High Conflict People Part 2: Negative Advocates

High conflict people (HCPs), or people who fall within the spectrum of the cluster B personality disorders, have a life long pattern of blaming others. One of their preferred dysfunctional tools is emotional reasoning, assuming facts from feelings. Emotional facts are emotionally generated false information that are accepted as true and appear to require emergency corrective action. According to Bill Eddy, there are three types of emotional facts: 1) real facts that have been exaggerated, 2) real facts that have been taken out-of-context and 3) non-existent facts based on the worse fears of the HCP (high conflict person).

Eddy sees the pain of the cluster B personality disordered people as fear driven. He distills each of the four cluster B types down to a single, basic driving fear. Those suffering from anti-social personality disorder, the sociopaths, fear being dominated. The narcissists fear inferiority. The borderlines fear abandonment. And the histrionics fear being ignored.

Eddy approaches the cluster B personalities with a great deal of compassion, much, much more than I am typically able to muster. His compassion for their fear and pain is admirable. I love his books. They are concise, easy to read and he provides much needed attention to the histrionic variant, the type most authors and researchers ignore.

Here is another excerpt from one of my favorite books, High Conflict People in Legal Disputes. It completes the foundation and sets the stage for High Conflict People Part 3.

High-conflict personalities don’t get very far unless they persuade others to adopt their cognitive distortions and assist in their interpersonal battles. In substance-abuse treatment, we call these persons “enablers”. They enable the abuser to stay stuck in negative behavior, negative thinking and avoidance of responsibility. I use the term “negative advocate” for enablers in legal disputes, because the adversarial process relies so heavily on professional and non-professional advocates. Enablers–often inadvertently–advocate for the cognitive distortions and negative behavior of HCPs.

High-conflict disputes don’t occur without one or more negative advocates–at least I’ve never seen it happen. On their own, most HCPs lack credibility. They seek negative advocates to justify their misbehavior and misconceptions, and to assist them in blaming others for their life problems–to advocate for them.

Negative advocates are those family members, friends, mental health professionals and legal professionals who try to help but get it backwards–they adopt or agree with the HCP’s backward thinking. They become persuaded–especially by Cluster B persuasive blamers–to focus all their attention on other people’s alleged misbehavior. They help the HCP to avoid responsibility and hold others responsible for their own problems and behavior. They agree with and advocate for, the cognitive distortions of HCPs: their all-or-nothing thinking, emotional reasoning, personalizing events, exaggerating minor (or non-existent) events and minimizing their own major misbehaviors. Negative advocates help HCPs stay sick.

Negative advocates absorb the high-intensity emotions of the HCP and often enhance them to a higher level of urgency–they amplify their distorted thinking and join in generating emotional facts. They have adopted the HCP’s process of emotional reasoning. If family members, friends and professionals would become more skeptical and avoid becoming negative advocates, high-conflict disputes would significantly reduce the pressure on our legal system.

The HCP’s emotional drive persuades them there is a crisis, so the negative advocate picks up that sense of crisis and also becomes emotional and aggressive in defending the HCP. However, the negative advocate usually has more credibility, and therefore is more able to persuade others. It’s the domino theory of negative advocates. In some cases, negative advocates are able to persuade a lot of other people to become negative advocates.

Bill Eddy, High Conflict People in Legal Disputes, 2012

My initial plans consisted of just a part 2 but I realized it would be better if it was broken up into three parts. I will complete the trilogy with High Conflict People Part 3 soon. Estimated publish date: July 4th. In the meantime, I hope you will click on the above link and purchase one of my all time favorite books. It is money well-spent.


High Conflict People Part 1

High Conflict People Part 3

High Conflict People Part 1

This is long overdue.

Over the past decade I have observed a dramatic increase in high-conflict legal disputes––an increase driven more by personalities than by legal or financial issues. Perhaps half of all legal cases that go to trial today involve one or more parties with a HCP. In these cases, the conflict is driven more by internal distress than by external events.

After handling more than a thousand legal cases from three professional points of view––as an attorney, mediator and clinical social worker––I have recognized some surprising patterns to the high-conflict cases that are threatening to overwhelm our courts:

• The level and cost of conflict is not based on the issues or on the amount of money involved: personalities drive conflict.
• High-conflict personalities have a life-long, enduring pattern of behavior and blame, typically denying responsibility for their problems and chronically blaming others.
• Many HCPs fit the criteria of Cluster B personality disorders described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association.
• People with HCPs are more likely to escalate their disputes into court, either as plaintiffs bringing suit over misplaced blame for events in their lives, or as defendants due to interpersonal misconduct that harms others and needs to be controlled.
• The disputes of HCPs are generally misunderstood and mishandled, and continue to escalate at a huge cost to our judicial system and our society in terms of time, money and emotional distress for all involved.

 Bill Eddy, High Conflict People in Legal Disputes, 2012

A little over two years ago I discovered a nifty little book titled High Conflict People. This book is devoted entirely to the spectrum of Cluster B personality disorders, one of my favorite topics, and their impact on our criminal justice system. The author, Bill Eddy, is a licensed social worker and a lawyer who has first hand experience dealing with this challenging bunch in both the mental health and the legal systems. Within the first two pages of chapter one that I quoted above, I saw how easily Bill Eddy's work applied to pit bull advocates. I intended to blog about it but for one reason or another, I never got around to it and it fell off my radar. The recent interest in me and my blog brought it back to the forefront.

The following is an excerpt, including the cartoon and table, from another book by Bill Eddy Managing High Conflict People in Court.

An Attraction to Court Process

The DSM-IV-TR lists 10 specific personality disorders, in three clusters (A, B, and C). The Cluster B personality disorders are generally identified as “high drama” and include Borderline, Narcissistic, Antisocial and Histrionic. Many of those with Cluster B personality disorders – or less severe “traits” – appear to have high-conflict personalities which frequently land them in our courts, either as plaintiffs endlessly pursuing exaggerated or unfounded claims, or as defendants who escalate conflicts into violence or other harmful behaviors.

This author believes that over the past fifteen years our courts have become a prime playing field for undiagnosed and untreated personality disorders. This is because the adversarial court process has a similar structure to their disorders, combined with increased media exposure of courtroom procedures and dramas during this same time period. Ironically, while practitioners and parties experienced in the adversarial court process are making a significant shift to alternative dispute resolution methods (arbitration, mediation, settlement conferences, private judges, collaborative law), those with high-conflict personalities (HCPs) have become attracted to the traditional litigation process, seeking “my day in court.” The following comparison from the author’s book, High Conflict People in Legal Disputes (2006) shows a striking fit:

Because the thought structure of HCPs and the adversarial court process are such a perfect fit, HCPs are at times effective at making innocent people look guilty, while at the same time with their desperate charm and aggressive drive they often succeed at looking innocent themselves. Many cases that appear to be two HCPs fighting are actually being driven by only one party who successfully makes the other party look bad. (Friedman, 2004)

Bill Eddy, Managing High Conflict People in Court, 2008


Does anyone else see the striking similarities between high-conflict personalities and pit bull owners and advocates?


I highly recommended the following books by Bill Eddy:

It's All Your Fault!: 12 Tips for Managing People Who Blame Others for Everything, 2012

Managing High Conflict People in Court, 2008

High Conflict People in Legal Disputes, 2012

If you can only purchase one, I recommend High Conflict People in Legal Disputes, 2012 but if you can afford them all, do it. Eddy has many more books on the subject and I will eventually get through them all.

I can not stress the importance of these books enough. If you have an interest in Cluster B personality disorders, these are a must for your library. Eddy's contribution to the understanding of Cluster B personality disorders is uniquely impressive. It is a true gift to the world and should be required reading for law students (and arson investigators. lol). His books are by far some of the best sources of information on Cluster B personality disorders that I have read, especially the histrionic variant, which unfortunately has not garnered as much attention as the other three PDs but in my opinion, HPD is more often than not the "undiagnosed and untreated personality disorder" playing out in the bizarro world of pit bull advocates.

In High Conflict People Part 2, I will explore the recent shenanigans on this blog.

craven email: Confessions of a Wolfdog Owner

After reading every word on Craven Desires I feel compelled to share my own menacing dog story.

I grew up in a very rural town in Alaska. When I was about 13 years old, I wanted nothing more in the world than a wolfdog of my very own. This was in the mid-80s, a time before internet, when access to the world's knowledge was limited to what could be found at your local library. The only library to be found in my town was at the elementary school. I did love to read, though, so my head was filled with the heroes of Lad a Dog (in which Lad's wolfy behavior is frequently emphasized), Kavik the Wolfdog, White Fang, Journey of Natty Gann and so forth. Not to mention the similar wild or feral 'friends' found in stories like Gentle Ben or Plague Dogs.

By the time my parents gave in to my incessant whining I thought I knew just about everything there was to know about wolves, dogs and wolfdogs. My wolfdog and I would form a legendary bond and together we would tame the wilds of Alaska, just like Jack London. And so, for a mere $180, I bought myself a wild beast.

Lulu, as she came to be known, was purchased from a local fellow who bred wolfdogs to supplement his income. He had somehow acquired two full-blood wolves from a zoo in Minnesota years before; the rest of his dogs were various breeds of huskies. Lulu was the offspring of the male wolf and a MacKenzie River husky. The huskies all lived on chains, the wolves were in kennels that wouldn't have looked out of place in a zoo. I still remember those wolves, pacing, pacing, pacing, those golden eyes windows into foreign souls that I knew intuitively, even at age 13, I could never truly understand.

But Lulu wasn't like that. She was a curious, blue-eyed little puppy that only wanted to play and explore the world. With the luxury of time that only kids have, I spent every day working and playing with her. In most respects she was great---very obedient, could do every trick in the book and then some, and so on and so forth.

In other ways she was not so great, especially as she got older. By the time she was 6 months old she was extremely neurotic and fearful of anything strange, especially unfamiliar people. She was also impossible to contain; she could climb like a cat and dig like a badger. Her neck ruff was so thick she could easily slip any collar, unless it was tight enough to choke her. As free-ranging dogs weren't unusual around there, I just let her roam.

We had our first physical fight before she was a year old. I bent down to pick up her empty food dish and with a quick snarl she bit my face. It was not a bad bite and it was very fast, but it did leave a scar on the bridge of my nose. Thanks to all my wolfdog book-learnin' I was of the belief that this was a normal attempt to challenge my dominance. I made up some story about running into a tree so my parents wouldn't take Lulu away. We had countless minor 'disputes' like that over the following years.

Not long after the face bite, Lulu killed all my gerbils. Not long after that, she killed one of our chickens. I hid the corpse and began working with her daily to teach her to not attack our chickens, ducks, rabbits, etc. It actually seemed to work, to my knowledge she never attacked our animals again.

Other peoples' animals though... that was a totally different story. I found her outside playing with dead cats a few times; didn't think too much of that because that's what dogs do, right? Certainly wasn't the first time a husky-type dog killed a neighborhood cat, and I didn't much like cats anyway. I always hid the bodies though, fearing the response of adults.

Then one day I found her in the yard playing with a dead dog. This was something I knew would definitely not be okay with anyone. It was a little Jack Russel-looking dog, so ripped to shreds its limbs were barely connected to its body. I buried that dog deep in the woods.

She also regularly brought home wild animals; rabbits, squirrels, birds, etc. One day she had a dead ferret; I still have no explanation for that. Did she snatch out of someone's house?

Bit by bit complaints started coming in from other neighbors about Lulu threatening or attacking their animals in their own yards. I defended Lulu fiercely, lying about her being with me or whatever to try to take blame off her. My parents built a 6-foot high chain link fence to try to contain her, but she climbed it with ease and her murder sprees continued, while I continued to do my best to hide the evidence. I had quite the little pet cemetery going in the woods behind my house.

This wasn't a daily thing; it happened maybe once or twice a month sometimes, other times several months would go by with no problems. She was great when she was with me, would barely even acknowledge other animals were present. She would always come when called, no matter what was going on, and heeled like a champion if asked. The trouble was when she was on her own---and between school, sleep and, as I got older, social activities, that came to be the majority of the time.

One day I came home from school to find Lulu on the porch, muzzle covered in blood. Something snapped in me and I was filled with rage; after all my hopes and dreams and work this stupid dog just would not stop. I was tired of burying dead critters in the woods. I grabbed her roughly by the scruff of the neck and tried to drag her inside the house. She twisted her head and slashed my arm from elbow to wrist. So much blood... I was scared shitless and had my parents been home it probably would have been a completely different story. But they weren't home, the bleeding stopped, and I justified Lulu's actions in my head. I wore long sleeve shirts for a few weeks and yet again hid the damage from my parents.

When she bit my best friend on the thigh as he tried to stop her from following us inside his house, I convinced him to hide the injury too.

Finally Lulu was caught 'red handed' killing a dog tied in its owner's fenced yard. The owners put Lulu in their garage until animal control came; my parents said the only way that dog was getting out of the pound was if I found another home for her. So I did... some fellow who lived 40 miles out of town and raised sled dogs agreed to take her. I have no clue what happened to her after that.

Through all this I felt Lulu was the victim; she was just doing what a wild, spirited wolf does. I felt nothing but contempt for the pathetic little pussy dogs she killed. Her threats and attacks on me were even seen positively; she saw me as an equal, not a mean, domineering 'master'. The only fear involved was that someone would take my poor misunderstood wolf away and contain her, where her soul would surely die of captivity. I long resented that tattle-tell neighbor and my parents for making me get rid of her. It was many years before I started to see the whole thing in a different light.

I was a stupid, selfish kid, but I was also a victim to some extent of the whole romancing dangerous dogs thing. I devoured those wolfdog stories and took every word to heart, and at no point did anyone bother to show me a different kind of reality. Standing up for your dog by any means necessary was just what you do, everyone knows that... just like everyone knows you stand by your best (human) friend even if he kills someone. That's the code, at least at 13.

I see so much of my former attitude reflected in pit bull advocates, and quite frankly it scares me more than their dogs. It is so staggeringly immature and unrealistic, but I remember how very real that world was for me. Anyone outside of it was the crazy one, and, being crazy, they had no value and warranted no consideration. They were pussies; I was the one embracing life and adventure and nature red in tooth and claw. The difference is I outgrew it; these people in their 40s and 50s advocating friendly neighborhood pit bulls and other naturally savage dogs have some serious developmental issues going on.

And that is my story. Do with it what you will.

--A former wolfdog fanatic

Pit Nutter True Confessions: My "Service Dog," Boulder, Tried to Kill My Neighbor's Kid

       I have a confession to make: I read the pit bull forums from time to time.  They are a wealth of information, and let me tell you, it's incredible what these people talk about amongst themselves.  I find the interesting threads by searching for things like "my dog attacked me," "my dog killed another dog," "sued by neighbor," "go to court," "my dog killed my other dog," "afraid of my dog," and "my dog bit me/my child/neighbor." The stories!

           Well, I recently came across one that I felt I had to share.  It deserves, I feel, a greater audience than the pitbull-forum echo chamber.

         Where to begin....?  The frightening, serious, narrowly avoided attack on the neighbor's tiny boy?  The fact that this pit bull was "deliberately chosen" by the owner to be a (fake) "service dog" for her autistic daughter, and presumably passed off as a legitimate service dog in public?  That the owner carefully and deliberately obfuscated the reason her dangerous "service dog" had to be put to sleep, out of a desire to escape the "judgement" of others, and protect the image and reputation of pit bulls?  That several of her nutter friends in the forum chime in to admit that they've had to euthanize their dangerous pit bulls in the past? It goes on and on.  Let's take a look:

          First, meet "jaxcullen," the owner of a pit bull named Boulder.  Jaxcullen begins the thread with her story: her 16-month old "autism service dog" hit puberty and turned on right on schedule, becoming "increasingly aggressive to everything" except the members of her immediate family.  Boulder just scared the shit out of her by going after her neighbor's little boy as he walked beside the fence: 

     "The boy was making NO threatening behavior whatsoever.  He wasn't making noises or in any kind of posture that would say he was a threat.  Wasn't walking too slow or running.  Boulder charged him.  I am so very grateful he was on his lead.  It's the only thing that stopped him from attacking the boy.  He was totally fine one moment, and then he just erupted.  He charged and hit the boards so hard, I thought he broke them..Even after I had him by the collar, he still was acting like the by was the only thing he saw.  He was in a frenzy."

          Jaxcullen sounds sincerely confused in this post, wondering why on earth Boulder would do such a thing:  "Boulder's seen him a million times.  He's my son's size, so why that didn't transfer to him that this size human is not a threat, I'll never know."   I am not an expert in pit bull psychology, lady, but the answer seems completely self-evident to me: Boulder didn't see that kid as a threat in any way.  Even a pit bull is not STUPID enough to find a familiar, helpless 5-year-old human minding his own business THREATENING.  Boulder saw the kid as easy, tasty, obvious prey.  Yum yum, Jaxcullen.

          To her credit, Jaxcullen knows immediately what she has to do: Boulder must be put down as quickly as possible.  She doesn't try to weasel out of this painful decision, or minimize Boulder's lethal potential.  Boulder's gotta die.  She says she would have shot him on the spot, but since the man of the house, Frank, is on probation (gosh, what a shocker! A felon with a pit bull!  Never seen that one before!), there are no longer guns in the household.  Frank had to surrender them.  So, Jaxcullen immediately books Boulder a date with the vet for the needle.

     Jaxcullen spends a restless night tortured by questions about why Boulder turned out the way that he did, and what, if anything, she could have done about it.  My favorite: "Once the hindsight vision set in last night and we discussed his traits now that he's matured, I was able to really accept this is a dog that was bred to be a very dangerous dog.  If I lived alone in a place no one ever visited, he and I would live out our years blissfully together.  For me...for my kids who he adores...he's the most wonderful dog in the world.  For all others, he is a significant threat, and I can't stand the idea of having this knowledge now, having the thoughts today of what he would've done had the lead not stopped him. DA, I can handle/manage...even HA to an extent...an unprovoking child that isn't a stranger to him?  No way."  

  

           What I want to know is, how does Jaxcullen keep her head from exploding from cognitive dissonance? All three of these thoughts somehow occupy the same space in her brain: "Boulder was bred to be a very dangerous dog," "Boulder would never hurt me or my children" "This very dangerous dog is an excellent candidate for service dog to an autistic child."  I think I broke my fucking brain just typing that.  

      

            The reason Jaxcullen can think these things is because she's drunk the nutter kool-aid.  Jaxcullen here is the definition of an ideologue.  

       Here, Jaxcullen says that the first vet she called refused to put Boulder to sleep because he was healthy.  Jaxcullen has to call another one.  Again, to her credit, she knows that he must die and not be surrendered to some "idiot advocacy agency that thinks they can rehabilitate him."  

           Here, Jaxcullen spends Boulder's last day on earth with him and tries to make it a good one.  Final photos, special treats, she is very sad.  I would be touched if I did not believe that Boulder would eventually maim or kill this woman or a member of her household if she kept him alive. 

           But already, in the back of her mind, she is preparing herself for the judgement of others, and what they would think and say about Boulder and why he must be put to sleep:  "I can already see the judgement that will come my way from the unknowing, as if crating is bad or caused this or as if I didn't work with him enough.  That part kind of sucks....".   I guess that's what she calls people who just won't understand the circumstances of her predicament, or something: "the unknowing."  

         This is when the thread takes a shocking, grotesque turn: her nutter forum buddies start chiming in, offering moral support and personal stories of having had similar experiences with their own pit bulls!

           This guy "still cries" about having to dirt nap his pit, Baloo: "This situation is sucky and I wish it didn't have to happen, but it does.  No matter what others say, it had to happen."

         This crazy asshole admits that he has "been through this same situation...more than once, in fact."  Incredibly, he goes on to assert that "any APBT with a correct temperament for the breed" would be as loving and patient with the autistic daughter as Boulder is.

        Jaxcullen responds with more jaw-dropping nutter speak: "Quite true, and the reason I sought out the breed in the first place for her service dog...this experience hasn't deterred us, and both Frank and I agree, we'll only ever have bull breeds in our home, even still."

        How emotionally entrenched in pit bull advocacy and its myths do you have to be to not see this terrifying near-mauling experience as a wake-up call?  

      More nutters chime in to commiserate about having to put their dangerous, aggressive pit bulls to sleep.  Apparently, none of them think there is anything shockingly wrong with the big picture, here.  None of them seem to think this is very weird, much less unacceptable and abnormal canine behavior, or a bizarre dog-owning experience.  

          Some rescue nutter: "It never gets easier for us we are crushed everthing (sic) a trip to the vet becomes clear with one of our guys.  But to truly save the breeds we love....we know that there is no other choice."

          Another nutter, Nala Barone: "I too had to do the unthinkable to our 2 yr old pit mix was DA and we managed this as best we could, however...our Luca became HA.  I couldn't imagine him ever hurting or biting anyone-but he did bite my neighbor.  We..tried for awhile to seclude him/manage him and couldn't imagine him ever hurting one of us but something snapped in him and he could not recover."  I wonder what Luca finally did after he "snapped" that scared this nutter badly enough to change his mind?

         Yet ANOTHER nutter: "Been there once and it wasn't an easy decision, but I made the right one."  All of these jerks have been through this, and they all still choose to own pit bulls!

      Jaxcullen thanks everyone for their support during this difficult time.  Then she shares the statement she intends to make to the "general public" about why Boulder is put to sleep:  "Boulder had a genetic condition that had begun to present over the past several months, had a significant increase over these past few weeks, and would've only progressed worse as time went on."  

        No fucking mention of the fact that Boulder tried to eat the little boy.  No mention of danger or aggression, even though she had previously admitted to herself that he was "bred to be a very dangerous dog."  None of that.  Just this great big obfuscation, this lie by omission.  Why?  So that it "keeps his memory focused on all the beautiful things he was for us instead of the storm that began inside him over these past few months."  

     

          In other words: to respect his memory (why?) and to protect the reputation and public image of pit bulls, and to avoid facing the scrutiny and questions of others, "the unknowing," who might question her about her parenting decision to make a  lethal animal a "service dog" for her disabled child.  Jaxcullen has egg on her face, and she doesn't want anyone to focus on it for long. 

      And last, but certainly not least, we have the final entry to this kicker of a forum thread.  It's a shocking ending right out of a horror movie: the scene when everyone discovers how close they actually came to death: the wife pops the hood and discovers that her now-incarcerated husband cut the break lines on her car...or, the church congregation finds a massive unexploded bomb hidden beneath the church organ, and the only reason it had failed to explode is because the alarm clock being used as a timer ran out of battery juice....

          Jaxcullen tells the forum that she just found out that the cable tie-out that she used to keep her dangerous child-hunting fucking abomination of a dog Boulder  contained in the yard was flimsy and Boulder could have snapped it at any time.  Since they dirt-napped their mutant, they used the cable for their other dog (presumably also a mutant) who is considerably smaller and weaker than Boulder was.  This dog snapped the cable.  

           Jaxcullen has an inkling of what this means, and this is the lesson she takes away from it: "We'll never put another bull breed dog on a cable again.  Fortunately, no tragedy occurred, but we were so close....There's a reason responsible owners use chains, and in hindsight, simply 'there by the grace of God go I' that we didn't have a news story on our hands.  The cable was a poor poor choice, and we sit with a solemn understanding of that today." 

            So that's the lesson she derives from all this: the cable was a poor, poor choice.  

            If I was her neighbor and I read this, I think I'd have a heart attack.  

            I wasn't terribly angry at Jaxcullen when I read this thread.  Mostly, I was just shocked at her nuttery and her very strange and bad (to my mind) parenting decisions.  Stunned at how blind her ideology had made her.  But this?  This final entry really pissed me off.  Fuck you, Jaxcullen, for putting your neighbors and other members of your community at risk because of your stupid, selfish decision to have your ugly dangerous dogs.  And you really should get a job in PR if you're not in the industry now--look at how well you evade dealing directly with the PROBLEM here, the ugly, awful truth: "Fortunately, no tragedy occurred" instead of "Fortunately, my dangerous-as-hell violent homicidal dog, which I selfishly decided to own, did not break from his containment, which I stupidly and incompetently chose for him, and go on to slaughter, in painful and nightmarish fashion, one of my blameless neighbors."

CLICK HERE TO READ THE THREAD IN ITS ENTIREITY AT PITBULL-CHAT (at least until it's pulled and sent down the memory-hole)

swagger in, slither out

profile of a dangerous dog lobbyist.

on 12.19.13 LISA CAMUSO left the following comment:

LOLOL...You guys are priceless...!Not a clue, any of you? SO sad...but easily herded, I would imagine.Can any of you figure out why anti-pit bull people run and hide when I offer to debate them on canine behavior, training, breeds and dog bites? I'm a little stumped as all of you are so outspoken and self-proclaimed experts, posting charts and statistics as if you gave birth to a new solar system...So, when any of you are ready after your quick Google search for propaganda to use as ammunition....let me know...I have been a bully breed owner for over 20 yrs. I train, I've worked my dogs....and I was a legislative director for several all breed working dog organization. Oh, and I co-authored dangerous dog ordinances in several cities....Ready for me???? (Morons getting ready to ban me from this page in 3,2 .......1 ! )

of course i published her comment immediately and accepted her challenge. i continually checked for her reply, eagerly awaiting her public thrashing. hours went by, then days and LISA MARIE CAMUSO, dog trainer extraordinaire and hot shot "legislative director" and co-author to the pit bull stars was a no show. :-(

so i looked for her.

i found her barren facebook page. her profile pic consisted of her dedication to the party of truth and a couple of comments, there were no photos, friend list, likes, nothing to substantiate her grandiose claims.

i don't think i have ever encountered such hubris in a nutter before. color me intrigued and disappointed. since LISA MARIE CAMUSO didn't return to put me in place and since massachusetts is of special interest to me and since i had an hour to kill... google to the rescue.

let's see...
• 20+ years experience as "bully breed" owner
• dog bite diva (move over karen)
• expert dog trainer & behaviorist
• co-author of dangerous dog laws

there is no way to prove or to disprove that she has over 20 years experience as a bully breed owner, she is 50 years old, so it is at least a possibility, unlike some of these 22 year old dog groomers who claim to have 20 years experience as vet tech, breeders and dog trainers.

i didn't find anything to demonstrate LISA'S superior knowledge of dog bites and since she didn't return to educate me, i will assume that her special knowledge is simply a regurgitation of KAREN DELISE'S schtick: intact resident dogs that no one can identify, yadda, yadda, yadda.

i was able to glean LISA MARIE CAMUSO'S skill level as dog trainer/behaviorist though, thanks to an old PBF thread.

 be sure to click on these to view larger and enjoy!

here is another example of her superior dog training skills.

as to her claim of co-author of dangerous dog laws, i suspect there is quite a bit of exaggeration there. LISA MARIE CAMUSO did appear to be the legislative liaison for the american working dog federation but according to the 2008 minutes, her involvement might have consisted only of attending meetings and hearings. i have yet to find her named as an author. LISA MARIE CAMUSO may have had some success imposing her unfettered dangerous dog agenda on our greedy, spineless, weak kneed, lily-livered, chicken-hearted, yellow-bellied elected officials. the unfortunate reality of american politics is that the special interest groups are running show thanks to the greedy, spineless, weak kneed, lily-livered, chicken-hearted, yellow-bellied fucktards that we elect to office. no reason why the lobbyists for dangerous dogs should not enjoy the same privileges as monsanto and the predatory banks. money talks. i found plenty of examples of LISA MARIE CAMUSO acting as conduit to the rest of nutterdom whenever BSL was being considered.

think i am being to hard on politicians? check out the council minutes from methuen, mass in 2006. during a public discussion on muzzling PIT BULLS in the city, a couple of nutter sisters showed up to protest muzzles, as did LISA CAMUSO of franklin and HOLLY STUMP of ipswich (another professional pit bull lobbyist), and some nutter by the name of BONNIE. the city did not require BONNIE to state her full name or full address but happily indulged her fanaticism.

my google search of LISA MARIE CAMUSO shed more light on her character than the specialized skill set she boasted of.

i found LISA MARIE CAMUSO trying to tell a "little white lie" to a kentucky hunting forum but it back fired. the good old boys appear to be sharper than our elected officials. link one and link two.

little white liar LISA CAMUSO tried to whip the hunters up in a fear frenzy with the promise that their beagles, labs and retrievers were in danger of being banned under a law being considered in louisville. when in reality, the law targets "any dog that is owned for the purpose of harming or fighting another animal".

"A total of 7 breeds of dogs are specifically named as "dangerous" and subject to mandatory spay/neuter.
Intact dogs of those breeds, which include American Staffordshire Terriers, Staffordshire Bull Terriers, Dogo Argentinos, Cane Corsos, Presa Canarios, Dogue de Bordeauxs and American Pit Bull Terriers are subject to special permits, insurance requirements, muzzling in public and special enclosure rules.
A special permit must be bought to own an intact dog of any of these breeds, and Councilwoman Cheri Hamilton has already announced her intention to add more breeds in future!"

(more breeds in the future likely consisted of bandogs, american bulldogs and all of their ugly mutations.)

LISA MARIE CAMUSO concluded her histrionic plea to kentucky hunters with names and contact information of the 26 louisville council members.

the hunters respond:

where is the part about outlawing hunting dogs.
I'm not calling you a liar but where is your proof on your allegations this is pretty harsh stuff and needs some sort of substantiation regarding your statements about one person.

Never knew a pitbull or any of the other does you listed were hunting dogs...

I agree and say this in no way is for hunting dogs...like said my lab is a retriever. The dogs listed are banned in alot of places around the U.S. Presa Canarios are pit bulls on steriods, Dogo Argentinos are pretty vicious too, as the others can be. I know most are used as guard dogs mostly. I know people that have a few of the listed breeds.

There's a HUGE difference between a pit bull and a lab and it looks like they have failed to acknowledge that. Sounds like you guys have some Psycho's up there in Da Ville.

she displays a consistent pattern of deception and obfuscation.

where are you LISA MARIE CAMUSO (lisa quinn/liger woods/gogetmgidget)?

as vintage says "check back so we know that you have not been mauled or incarcerated." or maybe just let us know if your lithium kicked in.

ODE TO LISA

Joan of Barf for Pit bulls, Camuso
Appeared not for her big-tent roadshow
And left the simple villagers leaderless, and moronic
For patent nostrum teachings
much like a cheap colonic
A sheeple dip and tonic
To rid our minds of
Facts and phonics
We foolishiy believed were truth;
And as we milled with vacant minds
To learn about canine Frankensteins
The tattered stage curtain fluttered with fallacies breath
We awaited the Gospel that pit bulls abhorr death
But imbeceles must accept life as disappointments come:
Evaporating fast as deadly methane gas
Camuso was gone in 3...2....1.

the flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long

Or a seventh as long compared to Leah Purcell. Purcell managed to run her dog rescue grifter operation for 28 years!

When Markwell was approached by some of the local color in Forks, WA for a pit bull, he told them, "Don't come around here anymore. Tell your friends the dogs are dangerous, but the owner's worse."

Foreshadow. lol.

Steve Markwell burst onto the dog rescue scene in 2009 armed with promises, grand pie in the sky plans and a handful of fairy dust to sprinkle into the lattes of gullible rescue angels only to find himself in a heap of legal trouble four years later.

Fast forward to 2015. This week MARKWELL admitted to violating the Charitable Solicitation Act and its Consumer Protection Act. The Washington state dog whisperer and one time speaker on the subject of breed specific legislation at the University of Washington Law School (page 4) in 2012 faces fines totaling $96,000 for 48 violations plus over $20,000 in legal fees after soliciting over $360,000 in donations to his house of horrors charity from 2009 to 2011. The judge could also order MARKWELL to return the money that he duped from fellow no kill kooks. MOMMY!

A few gullible political correct organizations pimped Markwell out and presented him as someone to respect and mimic but only Idea Mensch deleted the piece they ran on Markwell in 2009 (good thing i saved a pdf!). He is still listed as number 32 of 33 entrepreneurs who make this world a better place but his individual spotlight has been purged from their website. You would think that an honest organization would seize the moment to teach people of the dangers of con artists instead of sloppily trying to bury the truth. Even the famous psychopath researcher, Dr. Robert Hare admits that he can be fooled by these creatures.


KOMO

Peninsula Daily News

Markwell's bottom feeding attorney could not be reached for comment

OAS - life inside the sanctuary

High Praise in the LA Times

care2 explain yourself Markwell to your gullible followers?

Rackateer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations

pit nutter of the month: steve markwell - rescue angel, lion tamer, child of the universe, and a good candidate for B12 intervention
 

Canine Discrimination by Richard Prince

Please be sure to check out the latest edition on The Truth About Pit Bulls.

April 1945, aah, the good old days of critical thinking skills and political incorrectness.