smith writes about one of his first postings that "I had learned a couple of things about human nature that wouldn't startle you much if you took a moment to think about them: When regular people leave the city limits, their behavior doesn't change much, and habitual criminals are seldom rehabilitated by pretty scenery." I'm not sure I've ever read truer words. When regular people have pets, their behavior doesn't change much, and regular criminals are usually regular criminals in all walks of life. A friend of mine who works in another jurisdiction once put it to me this way: "Where there's one felony offense there's usually another." Like the time I showed up at a cock fight and found a gun under a couch cushion. I probably shouldn't have been surprised, but human nature continues to amaze me. Although I chose to look the other way about non-animal-related-offenses on my calls, they're there, all day, every day (not the guns, I don't see those, and I wouldn't look the other way, but I'm there about the animals. Not the pot, not the expired (or stolen) license plate, not the fake ID). Smith continues: "Still, I believed there was one big distinction between me and your run-of-the-mill cop. I wasn't just slowing the inevitable decline of western civilization by arresting the guilty and carting off the wounded. I had been given a sacred charge: America's crown jewels, those special places legislatures had agreed were too good to ruin." Well, I'm glad he and the other rangers are there, and I'm glad that they're not "just" cops (although I'm glad "just" cops are there, too). These are cops with a mandate, and a special interest in stewardship and protection. I feel the same way about my job. I'm not "just" a wannabe cop (or a dog catcher). I have a special mandate, to protect and serve animals. It's not some cheesy "voice for the voiceless" thing, but there's something to the Mahatma Ghandi quote "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." When we're not on duty and the cops are handling our calls, they're handled. They're not handled with care.

And that's where education comes in. There's enforcement, and there's education. Smith cited and arrested more people than his fellow officers. He probably solved more serious crimes than his partners, too. There is a place for that, and maybe his park was safer for it, too. (The Auburn area sounds kind of sketchy, actually- I'm glad he was out there!) But he also was educated about the environmental issues about that dam- it wasn't just that he was going to be out of a job, he knew his park, and what it would cause. I'm also an enforcer, though probably not to the extent of Smith. I will write citations, and I will seize animals. But I prefer to educate, to speak to people, to appeal to reason. To talk about where we're coming from, to hear where we're coming from, to try and get to a point of mutual understanding. To explain the law, to teach, to listen.

At the end of all this is an overwhelming sense of futility. My life is not a reality show. It's not As Seen On TV. My town is screwed up, in many of the same ways that Auburn as described in Smith's book is (though maybe with less meth and less desert). There's also an amazing sense of doing the best I can, providing little bits of stewardship every day.

"For me, the bedrock of reality is my affection for wild nature, and I take exception to the idea that nature is nothing more than a cultural construction... Sentiment-call it love-for the wild is ultimately why Will and I became rangers. Sentiment is why any of us bother to raise children, who sometimes don't appreciate what we do; why we care tenderly for elderly parents after age has deprived them of the memory of our names. It is why we try to salvage the juvenile delinquent, the alcoholic, the drug addict. Without it, we are not human."

Jordan Fisher Smith: Nature Noir

This wasn't the book I was expecting to read, and I don't think it was the book Jordan Fisher Smith thought he would write when he joined the State Park services as a ranger. The cover of the book depicts some snow covered mountains, and the subtitle is "A Park Ranger's Patrol in the Sierra." Doesn't that evoke visions of a modern "Monkey Wrench Gang" or maybe a John Muir? Yeah, no. Smith was stationed in Auburn, and it was no easy, remote, read books, sip from a canteen, isolated from modern urban life kind of career. Rather, he was law enforcement, only off of the beaten path. I found myself really identifying with Smith- he's alone out there, dealing with some serious characters. Just because he's in a pastoral park setting doesn't mean there isn't shady stuff going on. (Animal control is the same way: just because we enforce animal related ordinances doesn't mean we aren't dealing with the same people.) Smith has recreational areas to contend with, riverbeds where squatters take up residence, and rivers with day vacationers. The anecdotes he tells are real, and sometimes brutal. Behind all of this is the lurking fear of a park service that may soon be under water- the whole time Smith was a ranger, the Auburn dam was a real possibility, and his whole area was slated to be a man made lake. The futility he feels is palpable (boy, do I know that feeling!).

This is a strange, choppy book written in a way that dispels myths without necessarily intending to. The narrative is out of sequence and often lacks transitions. Near the end of the book, Smith recounts his battle with Lyme disease, a struggle directly resulting from the changes humans have caused the ecosystem and his time in the park that is a microcosm of the changes in California. The book hit home for me- his career is full of possibilities of danger, and isn't quite what he thought what he was getting into. But it's public service, and he seems fulfilled.