The line between a help and a hindrance is getting harder to define for the animals caught in the No Kill snare... One man's pathetic leap for fame, has ended with a string of broken promises and broken lives.. Is he dangerous,, does he think his behavior is normal ? What about his keyboard troops inciting violence ? The following article says it better than I. How many lives are lost when people are kept away from a shelter because of protests and false accusations ? I believe every animal has a right to live and die with dignity, and being parceled out like Easter Chicks, and devalued takes away any hope of a meaningul life.
Who harms more animals, the catchpole or the keyboard ? You may be surprised at the answer........ This is a dangerous movement and yes they are terrorists by several definations.
I think this came from a study done by a prestegious animal group, but I am not certain, the author of this article is identified and his credentials are impressive. I found it, as we do so many good things, wandering the yellow brick road that is the internet. I hope with all my heart that the national groups are getting enough to finally put a stop to the attacks. Lives have been destroyed, reputations long built in the animal care world put in doubt over lies, not misunderstanding, or ignorance, deliberate lies to slander and defame. Where there were good shelter directors, Sabatoni, Pulliam,Pepper,Piazno.....the list goes on.. good people the field will feel their absence. King County, keep on goin'
Arieahn Matamonasa-Bennett, Ph.D. Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Assistant Professor DePaul University, Chicago
Excerpt from the Surviving the Storm: Understanding the Nature of Attacks and Attackers workshop held at Animal Care Expo, 2011 in Orlando, FL.
1. Introduction
Purpose of presentation - To understand the psychological components of dangerousness and violent behavior to better assess risk and implement prevention strategies.
Key concepts:
· Violent behavior is NOT about a person (or profile) but rather about a combination of situations, actual behaviors and ways of thinking (cognition). All human beings have the mechanisms and capacity to behave violently. (Some are more primed and prone to this behavior than others).
· Violent behavior is NOT random and unpredictable. There are “red flags” and “pre-incident” indicators that if recognized and taken seriously can be used to assess risk and prevent violence.
2. The Primal Mind:
3 levels of mind – Reptilian, Mammalian and “Neo” or new Brain.
As we grow and evolve though the lifespan we integrate these levels. These levels of thinking are always present and can be activated at any time. These types of thinking have important evolutionary purposes for survival, and are adaptive in emergency situations. They can be very maladaptive in non-emergency situations and in dealing with interpersonal or group conflicts.
* Violent behavior is the result of a situation or combination of situations that create a perceived threat to a person or group and a response to that threat that involves egocentric, dichotomous (e.g. black or white, good or evil) and distorted thinking.
“It’s NOT logical” everyday examples to understand the cognitive mechanisms of violence. One of the difficulties in understand these attacks is that they are not rationale or logical. It can be helpful to think of other everyday examples of distorted thinking. A good example is road rage. Drivers experiencing road rage- have very distorted “primal” thinking about the other drivers which is all imaginary- but the results and victims of rage are real.
Dichotomous Thinking- (black and white, all or nothing, good vs. evil) typically associated with childhood- (up until age 11) when we move into abstract thinking beginning in adolescence and through adulthood and realize how complex the world’s issues and problems are. This thinking style is at the heart of radical movements and fundamentalism (“true believer” or “zealots”). Even people who exercise abstract (higher level) thinking, logic, and reason, and the ability to recognize complex issues (shades of gray) can resort to this thinking style when threatened.
Dichotomous thinking can be supported when individuals find groups with similar beliefs. Education and teaching people to think critically and logically and consider alternative points of view is key to moving beyond black and white thinking.
Egocentric Thinking - (“I” self-references, personalization) This form of thinking is the hallmark of adolescence. The notion of being the central “actor” or figure in our lives - everything is referenced to the “self.”
Even people who demonstrate non-egocentric thinking in many areas of their lives, can also resort to this thinking style under times of stress.
Often people who are violent against others view themselves as “heroes” in their own minds using egocentric and distorted thinking to justify their actions.
When a person can identify another as “like them” empathy and non-violence is more likely. When a target is labeled as “Enemy” then a series of cognitive steps have occurred (Homogenization, Dehumanization and Demonization, Beck, 1999) that justify violent behavior and prevent altruism and empathy.
Distorted Thinking- (Errors and distortions) when operating from more “primal” modes, we tend to ignore any (and very important data) in our environments that do not support our thinking and beliefs. We are especially likely to make errors if we already have a negative bias towards a person or group. This can cause us to misinterpret the most innocuous behavior and perceive offenses where they don’t exist.
3. Perception of Threats:
In a threatening situation or emergency, we resort to the primal (fastest) part of the brain, as well as survival instincts (fight, flight and freeze). These are adaptive in true emergencies but very dysfunctional in interpersonal conflict or group conflicts.
When a person (or group) perceives a threat, a sequence of responses is activated to address the potential threat - fight, flight or freeze. When we are highly emotionally aroused, we typically do not have access to the higher, logical, rational problem-solving areas of the brain. They are too slow. The problem then becomes being “stuck” in the primal thinking mode and using distorted thinking to maintain justification for retaliation and violent behavior. Issues that are highly emotionally charged tend to prevent us from considering alternative viewpoints and perspectives.
Threats can be physical or social, ‘real’ actual or in the mind of the perceiver (dream example).
Social Threats - loss of value, status have even more relevance in understanding violence in today’s world.
4. Coping with Prospective Attacks- Logic, Awareness and Intuition
The same cognitive mechanisms we discussed can be utilized for preventing violence.
· Logic, reason and planning - Each agency should take the time to have a detailed well-thought out plan to document every threat that is not reactive but the result of rational thinking and strong risk assessment strategies.
· Agencies PR messages and communication should have a high level of awareness about common “myths” or distortions in the publics’ thinking and address errors by carefully presenting complex issues that have high emotional content.
· Awareness of the potential for violent behavior is not about a person but rather recognizing it as a combination of situations, thinking-styles and behaviors that can result in violence.
· Intuition - Our evolutionary, instinctual heritage means that we all can sense danger and dangerousness, but unlike our animal companions, we often choose to ignore or dismiss these signals.
Resources and Recommended Reading:
Beck, Aaron (1999) “Prisoners of Hate: The cognitive basis of anger hostility and violence.” Harper Collins Publishers. ISBN 0-06-019377-8
DeBecker, Gavin (1998) “The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that protect us from violence.” Dell Pub. ISBN 04402266198
De Becker, Gavin (2002) “Fearless: the real truth about risk safety and security in a time of terrorism.” Little Brown & Co.
DeBecker’s MOSIAC Threat assessment systems (artificial intuition) is a computer-assessed method of conducting comprehensive assessments on whether or not a situation has the right combination of factors associated with escalated risk and danger.
Presenter Biography: Arieahn Matamonasa-Bennett, Ph.D. is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in private practice and an Assistant Professor at DePaul University in Chicago. Her areas of expertise include animal-human-bond, animal - human interaction, Equine Assisted Psychotherapy and the prevention of violence.
Contact Information:
DePaul E-mail- amatamo1@depaul.edu
Private Practice Information:
Equulibrium Holistic Therapy: Balancing Mind Body Spirit and Nature
Website http://www.equulibrium.org/
Email info@equulibrium.org
13 comments:
Perfect. Like the picture to, putting the two efforts together makes it apparent what is happening, one saint, one villain, they look the dame.
Having been the subject of "Miss Shirley's" ire, it is hard to get past the picture! But once allowing the picture soak in, the article is most excellent. I have no doubt that the keyboard has cost more animals their lives than anything else. The venom spewed by "the followers" of the no-kill movement keep droves of people away from shelters. These "followers" (talk about drinking the Kool Aid) believe anything without a thought that is typed by the no-kill guru (does he think he is Jesus of the animal world?).
Swallowing the venom without thought is as dangerous as it comes. The "followers" then take "the word" and add their own local spin. They then spread it with the keyboard. Havoc ensues in the media, and people are afraid to go to the "killing palace". So animals die at the hand of the keyboard, not the pole. The fact that "they" can cause hardworking, level headed, people who care for the animals lose their jobs due to fear of their families' safety makes THEM terrorists and nothing less.
The world needs to wake-up and accept the no-kill movement for what it is. Terrorists out with an agenda, and the agenda is obviously NOT the welfare of the animals. (Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion)
This post is brilliant! What else can be said?
I have read more than once, "We will not go away" or "we should 'infiltrate' the new shelter and put up hidden cameras."
These are thinly veiled threats to the integrity and operation of the shelter, and should be discouraged.
Thank you for this brilliant post.
Glad to have you and your computer back in business, Oreo. This is a great post and a very interesting article. I've always wondered how one turns advocates into haters. This looks like a good place to start exploring that concept.
The allegorical points made were not wasted. These " activists" think and act like terrorists, and when called on their behavior they protest to much. Winograd's rants on his FB page show his paranoid feelings of persecution. Every day seems to be his own personal holocoust, I don't know if he's Jewish, and I wouldn't spend time on it, except he constantly makes the comparisons to his enemies as " Hitler " and shelters are concentration camps. Of course, in his obsession with trolls, he could be from the land of the "little people" One thing is clear, he thinks the world is out to stop his insane behavior, and he's right.
Miss Priss, you are following in your Mother's pawprints, she would be so proud.
We adopted 3 dogs today, the dogs were very iffy and the adopters were iffier. The adoption counselor was telling them the only difference between a pitbull and a lab was the markings. I think she may have read YB and the Pibbles one to many times.
Shel, Kev and the former Music Man will be putting their two cents in later.
In a lot of years "sheltering" I have heard a lot of things, but this might top them all: " The adoption counselor was telling them the only difference between a pitbull and a lab was the markings."
It is funny, sad, stupid, ignorant, and dangerous all at the same time. I would assume this is to make the numbers look good. Adopting out Pit Bulls as Labs. I am not Pit Bull phobic; I share my home with one. But, the breed needs to be recognized by the owner to be a responsible owner.
If this "breed id" is being done to reach a no-kill goal what can I say? Maybe just calling them all Yorkies would be another idea. Just say'n.
@Kirsten, actually introducing Hitler and Nazis is a common meme in arguments on the Internet. Google Godwin's Law. These days it pretty much means that your argument is so poor that your only hope of continuing it is to label your opponents with the most awful names in history. Sort of a 'your mama wears army boots' for the supposed-to-be-grownup with Internet connections and poor rhetorical skills.
Good Morn, to our anon Florida guest. You mentioned you were new so perhaps you're unaware that we don't post comments without names. You can make up any moniker you like, but anon comments,slow down dialogue.
It's unfortunate, that in a very good post, all you were able to focus on was the dog. The dog had been overdone, okay? Three quarters of the YB nutjobs had that picture as their profile picture. I wanted the post to be about the misguided fools causing so much pain and suffering, not the dog. God knows you folks have plenty of dog pictures.
Note the handler of the dog, note the keyboard handler to the right of the pictures. Those are deserving of attention, those are the ones hurting the dogs of Memphis. Now that Dr. Pizano is gone who will protect the dogs of Florida ?
· I'm at the shelter 3 days a week. I have seen supervisors, techs, and ACOs not have time to do their jobs due to responding to 5,000 emails a day with webcam comments. I'm not kidding. There were days the shelter staff would receive thousands of emails total. Do I agree with the way Mario was moved? No, and I never claimed I did. But, being at the shelter and witnessing Mario's demeanor first hand, I have a MUCH better understanding of the entire situation. You could not witness the aggression through a webcam image. I can't tell you how many people I walked through the stray area who were lunged at when we walked past Mario's cage. And to sit there that Saturday and watch these women who claim to be animal advocates pass up HUNDREDS of easily adoptable dogs to pull this one dog is absolutely ridiculous. The 30+ dogs surrendered that day as Ona and LouAnn just sat in the lobby, and they turned each one of them down. Shelter staff asked if they wanted any of the surrenders coming in. They just shook their heads. The shelter was on lock-down over half the day, meaning officers couldn't empty trucks, we couldn't walk people through the stray area, and we couldn't get dogs out of adoption cages to visit with potential adopters, ALL TO PULL ONE DOG WHO WAS EXTREMELY AGGRESSIVE DURING HIS ENTIRE STAY IN THE SHELTER, STARTING WHEN HE CAME IN ON A TRUCK. It was a joke. It was INFURIATING to just sit there unable to do our jobs because of ONE DOG WHOSE ENTIRE STORY WAS NOT CAPTURED BY THE WEBCAM. How many lost pets missed out on being reunited with their families that day? How many potential adoptions didn't happen because of the lock-down? I would NOT devote all my time and energy to an organization that abuses animals. I just wouldn't. What good have the webcams done? Maybe five dogs have been pulled based on webcam images? GREAT! Rescue groups who visit the shelter regularly pull more dogs than that in one visit. They're there on a regular basis, and they sure as hell aren't crying about the webcams. I have already seen a jump in productivity with the webcams being shut off. Instead of spending HOURS sorting through emails, the staff can focus on their jobs without the fear of being threatened, ridiculed, harassed, etc. for DOING THEIR JOBS THAT CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD BY WATCHING A WEBCAM AND NEVER STEPPING FOOT IN THE DOORS.
and yet the commenters on this post are using these same ways of thinking -- as if all yb followers are violent and terroristic, and none of them are capable of critical thinking, and the problems are caused by them because employees are answering their emails instead of doing what they are supposed to be doing - caring for the animals... ive no doubt the bad publicity has caused problems but the publicity started because of the problems that were already there
Welcome je, your comment didn't offer anything that I could find by way of collaboration or solution. Calling names is okay on YB but over here we talk business. I do hope you come back and post on a more current thread, truthfully I don't think the older ones get read, and if you want to join in the dialogue please pop into a current posting.
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