Episode 14 - Zach Skow

“Who rescued who?” It’s something you hear often when it comes to our pets, but for Zach Skow, the sentiment couldn’t be truer. Faced with end-stage liver disease and an uphill battle with addiction, Zach credits his dogs with getting him through his darkest days, and he’s been returning the favor ever since. His rescue, Marley’s Mutts, has been going strong for more than a decade, and he joined us on the PetSpace Podcast to talk about one of its newer programs, Pawsitive Change, a comprehensive canine training program for inmates.

In this episode, Zach talks about how Pawsitive Change provides enrichment for everyone it touches, what’s in store for the program’s future, and how he’s learned first-hand just how important it is to give everyone – humans and animals – a second chance.

For more on the Pawsitive Change Program, you can find them on Instagram, Facebook, and the Marley's Mutts website. You can also follow Zach on Instagram. 

The Petspace Podcast is:
Hosted by Catie Voglio,
Recorded & Edited by Roger Gomez,
Produced by Cameron Kell,
To learn more about Wallis Annenberg Petspace visit us at our website annenbergpetspace.org

Transcript

[PODCAST THEME MUSIC FADES IN]

CATIE: 

Welcome to the PetSpace Podcast. Today's episode truly defines the meaning of “who rescued who?” Zach Skow is the founder of Marley's Mutts, a rescue based out of Central California. But this isn't just a regular rescue: Zach and his team pull dogs from high-volume, open-intake shelters and then send the dogs to prison. No, not another shelter: The Pawsitive Change Program was founded after Zach saw the change a single dog made in a good friend's life after being released from prison. It has been an epic journey of changing minds, all led by man's best friend. The Pawsitive Change Program creates hope and opportunity for incarcerated people and pets so both may find a path home. This isn't a story where only the pets get a second chance: some of the men who have been a part of the Pawsitive Change Program have reentered life post-incarceration with valuable skills and crafted careers in both dog training and animal welfare, going on to continue to save even more lives. Now, Zach wants to make an even bigger impact. He explains how he is fighting for prison reform and working to expand the Pawsitive Change Program to women's and juvenile programs in California and potentially expanding into Arizona. Get ready to be inspired and appreciate all that the human-animal bond can accomplish. Please welcome Zach Skow! 

[PODCAST THEME MUSIC FADES OUT]

CATIE:

Welcome to the PetSpace Podcast!

ZACH:

Thank you for having me; myself and Beta are very excited.

CATIE:

Thank you for coming!

ZACH:

She's thrilled. This is quite an intro for her, walking into the PetSpace and being greeted by 50 or so seniors who are just loving all over her. 

CATIE:

Our sister agency was here today, and they were doing their first big tour of PetSpace, and it was like a red carpet for Beta walking into 50 adults who just couldn't get enough of her. 

ZACH:

What's interesting is she doesn't—usually she's so attached to me, and when there's like perturbations of energy, she doesn't necessarily like to engage with it. She'll kind of go figure it out but she went right in with all the—older folks just have like a… less threatening… even if they are sort of high-energy, they have a less threatening vibe, so she was all over it. And they must have reminded her of something.

CATIE:

And they just got done with puppy yoga, so they were on good vibes only. 

ZACH:

Yeah, she got like right on her belly, right, you know, turned upside down and everything. 

CATIE:

Good job, Beta. And this is our maiden voyage of having a dog in the podcast studio! It’s a really big day.

ZACH:

I can’t believe it! I mean, If I would have brought Cora today, we would have like, broken this place. 

CATIE:

Yeah, no, the closet would have just… exploded. 

ZACH:

What we should do is, is, provided this goes well, we should do one with Cora. We can talk about Cora’s story, we can talk about whatever. I'm just trying to get in for a second go-around with the PetSpace. 

CATIE:

You're welcome back anytime. I think there's a lot to talk about. 

ZACH:

There is, for sure.

CATIE:

We may need many parts to Zach Skow, his dogs, and the adventures of, right?

ZACH:

Word on the street is, you're the right person for it. So I think we’ll be fine. 

CATIE:

I'm trying. They have graciously allowed me to take the reins on this. So Zach, I feel like you're pretty well known in the rescue world. You are the founder of Marley's Mutts, which is an incredibly successful rescue. If—I guess I would say, I don't know if I'm the big judge of that. But how long have you been around, and been—when did you found Marley's Mutts and just a brief, kind of intro to you. 

ZACH:

So I founded Marley's Mutts in 2009, so we've been around for 15 years, we're celebrating our quinceanera this year. 

CATIE:

Congrats. 

ZACH:

Thanks. And it's kind of a long story, how we got started. I can try to give you a brief synopsis, but I got involved in animal welfare in 20—in 2002, when I adopted my Marley, this boy here [points to tattoo on arm] from the Mojave Animal Shelter.

CATIE:

As seen on your arm.

ZACH:

Yes. And the name of the rescue, obviously, Marley's Mutts. So when I adopted him, I started to get involved in volunteering for Kern County Animal Services, spending time at the shelter out there. And then long story short, I got sick in 2007, 2008. I went into alcoholic liver failure, acute alcoholic liver failure, it's called end stage. You know, I've told this story before but there was a moment. There was an evening where I had, I couldn't control my bowels, and I couldn't make—I could barely walk, so I couldn't make it to the bathroom. So, it was the middle of the night and I had—I needed to go to the bathroom. I had taken off my clothes because they were soiled, and I walked into the bathroom and looked at my mirror, this full-length mirror in there. And it was… it was like, shocking too. Because it was nighttime, and the lights in there were so bright, and so I'm looking at my eyes, which are sunken back in my head and they're completely yellow, my skin's completely blue and yellow and I have this enormous, enormous belly—I have stretch marks from it—and a herniated belly button with these varicose veins feeding this huge mass of blood and bile that was filling my abdominal cavity, and and my hair was falling out… and it just a very bizarre feeling to not recognize yourself. And, you know, I looked over next to the toilet and all my dogs were

looking up at me, while I'm looking in the mirror.

CATIE:

As the dogs do. 

ZACH:

They were looking at me like nothing was wrong with me. And they were looking at me like they saw who I was, that they knew dad was in there, and that they knew we were just going through, like we were getting through a cold. 

CATIE:

Just another day. 

ZACH:

I can't tell you what that recognition did for me, because that was a very pivotal moment, like, to not recognize yourself in the mirror and then to look at your dogs and to see—and these are dogs that I knew so well, like we were so bonded. And to see them recognize me, to see them say, “Hey, Dad, I know you don't see you. But we see you, in there.” 

CATIE:

Yeah. A true “who rescued who?” moment.

ZACH: 

Yeah, no, it really was. I mean, it was more than that. But yeah, that became, you know, a critically important time, and every day after that, we committed ourselves to trying to make it. And I started bringing dogs into my pack, I couldn't really walk far like I can only go down the driveway and back up, but just by virtue of walking those dogs and putting one foot in front of the other, we started to get better. And we started to get better rapidly, and I started volunteering for the same organizations that I did before, you know—Canine Canyon Ranch, Tehachapi Humane Society, and I started adding dogs to my pack.

So it wasn't just the walking, it was the—taking pictures of all these dogs and writing their stories and I started making their posters. And so all of a sudden, you know, I found myself completely dedicated to like, every second of every day was dedicated to either, you know, moving my body with these kiddos or trying to find a future for them, you know, and [it was] a creative outlet as well. I hadn't been creative in a very long time.

CATIE:

I was gonna say it sounds like you're a marketing man, making posters and stuff. 

ZACH:

Yeah, well, they were all hilarious. Some of them would not be appropriate these days.

CATIE:

Well, sometimes you’ve got to think outside the box.

ZACH:

They would all be—they'd all have records. So, because they all came from the shelter—I’d equate that to doggy prison—they were in there for streaking, for peeing in public, for disorderly conduct, for… you know, whatever. Fighting. Like, they were always—

CATIE:

But listen, that's gonna get someone's attention, yeah!

ZACH:

Yeah, oh it was hilarious. It was a thing in my town. So we had like, 15 to 20 businesses that I would put the posters up on, usually for the Tehachapi Humane Society, and people would gather around and read all these, and there would always be people reading them on the outsides of the stores from the library, all these different stores in town. And so I became this yellow, liver failure, recovering alcoholic—

CATIE:

With a whole bunch of dogs.

ZACH:

With a black pitbull that was running around town all the time putting up these posters and doing adoptions. And so, I quickly got the support of my community and people started to encourage me and so, you know what, long story short what happened was they—the folks at the veterinary hospital gave me a kennel and they said, you know, “Hey, we want you to keep doing this because we're getting a lot of strays in,” and then they give me a second kennel, and then the staff at the pet store said “Hey, do you want to just create a dog rescue?” They were like, “You got to do this.” 

CATIE:

And then you got another kennel. 

ZACH:

Yep. And then started recruiting fosters. I filed for nonprofit status in 2009 and we were approved retroactively, so we've been… since I think, May 2009, we've been a nonprofit organization.

CATIE:

At what point did you say, “Oh, my God, I can't believe I'm doing this”?

ZACH: 

Never. I don't think I ever—I think most people who are involved in animal welfare will realize like, there's no time to celebrate your accomplishments.

CATIE:

Or say, “Oh, my God, what am I doing?”

ZACH:

You know, if you spend time in the shelters like all of us do, you just, you know, you go in on a Tuesday, and then you go in on a Friday and you can tell how many dogs aren't there anymore, and they're not there because they got adopted, or they're not there because they were put to sleep. So yeah, I don't think I ever—I don't think to this day, I really recognize—I mean, I'm definitely happy that we've accomplished what we have, and I'm happy that Marley's Mutts exists and I'm extremely grateful to everyone who helped this manifest. 

CATIE:

So you—so, Marley's Mutts was rolling. At what point did you say, “I don't have enough to do. I need to start another program out of Marley's Mutts,” and out came Pawsitive Change?

ZACH:

Well, there was a moment where it looked like, you know, we were obviously creating a dog rescue, and I’m like “Okay, well, I don't want to just be another dog rescue, I want to look at this holistically. What are the problems we need to solve? How are we going to solve it? And how do we address all of the variables?” And so those variables are spay and neuter, those variables are education, you know, those variables are involving marginalized communities, etc. and training. And then, Pawsitive Change we started eight years ago in January of 2016. Pawsitive Change is a comprehensive inmate canine training program, and what we're trying to do is take the most vulnerable dogs in California shelters, young large dogs, rehabilitate them in prison, they go to live in a prison setting for three months with our student inmates. We go in every week to train them, and the result is our students become master trainers, our dogs become CGC [Canine Good Citizen] certified and get adopted, and the more you put into that program, the more successful you will be as a reformed individual, as a spiritually enlightened individual, as someone who's in touch with themself, and from a workforce development angle, you know, you have a very profitable life ahead of you if you throw yourself into Pawsitive Change. We have guys who were in our program for years and years who did 1000s of hours of dog training who are incredibly successful, you know, from Jason Mori to Jamal Henderson—all of these guys, these former students of ours that have gone on to run—and they're all involved in rescue, almost all of them, because the rescue—that's one of the most beautiful things about Pawsitive Change, is that they’re returning to rescue.

CATIE:

Well that’s the base, right? That gets in your veins, then you’re—

ZACH:

Well that’s where the greatest need is, right? So many of our rescues are rescuing these dogs and they don't have the tools to get these dogs adoptable, so they're using our students, our former students. So they're working with private individuals, they're working with adoption agencies, they’re working with shelters, they're all over the place. 

CATIE:

And I think most importantly, like you said, you're addressing this problem of these really wonderful dogs that just need a little training. Like people will—

ZACH:

Yeah, sometimes a lot of training. 

CATIE:

But I guess what we're finding, especially right now, is they're young and they just need something to do, and they just haven't been given that opportunity, and you're creating a pipeline of highly adoptable pets that most people would be lucky to have, and that’s amazing.

ZACH:

Yeah. Not only are they highly—I mean, they're highly adoptable because they have incredible skills. The Canine Good Citizen certification is very challenging. The first several testing points are pretty easy, but it gets very difficult. 

CATIE:

Yeah, this is not like, “Sit, stay, roll over.”

ZACH:

Yeah, so the bond that they develop and the potential for bonding. When you are like—here's the other thing that's really important, and this is like, critical to understand. What a person in recovery needs—almost all of our students are in recovery, the vast majority of them are in recovery from alcohol, or drugs, or both. And what a person like me and a person like them needs is rules, boundaries, discipline, affection, exercise, love. 

CATIE:

Sounds like a dog, they need a dog.

ZACH: 

So, that's what all of these dogs need in order to be successful, and that's what we need in recovery. So in the process of creating rules, boundaries, discipline, structure, exercise, affection, and love for your dog, you're doing the same for yourself. And there's also—obviously, we talked about self love, acceptance, a lot of those things come with working with a dog, but it's the self esteem that one develops by working with and training a life, and then the purpose. You know, you're constantly—as an inmate, you're constantly told that you're worthless. You're constantly—you're told, you're kept in an inorganic place behind, you know, a concrete place where you're surrounded by violence, you're given no resources. You're constantly told that you're worthless. You’re oftentimes away from your family, and here you are. And imagine what that does to someone's psyche and your self worth and your value. So to watch these individuals start to believe in themselves as they transform a life other than themselves while transforming their own life—it's one of the most beautiful, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever got to witness. And then in that process, you're exposing the potential within an individual, you know, and as we all know, there's nothing worse—the worst thing in life is wasted talent. 

CATIE:

Yeah.

ZACH:

And to, to watch these dudes, these men, women, and children uncover their own talent and their own potential and to watch their families take notice and to watch their correctional officers take notice… it is, it's just beautiful, you know, and we're all—we all are there to believe in each other and root one another on, and we have this real strong camaraderie that we've all developed over the years and it's just, I feel so lucky. And I get emotional every time I think about it, I feel so grateful that I get to plug myself into this population of individuals, that I get to believe in them and that I get to witness all of these transformations, and then I get to see, you know, the potential within these dogs exposed, and the potential within these individuals exposed, its… it'll blow your hair back for sure.

CATIE: 

I mean, it's—it's like, lightbulb moment after lightbulb moment, and you see that light go on and it's probably pretty hard to turn it off once it's on. I think when people find a purpose and become a purpose-driven human, you're—it's night and day. 

ZACH:

Yeah. And it's not just the purpose-driven aspect of it, because if you don't believe in yourself, you know, it's—it's that we all believe in each other, and the dogs believe in them too, you know. 

CATIE:

Yeah, it’s like a community.

ZACH:

A lot of these guys and gals haven't been believed in their entire life, and to be, to get to go in there and believe in them and trust them with the life of a dog... That's another thing, is people don't trust them with anything. You're a convict, you're an inmate, and there's, there's a connotation to that, that it is like worth less, you know, utterly worth less, and to, to not only believe in them, but to trust them, to entrust them with a life, you know… they understand respect, and there's few things you can do that are that respectful. To say to another man, “Hey, I'm going to trust you with this life that I'm bringing to you because I believe in you.”

CATIE:

Yeah, and I can only imagine because that's the way that they're typically treated in a prison, like they can't be trusted, there's no value to this human being. How hard was it to get into these prisons [and] to convince people that we should give them a chance and they could do something for the better and make these animals and save lives, and why should they be the people to do that? 

ZACH:

Yeah, it was very challenging to get into the prison system. It took me, took us four and a half years of kicking the can down the—you know, it was really difficult but we—David Long, shout out to Warden David Long, took a chance on us. 

CATIE:

Someone had to, right? 

ZACH:

Lisa Porter and Leah Marquez and, you know, Sam Johnson and Kim are some of the best trainers on the planet, [they] helped us, you know, develop a curriculum and implement that curriculum and—shout out to Cesar Millan too, a lot of us met him, you know, Cesar offered several of us—myself included—a scholarship to learn how to train dogs and to learn how to understand dog body language and behavior and, you know, showed me things about—and this is funny, because I used to watch him in the hospital all the time. It was the only thing that was on at night in the hospital was Cesar.

CATIE:

Probably was on Discovery. 

ZACH:

It wasn't just—I don't remember what it was, I think it was Nat Geo, but it was Cesar and then like reruns of Angels baseball, of which I'm a fan. And so to get to, you know, fast-forward four or five years, to get to be with him, you know, year in and year out and really learn about dog psychology and how to bond even better with my dog. It was really—and that's where most of us met, and that's one of the, one of the key tenets about our program, actually, in terms of dog psychology, and it's one of the first things that we teach is this idea that, you know, your leash, the dog leash, is an umbilical cord of energy.

CATIE:

Yeah, it’s connected. 

ZACH:

And that soon as you take that leash, you know, everything you're experiencing—everything, your thoughts, your vibration, your vibe—you're transmitting all of that down that leash.

CATIE:

Good day, bad day, or other. 

ZACH:

And you have to be—and therefore you have to be hyper-conscious of what you're feeling, what you're experiencing, and you have to be able to pass that leash off, if you're not feeling it, to one of your teammates. And there's no better way to almost force someone to get uncomfortable with themselves, because again, you can't fake it, you can't fake—you can't say, “Oh, well, I'm feeling worthless,” this, that or the other. And it also—it radically changed how our students felt about drugs, you know. Drugs and alcohol are ubiquitous in prison, they’re ubiquitous, it's everywhere. But very quickly, our students started to realize that the dogs won't respond and that they'll have a much more difficult time trying to train if they're on drugs, and so we had—we started to have commitments, you know, for no drugs, and we—there are a lot of us there in recovery, too, so we talked about it as teachers and trainers. We would touch on our recovery and—you know, it's just—that element, that might be the most powerful element of in terms of changing people's lives, that we were able to like, leverage within the program is that simple idea that, unless you address what you're feeling and what you're thinking, it's not only not going anywhere but it's going to negatively affect all those around you, including yourself.

CATIE: 

It's a therapy, like you guys were offering a therapy program, a recovery program, and a dog training program, and a job placement program all in one. I just—I'd see no reason why someone wouldn't want you in their facility. But what were some of the pitfalls? Like, have you been at the same facility the whole time, or some of them have come and gone? 

ZACH:

Yeah, some have come and gone. We were at California City, they closed down because they're a private prison hybrid. So we were there for seven and a half years, they closed down, we were at Corcoran State Prison, the most dangerous prison in California for three years. We closed down that program because it became too dangerous and it was difficult to fund. Most of these programs are not funded by the state. We do get state funding now, we get help for our programs, but not it doesn't pay—

CATIE:

Not enough. Yeah. 

ZACH:

No, not enough. No. So we're constantly—and they're very far away too, so trying to get qualified trainers to execute the program is challenging because the prisons are in the middle of nowhere.

CATIE:

It's kind of like the shelters, I mean, that's very similar to the like, as you say this, I'm thinking yes, you know, I'm thinking of the LA County system and Lancaster is the farthest shelter out of LA County and it's the highest volume and has the least adoptions, and it's because it's hard to access and get to and for people to help and it's very similar, it sounds like, to that. 

ZACH:

Also, I think, there's something special about Lancaster Palmdale, where it's, it's like a fringe. It's the outskirts of Los Angeles County, and a lot of people have been moved from various areas to end up there. And it's, it's socioculturally confused. That area is—it doesn't quite know its identity yet. But yeah, you know, things are really starting to change. In the beginning, correctional officers and custody staff were convinced that our students were going to train the dogs to attack them, or train them to smuggle drugs. 

CATIE:

Oh, yeah. I wish you could, but it's not that easy. You must be a good trainer if you’re getting that done. 

ZACH:

Yeah, it is not that easy. That's kind of what we explained to them, and nowadays, it's, you know, a lot of things have shifted within the prison system, both locally in California and at the federal level. We noticed a lot more support, even though we—there isn't a lot more money for it, necessarily. There are a lot of innovative grants for prison programming. You know, obviously, for me, what's frustrating is that we could scale this throughout the United States of America. In every community there's an animal shelter and a prison. And there's nothing preventing us. And this is—I mean, think about this. The pet industry is a $90 billion industry, it is a massive, MASSIVE—

CATIE:

Say it again, for the people in the back.

ZACH: 

—massive industry. One of the biggest careers that we are desperate to fill within that community is dog trainer, behaviorist, kennel technician, etc. We are short in those positions. 

CATIE:

Yeah, it is very hard to hire for all of those positions. And I heard a number the other day that it was like—we could continue to train at the rate we're training in all of those positions for the next 20 to 30 years and still not catch up to the demand that there is for those people.

ZACH: 

Exactly. And what we've been looking for within the prison policy and prison advocacy realm is an economy, a silo of an economy or multiple silos that will accept the formerly incarcerated. We were promised a bunch of different solar, oil and gas, and none of it has happened. The pet industry was built on second chances, essentially. And what we're noticing is that our communities are absolutely not only open but eager to welcome our students into their lives as their dog trainers, as their pack walkers, etc. So we now have 27 former students who served long terms in prison. A lot of them, you know, former gang members, a lot of them black and brown. I didn't know one black dog trainer when I got into this, not one. Now I know dozens, you know, the amount of opportunity that we can provide for formerly incarcerated returning citizens is remarkable within this industry, and the amount of good we can do helping keep dogs in homes and really just culturally providing our members, our co-humans with the tools needed to better understand their dogs. We anthropomorphize everything about our dogs. I mean, you can say certain things to someone, they will, they will, like, overtly feel disrespected, if you don't anthropomorphize the way they need you to.

CATIE: 

Well even this dog mom/dog dad movement, which is really, really popular, you know, realistically, we didn't birth our dogs. Although some days I think I may have, we didn't, and it is a dynamic that you have an animal living in your house—

ZACH:

—who does not speak English—

CATIE:

—and I think people forget that sometimes is that, yeah, definitely doesn't speak English. Some days, I don't even think my two dogs speak the same dog language, to be really honest. 

ZACH:

Yeah, yeah. 

CATIE:

One came from North Carolina, another came from New York, and I'm pretty sure they grew up—

ZACH:

And in the process, we neglect their needs. Yeah, dogs have needs. Enrichment is something that is critical to the life of anything that you're to—anything you're responsible for deserves to be, to have its needs met. And those needs are not just feeding it terrible food ad infinitum. It's, it's truly looking at your dog's breed, your dog size, your dog's demeanor, your dogs—all of these different variables and coming up with a comprehensive plan to meet those needs so that you can have the strongest bond possible. So you can have the best connection possible. 

CATIE: 

And at the same time making all of that accessible, because here we are in this overcrowding crisis. And then, as a rescue community where we can be real judgy people, sometimes. And I think, we have to remember that if we are going to save this overpopulation of dogs that we're dealing with, we have to make what you're talking about—that understanding of what a dog needs—accessible to everyone. Otherwise, there's not enough people to adopt these animals and give them the right life and then not have them come back or have issues with them. 

ZACH:

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of things that, that we need to take a long hard look at. And a lot of these things are—when it comes to decoding a dog's needs, it's a really wonderful experience, you know. Working with a shutdown dog in particular, a dog that is absolutely terrified, petrified of what's going on around you, you know. Unpacking that and decoding that Rubik's Cube is a really long, like, wonderful process. But people think they can just do it. You know, like “I'm a—dogs, animals love me, I'm gonna stick my hand—

CATIE:

Like it’s an overnight solution.

ZACH:

I'm gonna put pressure on it with a high-pitched voice.” And even suggesting, trying to make suggestions about that approach, you're almost viewed as like a, you know…

I have a really hard time finding the language to communicate with people properly, because people don't realize how often they're putting pressure on a dog that the last thing that dog needs is pressure.

CATIE:

Is more pressure, yeah. They're probably pressuring themselves in their head about those things. 

ZACH:

Yeah, and where in nature does a high-pitched voice that's very loud and chirpy… where in nature does that—and I'm not saying that that's not effective. Certain dogs, especially if the—if a dog is calm or whatever, if that's what it's used to. 

CATIE:

Yeah, hype. If it gets hyped that way.

ZACH:

Yeah, but um, you know. A lot of, a lot of those dogs are the ones that we see euthanized, obviously, and they just need kennel staff technicians, shelter staff to understand how to unlock them. And that's a, that's a—it's a much more difficult process, but it's also a very wonderful one because that's where the true work is in decoding those dogs, it's really special. 

CATIE:

There's also not a pipeline, necessarily of, of training that gets you into animal welfare or being a kennel technician. You know, most people apply to a shelter and they go, “Here's a leash, careful of that one. That one's easy. Clip them up, get them out, clean the kennel.” There's not… people ask me a lot, “How do you get into animal welfare?” And I think overwhelmingly—and this seems like how you got into it—you volunteer somewhere.

ZACH:

Yep. Yeah.

CATIE

But there's really no formal entry into this wild world of understanding all of the things that you're talking about, so it's—think of the people in your programs that are learning all of this and could be placed in these understaffed shelters with a base knowledge—

ZACH:

Yep, yeah. Totally. And they're so good at communicating, too. There’s something very special about the way our students communicate because they come from prison, where everything is about respect, and you're working across gang and race lines. The way that they communicate with each other is pretty respectful, and it's very conscientious. So their bedside manner with clients is like, spectacular.

CATIE: 

And probably with each other, too.

ZACH:

It's really, really good. So they're very uniquely qualified to communicate a lot of those. those variables. And yeah, I mean, that's the key to unlocking this, is to really take a—Cesar did some really wonderful training with, you know, he would host classes at his Dog Psychology Center. We bring in tons of shelter dogs, like right out of the shelter from our rescue. We put them in the kennel, and we recreate the scenario and we'd have all of these different students and that was exactly what it was about, was how to, you know, get that dog to step into confidence, to get that dog to step out of the stack.

Yeah, it was really beautiful to see, and those things are—I hope we… What it really takes is just a comprehensive approach.

CATIE: 

And how do you scale what you are doing? So I know you started in male prison, that those were your people and that's who was coming out of the program. Where are you taking Pawsitive Change now? How are you growing it? 

ZACH:

Yeah, so it's pretty exciting. Thanks for asking. We had—recently, the federal prison system. So in 2008 [sic: 2018], something called the First Step Act came out. And this was—I'm not trying to get political or anything, but it was a Donald Trump, Tim Scott, bipartisan bill that was focused on eliminating a lot of the woes of the ‘94 Crime Bill, and also some of Reagan's… I think it was the ‘87 Crime Bill to address mandatory minimums, truth in sentencing, and put some adjudication back in the hands of the judges. And to—the cocaine versus crack, you know, all of these different scheduling and sentencing issues that really have—these punitive measures, the punitive approach to incarceration, which has never worked. Our recidivism rate is 75% for people after five years. Seventy-five percent of people return to prison after five years, at a massive cost. It’s astonishing.

CATIE:

It’s really high. Yeah. Talk about no hope, like really, you are pretty much guaranteed to be headed back. 

ZACH:

Yeah. So, how can you tell me that this model that you're, that you're—and, we incarcerate three times as many people as we did when this all started? 

CATIE: 

Yeah. Not going so well, guys. 

ZACH:

So at this time in the 90s they’re saying, “Hey, this is really bad, we need to address this. So here's what we've come up with.” And well intended or not, you now have three times as many people, and especially when it comes to black and brown neighborhoods, like it has utterly decimated the future for a lot of these, these neighborhoods. So when the First Step Act came out, I wasn't sure if it would make a difference. I wasn't sure if it had much teeth, and we've kind of had to wait and see how it's trickled down through the institutions, but it's quite remarkable. You know, we now are working on becoming a First Step Act-approved program, which will basically guarantee our funding. And the receptivity to our program, they—I love, I love everyone at the Bureau of Prisons, they're so nice. 

CATIE:

But listen, who could say no to dogs? I guess that's my—

ZACH:

Because it makes—everyone can, because it makes their life more difficult. 

CATIE:

Yeah, yeah. It’s like—you’re adding live animals.

ZACH:

Totally. Operational procedures within a prison are by the SECOND. And, and custody staff is working on safety. When you add all these variables in—because when the dog program’s going, those guys aren't subject to lockdown. So if there's a lockdown, if there's a stabbing or if somebody dies, or whatever, if there's a melee or a riot, our—our students have to be able to spend time with their dogs. They have to be able to let them out at 6am. They have to, you know, they're working with the dogs 13 and a half hours a day. They—that's mandated, they have to be able to have this time with the dog, so—so they could very easily say no, because even though they're very aware of the benefits—

CATIE: 

It does add a whole layer. Yeah. 

ZACH:

Yeah, and it really takes, for—all the way down to the sergeants. But, but now we have really supportive sergeants, lieutenants, captains—we have associate wardens that come from education now that don't come from the prison pipeline. So everything's starting to change at that—fundamentally, at the federal level because of the First Step Act. I—again, I was, I was NOT that optimistic.

CATIE:

You were a doubter. 

ZACH:

But it's incredible. It's really been remarkable and we got Volunteer of the Year at the Bureau of Prisons, up at Victorville. 

CATIE:

Oh, great!

ZACH:

That program, you know, got a lot of accreditations. They want us to grow the program, so we're working with Pup Relief Tour to add grooming supplements, and now we have another workforce development program to the, to the training program—

CATIE:

We can relate to the grooming program. We have a grooming program, yeah.

ZACH:

Yeah, yeah we talked about you guys! We talked about the—Homeboy Industries is the—I’ve got so much love for that, that whole organization, from Father Boyle down. Like, they are really special. Yeah. But yeah, so, to answer your question, things are changing. The culture is changing at these places, and they really want more programming. And so, we just submitted today, a proposal for Arizona, the state of Arizona, they have 12 prisons out there.

CATIE: 

Great. 

ZACH:

Yeah, they're—Senator Kavanagh, who's an incredible dog proponent and advocate—he, along with the legislature in Arizona, passed earmarks for specifically dog programming. They said we want—we want dogs in our prisons, because of our Arizona issues within the shelter system. And because of what we know, both anecdotally and for evidence-based-wise, how effective this is. So yeah, we submitted today, hopefully—cross your fingers—hopefully that'll happen. And, you know, it's very difficult to run programs in prison, and it takes the right people, and you have to—you have to love human beings. You have to love people and you have to love working with dogs. And you know, you have to have the right curriculum, you have to have the right operational procedure, you have to be able to solve problems and work with others, but there's—there is nothing more fulfilling than—I mean, you have to realize too, just at a simple level, you know a lot of… most inmates have not seen a dog in years, decades. They haven’t even seen a dog.

CATIE:

That was on my little piece of paper to talk to you about, because I think a lot of people see the program from the outside in, and they forget that most of those people have been there since they were young, young, young, young, and have not, you know, maybe they've—

ZACH:

Most of our students have been incarcerated since they were teenagers. And they've been inside for decades. 

CATIE:

Yeah, so maybe their family visits them once in a while, but I personally couldn't imagine not seeing an animal or not feeling the fur or you know, the love. [Oh, hi Beta!]

ZACH:

A lot of our students will have—they'll have pet mice, pet insects, and birds, because anything that's—

CATIE:

Anything that offers it!

ZACH:

Anything in that inorganic, very rigid, cold, stark place. And when you bring a dog in, a dog represents home. And so a dog is just, is just letting letting you know that maybe I'm—maybe I'm one step closer to home. 

CATIE:

How do they handle the fact that that dog is only there for a brief period of time, big picture wise, because they're there for years and years and years and years, and they're pouring everything into this animal? How do you coach them through that placement period or the period of like, you've done your work and it's the next step for this animal? 

ZACH: 

It's very challenging, you know. Because a lot of [people], myself included, you know, we have attachment issues. And when you're in a place like that and something that you've grown to love leaves you, and you're already in prison and have gone through that, it is—it's very tough, you know, we work on it. A lot of times, we have mental health—like at North Kern [State Prison], that mental health stuff. Back then, Dr. Hayami and Dr. Nichols would work with us, we'd have sessions whenever the dogs would leave. We always talk about it, we always—sometimes we’ll connect adopters to students. We make sure to focus on, that this is pending, that this is going to happen and you're going to have to confront this. But yeah, there were times where I remember, you know, one of our students where he just wanted to go into the yard and, and hurt somebody, you know, that was his—this was at Corcoran State Prison. This was the only level four dog program that we've ever had in the state of California. And this is an administrative kick, you know, there's—it's called administrative segregation, the security housing unit, the SHU, where you're kept by yourself. And so, when you're done with those terms, you get put into this yard. So it was a very—it was a very challenging place. And he didn't know how to react, because his natural reaction was to be violent because he was feeling pain. He was feeling sadness. And luckily, his brothers in the program, you know, put their arms around him and said, “Hey, pal, you know, what you're experiencing is sadness, because you know, you loved your dog, and it's totally okay, and we’ll get through this together.” And they talk it out, and that's one of the things about it, that I'm—I rarely use the word proud. [With] Pawsitive Change, I'll do it more freely. But it's the brotherhood, the fellowship that we've created in there and the connections. We have guys that have, they're just so close, and we're all so close. And that brotherhood and that fellowship is really, really powerful. And I think that's how, in some cases, they get through it. I know they talk to their families about it and you know, we talk about it, but that is—if there was one thing, and maybe I will spend some time working on how to better address it so that it stings a little bit less.

CATIE:

Yeah, I think of the fosters, just our normal fosters, and sometimes it is like peeling a piece of gold out of their hands, and I can't blame them. They—you know, every once in a while I’ll take a bottle baby overnight to my house and, and I do have an attachment overnight. But then also, I want my sleep, so then I'm like, okay, it's fine, that can go somewhere that's gonna love it and take care of it, and they can lose some sleep. But I couldn't imagine pouring that much effort into an animal for 14 weeks or something like that and then having to say goodbye. 

ZACH:

But it's also growing up. And I've fostered like, 600-plus animals over the last 20 years, some of them for longer than 14 weeks. And I mean, one of the ways I cope is, I just foster another one.

CATIE:

Yeah, get another. There’s no shortage, there’s definitely no shortage. 

ZACH:

No, and every one is a challenge and every one teaches you something different, and they're—they're also like, I'm sorry, but you're being selfish. You know, I have to have—I've had difficult conversations with fosters, because the way I view this is at a macro level, and if we're ever going to address killing a million animals a year within our country, then we need to take a real—we need to, we need to look at this like a war.

CATIE:

Need to look at yourself, yeah. 

ZACH:

We need to look at this like a battle. We need to—we are all regiments of fosters. So if you want to sign up as a, as a sergeant in the foster brigade—for real! We’ve got to take this seriously, because these dogs are dying. If you’re gonna be sad about the fact that you went to the, you know, shelter on Monday and so-and-so’s not there anymore—

CATIE:

And that your heart might break, yeah.

ZACH:

Then, we’ve got to get proactive, and the only way to get proactive about this is fostering. And if you keep adopting every dog—

CATIE:

That goes into your home, yeah.

ZACH:

—Then how are we ever going to solve this problem? And… I don't mean to be like, I don't mean to be coarse, or like, unempathetic, but that is the only way we're going to change things, is we really have to…

CATIE: 

Change some mindsets, yeah. Change a mindset. So how—where are we taking this now? Not me, actually. It's not me, it's you. Where are you taking this next?

ZACH:

Yeah, so Arizona is next. So that was due today, that proposal. Thank you, Melissa Bronson. 

CATIE:

Thank you, Melissa. And you said you were working with, with more women now and juveniles? Young folk?

ZACH:

Oh, yeah! So, we have that—the federal program, because of the First Step Act is, is out at Victorville, so we have a women's program. We've had it for two years. We've had a girls’ program for seven years, we have a boys’ program in Malibu at Camp Kilpatrick that's taught by our students, so graduates of the program. Didontae Farmer and David Galaviz train that program. 

CATIE:

And I have to imagine, having those two men talking to that group of young men—

ZACH:

Oh yeah, it’s the only way. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. If we want to change, you know—the juvenile incarceration system in America is pretty shocking, and I've been working in it for eight years. I taught the girls’ program for a number of years, and,

you know, to see children—

CATIE:

Because they are children, I think that's something to highlight, is that these are as these are kids.

ZACH:

Yeah. They’re as young as 12, we've had 11 year olds in there… who are,

who are in prison for crimes that you can't imagine. And to get to learn them and know them and love them, and learn their backgrounds and, and learn what they're facing. And, you know, people are much more empathetic or forgiving, or are willing to try to understand a child, as opposed to—people have very little empathy for an adult.

CATIE:

Or a grown human. 

ZACH:

Yeah. And so I think it's much more challenging teaching those programs.

But I think—I think that's critical. I think having—again, having dogs at these places, what it does for the overall energy, the overall vibe, is critically important. And if we want to make an impact on juvenile—on the student inmate population of juveniles, the only way you can do it is with formerly incarcerated individuals. The only people they're going to listen to—

CATIE:

And probably relate to.

ZACH:

Yeah, relate to—one thousand percent, are people who have been there. And you know, again, most of the people you see in these facilities are gang members who have been caught up in that lifestyle, and most of our students are gang members. And they absolutely resonate with—they absolutely resonate, and it gives such a wonderful purpose to our formerly incarcerated students. And the Anti Recidivism Coalition runs a program where they have formerly incarcerated [individuals] called credible messengers, and these are guys who have done a lot of time who go into juvenile facilities as credible messengers to deliver the message of recovery, of rehabilitation, of a life after incarceration. 

CATIE:
And that there CAN be one. 

ZACH: 

Yeah, yeah. Shout out to Jason Holland. And he—Jason just got hired with [the] Anti Recidivism Coalition as a credible messenger for Camp Kilpatrick, so hopefully we'll be working with him there. And that's how we're going to make a difference in the life of those kids, is bringing those formerly incarcerated—those returning citizens into the lives of these incarcerated youth and get them to really understand.

CATIE:

Well I think—and you're also giving them a career path, no? Like if you're introducing this at a young age, and instilling that this can be this can be a pathway to… not going down the wrong yellow brick road. 

ZACH:

Oh 1,000%, yeah. Shout out to Downtown Tony Brown! Tony Brown got out of our program—he is not only—Tony just got back from Hawaii, he is a young man, he's 19 years old. And he—after he got out of our program, after he left the program, he was—adopted [a] Malinois and he just started going to parks. In LA, and Compton, and all over the place, just hosting training sessions. “Just come find me,” with his phone, using that supercomputer advertising device in his pocket—

CATIE:

Yeah, gotta get on that social media!

ZACH:

It’s so good, man. I'm so proud of that kid. Like, watching him develop, watching the way he talks, watching—again, the self esteem he has, and watching him believe in himself and seeing where the heck—that kid’s going far. He's going far. 

CATIE:

And, there was a highly, highly likely chance he wasn't going far and this sent him down the right way. 

ZACH:

Oh, for sure. Yeah, totally. And big shout out to Didontae Farmer too, for being such an incredible big brother. That, that man knows how to big brother those, especially young black men, and young black men need older black men to relate to and connect with and believe in.  And watching what he… watching what he's done is, it's just beautiful, man. It's one of my favorite things. I—Sometimes I get on Instagram, I just look at their pages and I'm just like, I can't believe it. Like I met them, you know.

CATIE: 

Well, they're defying every odd and, and I mean, you played a big part in that, I have to imagine. So, proud of you, proud of Marley's Mutts, proud of the Pawsitive Change Program, proud of all of those men that are defying the odds. 

ZACH:

Yeah, thanks. And really, you know, you asked what's next? We can scale Pawsitive Change, you know. We're working with One Love Rescue in Arizona to bring the program there. There's a way with, some—a few tweaks for us to do this nationally.

And we could absolutely change the face of animal welfare, you know. Those… those young dogs, those young large dogs that are not adoptable right now, they're not going to magically become adoptable. 

CATIE:

No, they're actually magically disappearing because they're being euthanized because of overcrowding, which is a travesty because they are good dogs.

ZACH:

Yep, a thousand percent. And it's costing us so much money, we're already spending so much money on it. And if—these systems, this prison industrial complex, this, this euthanasia industrial complex that we have that's plaguing the shelter system, we can address it. We can address it. I mean, and we can address it—we can make prisons safer, we can make them more communicative. Like Pawsitive Change, obviously, it rehabilitates dogs, it rehabilitates humans, it provides them, you know—because you’ve also got to remember, when they get a job and don't return to prison, that means less victims. That means they're not creating a victim and ending up back in prison. And the program makes it safer while they're in there. They’re working across gang lines and across race lines, they're communicating with staff because they have to. You can't just talk to staff in prison, it’s not—you know, if you're having regular conversations with staff, you're, you know, you're gonna have a mark on you.

CATIE:

Right.

ZACH:

But you know, the program—it has all these benefits. It has all these, like, really fundamental benefits that change the culture of prison to turn it into more of a rehabilitative place. Everybody wants prison to be more rehabilitative, they just don't know how to make it happen. And it's not going to be birthed indigenously of the prison—

CATIE:

Out of it, yeah.

ZACH:

—the prison system. It has to be NGOs, nonprofit organizations with a vision and with the people that want to take part in it to go be part of it. And again, like we need to dispel some of the myths about prison. You know, people are—we've done such a good job with lockup, Ronald [Reagan], the rest of it, making prison just this absolutely terrifying place filled with absolutely terrifying, awful human beings. And it's not that! I—it sounds weird, but like, I feel—I love going to prison. It is my favorite thing. You know, anybody who knows me can tell like, when I've been to class and when I like, need to go. It's like, they talk about it like, I need to go to a meeting. Because it's just so uplifting, and to get to connect—

CATIE: 

I feel that way about shelters. Like I can—I can tell when I haven't like, been to a shelter in a while. Like you need to connect—well again, you're a purpose-driven human. So if you haven't connected to your purpose in a while, I'm sure you feel that.

ZACH: 

Yes. I'm glad you said that. You know, because those—people always [say], “Oh God I don’t know how you—I can't go to shelters.” I can, and I need to.

CATIE:

Yeah, because you need to pull something out of it, and I get to help those shelter workers that are incredibly overtaxed, and, you know, we are—our team’s going to the shelter tomorrow and I'm a little sad I don't get to go on this trip, you know? My—my co-workers do, and they're going to bring back amazing dogs that don't deserve to be there, and I'll be grateful and looking from the outside in, and can't wait to see them when they get back. But yeah.

ZACH:

Yeah, and this is what it is. It's like a—you know, someone who's a paramedic or a fireman or something, you know. Do they want to see injured people? No, absolutely not, but they—they want to be plugged into their purpose. And, and oftentimes with the—you know, we need to be confronted with the stark reality of the shelter system, like what it is. You know, people need—you need to see what it is, you need to keep your eyes open.

CATIE:

Well, sometimes feeling uncomfortable gets you to that next level of understanding. Like if you can push yourself to be a little uncomfortable, then there's growth in that and you can take that next step and, and… you can make waves, make change, understand it and how can you fix it? And you’re obviously doing that.

ZACH:

Yeah, exactly. What shelter are you guys going to?

CATIE:

Tomorrow we're headed to Palmdale.

ZACH:

Oh, really? Nice, that’s not far from us. 

CATIE:

Yeah, we pull most of our dogs at this point from Lancaster and Palmdale, because they are, like you said earlier—

ZACH:

You guys gotta ping me next time you’re there. Palmdale is a great shelter. And brand new, or relatively brand new. 

CATIE:

Yeah, and they're having a really hard time right now. I think they're at a 40% euthanasia rate, because as fast as a few dogs will go out, they're coming right in behind them. And it's interesting, because 75% are coming in as stray, and it's just… There are so many animals. 

ZACH:

Yeah, there's so much space out there and it's very transient, the populations are very transient. People are only in their houses or their apartments for, you know, three to six months and then they're moving [to] this place, moving [to] that place.

CATIE: 

Yeah, and it's very rural, you know. A dog can get out of a fence and head out into the wilderness and you find it a couple of weeks later, and no one has a chip, and… you know, we were talking earlier about spay/neuter stop[s] for a while, and especially in communities like that, you know, you have a couple of dogs. It's not like you're living in Downtown LA where you're only—like your landlord said you can have one dog or there's a size restriction. These are big dogs making more big dogs. 

ZACH:

Yeah, it's not safe out there. So a ton of people, you know, culturally have dogs for protection out there, because it's not safe. Like, Lancaster/Palmdale has become very dangerous in the last 10 years. 

CATIE:

Well, we are—that is where we're headed. Yeah. And I just think your program couldn't be any better, and I hope it spreads far and wide. 

ZACH:

Me too, me too. And you know, one of the cool things about it, too, is if you really think about it, like all of it, all of it is about exposing potential. It's about finding the potential—like every dog is a little—dogs are medicine. Dogs are medicine.

CATIE: 

Well you're exposing two types of potential. You're exposing the potential for this dog to be in a home forever and having a family know the love of that dog, and exactly… you know what that—who that dog is, and you know that dog, and you can tell them everything about that dog. I think a lot of people wind up buying dogs because they think it's predictable, but if I—if I could get a dog from a 14-week program that someone worked with them for 13 hours a day, sign me up! I'm not potty training a puppy. What a dream. 

ZACH:

A hundred percent, yeah. Just from a leash technique standpoint, you know, most people don't use a leash correctly. But yeah, like, the potential within the student inmates and the dogs to be able to—like, that's the essence of Pawsitive Change, is taking these, you know, millions—we're not talking about, like a few—these are millions of dogs and millions of human beings, and we can potentially work to expose the potential within both of those demographics. And I just, I don't think—if you're looking to plug yourself into either—with an investment of your time or your money, I don't think there's a better thing you can be involved in than Pawsitive Change. Like there just isn't… your, your time and your money goes directly to changing the lives of real human beings who desperately need your help and real dogs that desperately need your help. And, and both of these, these populations are like, woefully overlooked historically within our society. And that's another cool part is like, rooting for the underdog. Like, we're all underdog fans, right? 

CATIE:

I mean, to me that's such an American story. 

ZACH:

Oh, totally!

CATIE:

Like that's what this country was made on is like, second chances and big dreams. And it’s so, like, I feel like you're also producing these entrepreneurs, right? Like that is the American Dream.

ZACH:

Oh, don’t even get me started.

CATIE:

Like you, every—every student you've mentioned, you're like, “Yeah, and they've got a business now.” And it's like, oh, so you're not just helping people. You're not just training people for a job, you're giving them a job that they can do on their own. 

ZACH:

We are doing a lot with very little. If we had proper support through wraparound services and things like that, like, we could set up every one of our former students on a development path to small business ownership. Every single one of them. And think about, what do we need in the animal welfare space? We need to involve marginalized communities. Many marginalized black and brown communities—I think the figure is like, three percent of them adopt from rescues and shelters. We've essentially blamed every issue on them, and like locked them out of the experience. What's a way to get them more involved in the experience? It’s—we have individuals who are, you know, who were incarcerated and who are going back to those neighborhoods with a head and heart full of dog training and rescue experience and knowledge.

CATIE:

And a love for dogs; taking that love for dogs. Yeah.

ZACH:

And an absolute love for dogs. But a real, fundamental understanding of their needs, how to enrich them, you know, all of those different things. And that's what's really bringing in a lot of—like Gregory Gray, one of my students, you know, his company is called DOGscapers. And what he recognized through another program—Defy—after he graduated Pawsitive Change was that in black communities from Compton, you know, folks don't particularly like to clean up pee or poop. They don't particularly, you know, understand certain variables about the, like, the large dog ownership process. So he's gonna—his business focuses on pet proofing your home, so making sure that your dog can't escape; understanding the basics of crate training; and will install doggy doors [and] things like that. But he's gonna come pick up your—you know, basically make your yard clean. So that part—

CATIE:

What’s the company called? DOGscapers? That’s great.

ZACH: DOGscapers, yeah. He’s not a landscaper, he's a dog-scaper.

CATIE:

That's so good, so creative.

ZACH:

He's gonna—he's going to make your dog door, he's going to provide you with some basic advice, but basically make it easier for his—

CATIE:

Set you up for success, yeah.

ZACH:

Yeah, for people like him to adopt, and understanding what their barriers to entry into dog ownership were, and he's trying to address them. Like that's, that's another thing that's going to help us get to where we need to be, because if the mainstream pet and shelter industry could access those communities, we wouldn't have euthanasia rates [at] what they are.  

CATIE:

Yeah, and removing those bottlenecks of long adoption applications and understanding that people are trying to love dogs and help dogs and save dogs, and, you know, as a rescue community taking a little ownership of [how] we've slowed that down quite a bit by requiring fenced yards; by requiring, you know, background checks and personal reference checks. And… when there's a million dogs a year dying, we’ve got to trust that humans are trying to do the right thing at some point. 

ZACH:

Yeah, let's think about the numbers, you know. Exactly. If this—if we had the luxury of not euthanizing any animals, then yeah, okay, then we'll take a look at—we'll take a long hard look at where this dog is going. I mean, I—as a person who's fostered as many dogs as I have, I fully get it. I completely understand. Like, I want my dog going to a place that's going to really love him and all, but like, why are we doing this? We're doing this because millions of dogs are being killed every year, and if we hope to change it, we have to make, you know, we have to get fundamental roadblocks out of the way.

CATIE:

Yeah, and service all the people. I think that's—and, you know, I think there's pathways to do that. So if someone, Zach, wants to support you or Pawsitive Change or Marley's Mutts, what can they do? What's the best way? How can they get on board? 

ZACH:

Well, yeah. So the best way to support us is to go to Marley’s Mutts dot org [marleysmutts.org], that is the website, but you can find us on social media at Marley’s Mutts [@marleysmutts], at Pawsitive—it’s P-A-W-S-I-T-I-V-E—Pawsitive Change Program [@pawsitivechangeprogram]. I'm Zach Skow, just Z-A-C-H-S-K-O-W [@zachskow]. Our 750,000 follower Facebook page was hacked, so we lost that December 22. We've been trying to get it back. 

CATIE:

Anyone at Meta, if you want to help Zach out—

ZACH:

Yeah. Holler! We have reached out to quite a few people. We we even had an adopter who was one of the founding members of Facebook, and for whatever reason, he wasn't able to help, which was discouraging. But we're making a lot of noise right now, so hopefully that'll come back. But yeah, if anything that I've said resonates with you, you know, please reach out to me personally, you know. Check us out on the website. We are a community organization, a grassroots community organization, so we rely on donations from the public. And you know, if you want to get involved with our therapy dog program, or our Miracle Mutts program, you want your dog to become a Miracle Mutt and travel to hospitals and institutions, you can check that out. There's a lot of ways to get involved, whether it be from sharing what we do, to volunteering, to coming up to the ranch, you know, we're only two—we’re like two, two and a half hours north of here, directly north, and it's a beautiful area. There's a lot of stuff to do up there; there’s a lot of beautiful hikes, it snowed last night, so it was late getting here—

CATIE:

Yeah, it's a miracle Zach made it here today, guys. We’re very fortunate. 

ZACH:

Yeah, please come, please get involved. You know, this is a very worthy cause that has

a lot of wonderful benefits to it and a lot of perks—

CATIE:

And a lot of places to grow, so let's help something like this grow. 2024 resolution: do something good, help Pawsitive Change. Help dogs, help humans.

ZACH:

Yeah. Can you imagine if every—if 10 years from now, it was just a given that there were dogs in every penitentiary in Calif—in the United States? 

CATIE:

Yeah, that fed into really great homes. What a dream. Yeah. 

ZACH:

Yeah. Because again, like, dogs really are medicine, and if you have a properly connected dog, a dog that has shed a lot of his own insecurities and issues and worked on those, like, they're just so special. They're so special. And, gosh—

CATIE:

We're gonna manifest it. We're gonna put it on our vision boards. And yeah, thank you for coming today, Zach. I can't wait to have more conversations. I think there's plenty to chat about. 

ZACH:

You’re very welcome. Let’s go, round two! I’ll bring Cora. 

CATIE:

Okay, cool. Thanks, guys. 

ZACH:

Thanks a lot.

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CATIE:

The PetSpace Podcast was brought to you by Wallis Annenberg PetSpace. To learn more, please visit Annenberg PetSpace dot org [annenbergpetspace.org]. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a rating, a review, and be sure to share with your friends. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram at PetSpace Podcast [@petspacepodcast].

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