Toward a Better Life

by Peter Morton Coan

  Growing up on my grandfather's farm in Mexico was a traditional, physical way of growing up for any child. We didn't spend a lot of time in the city, and being around trees and going to the river and surrounded by chickens and cows was the norm. My grandfather never panicked. He never got angry. He was the epitome of calmness—calm assertiveness.

  My mom was born on a different ranch, and my dad was born in Espadino. And normally the woman follows the man in my country, and Mom is just the sweetest, most supportive woman on the planet, and my dad is a very driven individual with big goals to make it outside the ranch. And he did. He did it for himself as much as he wanted to do, and so I grew up with a combination of assertive people [who had much] love.

  Growing up on the farm, I learned that the best school in the world is Mother Nature and to work with what you have: honor the earth, honor animals. My grandfather always said, “Never work against Mother Nature,” and then I came to America and found out about a guy named Gandhi who said pretty much the same thing in different words. You know, I have my own Gandhi. My grandfather was my hero.

  I was “El Perrero” [“The Dog Boy”]. That's a negative label that they give to people who are around certain animals, and in this case, dogs. When I was growing up, dogs for us were like family members—friends and helpers and everything…. We moved to Mazatlan about the time I needed to go to kindergarten. We started going five days to the city and then came back on the weekend. We had to go to Mazatlan because there were no schools near the ranch.

  Then at age thirteen, I was going to a judo competition and I told my mom I wanted to be the best dog trainer in the world, and she said “Of course you can. You can do whatever you want.” So from that point on I declared that this is what I wanted to be in life. I wanted to be the best because there were trainers who started coming to Mazatlan, and I asked why those dogs do what they do, and that's when they explained to me about people who train dogs. Being a veterinarian was another choice…and then the reruns of Lassie and Rin Tin Tin started happening in Mexico. So I had adoration for America because Disneyland and Hollywood were here, and that's where Lassie and Rin Tin Tin were. [He laughs.] So I was already in love with this country….

  The day I left for America was December 23, 1990. Something in me said, “I want to go to America.” I told my mom, and she said, “Where are you going?”

  I said, “I'm going to America.”

  “But the day after tomorrow is Christmas.”

  “I know, but I have to go.”

  So she called my dad, and my dad came and gave me the family savings, which was one hundred dollars. And with that money and my savings I paid for my bus ticket, and then I tried to save the hundred dollars so I could eat once I crossed the border. But I finished using that money to pay the coyote guy, so when I finally was able to jump [the border] I didn't have any money. I was trying to cross from Tijuana. The coyote charged me one hundred dollars. For me, that was God sending me somebody to tell me to cross because I was already trying for two weeks and no luck. I was trying to cross on my own because I was trying to save the money. I was trying to imitate how they do it, but since I didn't know the roads, I didn't know when the immigration officers changed. I didn't know anything about the whole system, and those people master it.

  I spent Christmas and New Year's on the border because I crossed two weeks later. I didn't know anybody. Some people were having a good time, but when you're on the border, that's a whole different world. It's like if you go to Tijuana and you go to the places where people celebrate, where the Americans go and drink, they don't know we're crossing. They have no idea, and they don't care! They're just buying dollar stuff, beers for a dollar, and it doesn't matter what day it is, or that it's New Year's, but for the immigrant that's not on your calendar, it has nothing to do with your life. Your life is to find a way to cross the border.

  The border fence goes into the ocean at Tijuana, and I tried that, but it's just so hard. I didn't see a realistic way because you're sinking in the sand! And also where am I going to put my boots? You know you've got to carry the boots and it's not like we're crossing the Rio Bravo where you put your clothes over your head. I think the ocean is a little more risky, and normally people do the ocean at nighttime because daytime it's open! It's like, “Here I am!”

  No, you look for the bushes; you look for areas where you can hide. It's the hunters and the rabbit. Also, at the ocean if they catch you, it takes longer for them to release you. But if they catch you close to the border [inland], they throw you out right away. I mean, I tried everything.

  During the two weeks, I walked the entire border there. I saw people being dragged by the current because at that time it was raining a lot in Tijuana, so you could see people being taken away by the current of the water, especially the elderly people, pregnant people, children. It's really sad. It's just a sad story. It's a journey. It's like climbing Mount Everest. It was not a river—there were just areas because it was raining so much that it created canals. And then the coyotes—I guess this was their path in the past, and it was muddy and rainy, and this current just took these people. I don't know where it took them. And I walked the border fence; you can absolutely do it in two weeks, because you're not thinking, you're in survival mode, and your adrenaline is so high you're not thinking. What you're really thinking is worthless.

  To survive you sweep floors, you ask for food, they see you're dirty. Some people give you tacos, some people say no, but you can survive because your adrenaline is feeding you, and somehow your body conserves whatever you eat. I ate tortillas. I ate whatever people gave me because I wanted to save my hundred dollars. I slept in the street. The street was my house. [He pauses.] You don't know how America looks. You can't even visualize it—all you know is “I have to cross.” It's a very simple concept. In my case I didn't know the territory, so once I go through this hole at the bottom of the fence, where do I go? Do I run in a straight line? Where do you go? I just had no clue.

  I wasn't scared. Everybody asks me, “Did you ever have fear?” But I never had fear. It's just something that was instilled in me since I was little. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm not afraid of anything—what's the point? I have natural fear of fire or tsunamis or things like that. That's natural fear, but psychological fear? When you're little and they send you in the middle of the night to go and find the donkey, you face a lot of fear! [He laughs.] And so I was blessed to be with two people who were not afraid of anything—and they're good people, great people actually, my father and my grandfather….

  The coyote found me. I was at the border because that was my job: to jump the border. I tried early in the morning; I tried in the afternoons, midnight. Then one day this guy came and said, “Do you want to cross the border?” And I said, “Yeah.” And that's when he asked for one hundred dollars, and I thought, OK, that's kind of weird. It was just him and I. That's why I felt like this was divine, his [God's] intervention, because this guy came from nowhere and he was filthy dirty. I mean, I grew up to learn not to trust people like this, but inside of me, I felt like I could trust him. It was an internal feeling that happened, you know?

  We started crossing at seven p.m. I went to a place where this lady had a little coffee shop, a very humble coffee shop, and she sold gum, which is pretty much what keeps you awake: coffee and gum. There was a hole right behind her, and it was like she was guarding this hole. But this coyote knew the way…. He knew how to go through the tunnel under the freeway, which was a very scary moment for me:…we run, we run against traffic. You can see the cars, they're beeping at you—beep, beep—and then you've got to cross four lines [of traffic] and it feels like somebody's going to hit you—and I'm in boots, I'm wet, I'm full of mud, I'm a wetback. I am really wet!

  After we crossed, the coyote brought me to a gas station and across the street from the gas station was the Border Patrol [headquarters] and I thought, “Oh my God, he brought me to the Border Patrol! He lied to me!”

 
; No, what he did was he got me a taxi, which he paid for, so that it could take me away from there to San Diego downtown. I mean, this guy was an angel! He charged me one hundred dollars, maybe he made eighty dollars, and it took us hours to cross the border. Coyotes are not exactly known as humanitarians. They're just paying attention to how much money they're going to make.

  When I got across, I celebrated like never before. I was alone. I celebrated the Mexican way—you know, we do the whole scream! I had no money because I gave it to the coyote, so I couldn't even buy a drink or anything. So what happened was I found a place under the freeway where I could go to sleep, and I slept for a whole day. But you don't sleep because you feel like you have to be on alert. So you sleep for two or three hours at a time because you're afraid people will take things from you while you sleep. They can kidnap you; so many bad things can happen.

  I mean, I know I didn't do this on my own. [He chuckles.] My mom and God and my father praying were part of it. I am a very faithful human being. I am a man of instinct and a man of faith; that's what I came to America with. But that was my lowest, you know? I didn't bring any clothes, but I took that instinct and faith. And I prayed every day. I never stopped, and I never will! You know, when you grow up in a third world country, your instinct and your faith keep you alive. It's not your intelligence, and it's not your emotions because for the most part men can't cry so you learn to numb your emotions. You learn not to speak about emotions or to not show emotions, but instead rely on your instinct for survival and faith and hope that one day things will change….

  I don't see life as hard. I lived the hard part of life already growing up in a third world country where you have to walk for water, you know? I am so constant to challenge. I'm so constant to believe that things will get better and so you can go through challenge, suffering, and at the end you're going to achieve what you're looking for. There's just no other way around. The storm doesn't last forever. So that mentality keeps you alive; it keeps you hopeful and allows you to not lose your patience because one of the things that happens is that people lose their patience and then they go back or they give up or they start drinking, and I can't give up. I never did.

  After I woke up [under the freeway], I started looking around. I was in San Diego, so I didn't know anything about San Diego. I didn't have any need to stay in San Diego. My goal was to get to Disneyland or Hollywood because that's where Rin Tin Tin was, where Lassie was. I have to find the castle, the Disneyland castle, because every time I saw a Disney® show I saw the castle, and that's where Disneyland is. [He pauses.] I didn't know anybody here. [He laughs.] I was so naïve to think that Rin Tin Tin was going to be there, but that's what Hollywood and Disneyland sell you. As a kid in Mexico, I would watch Rin Tin Tin and Lassie on TV, and I thought, “I've got to meet their trainer. Those people are going to teach me how to train dogs….”

  In San Diego, I started walking around and learning the culture of America. I learned the sentence, “Do you have application for work?” That was my first sentence. And then eventually I walked by this grooming place, and I said this sentence to these ladies, who gave me the opportunity to work for them, and that's when I started showing that I can work with aggressive [dog] cases, and that day I made sixty dollars! In Mexico it was a dollar a day. I went to 7-Eleven, and with ninety-nine cents I bought two hot dogs, and then I saved $1.69 to buy a Big Gulp™ so I could get the free refill—so you can live in America back then on a dollar a day.

  I worked at a grooming place in Chula Vista [a suburb southeast of San Diego]. Two very nice Caucasian ladies gave me the opportunity to work for them, since I didn't speak English. They were elderly ladies when I met them, and they were hippie-like. They found out I was living in the streets, so they gave me the keys. So I slept in the grooming salon in the back, and then when I saved $1,000, I said, “I have to go.” It was not my goal to stay in San Diego. My goal was to get to LA. I never saw them again. You just move forward. When you're an immigrant, you're just moving forward. I wanted to be the best dog trainer in the world; that was very clear in my mind. But I had saved $1,000, so the first thing I did was I went out and bought my first pair of Original Levi's®! [He laughs.]

  I took a Greyhound® bus to LA, and I left in the middle of the night because there's another border you have to go through near San Diego and then you learn that on a certain day, immigration people are not checking, they're not stopping buses. I arrived into downtown LA, and Skid Row was right there and I got to experience the first homeless people I'd ever seen. They were on drugs, and I was not around people who were doing drugs or homeless, so that was a shocking experience for me. I was not afraid of anybody. I just walked toward downtown LA, and I saw the buildings, and I said, “Well, you know, that's what downtown is; that's where the big buildings are,” so I walk toward there, and I found a place where I could sleep, and the next day I looked through the Yellow Pages: “Dog Training Facilities.”

  I was hired by one in Gardena [a suburb southwest of Los Angeles]. I became the kennel boy. I learned how to take care of dogs and fed them. After I went to work at the dog training facility, I stopped looking for Lassie and Rin Tin Tin. [He pauses.] After my kids were born, I took them to Disneyland, but by then I wasn't looking for that. By that time, I became knowledgeable, and by then my wife, Ilusión, told me Disneyland is not where they train dogs. So that was a big disappointment.

  I created a reputation of being a guy who can work with aggressive dog cases, and then I met a guy named Jay Reel, and he offered me a job as a carwash guy. I worked with his golden retrievers. I was not very happy working in the kennel. I worked sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. I worked there for almost a year. But I met good people; I met Jay, and he said, “You don't look too happy. I'll give you a job; it's not about dogs, but I can bring you the dogs of my friend and you can train them for him. You're good.”

  So I start washing cars. At the same time, I was training dogs: teaching them to carry the bucket, carry the towel, bring me the water hose. They were my helpers, you know? And then he taught me about discipline in the American culture and about time. Because when you live in Mexico and you say you're coming, you come thirty or forty minutes later. So he taught me about being more disciplined with time. He not only let me work for him, he also took me to get my driver's license. He gave me a car to drive for free. We're still very good friends. By this time, I had gotten married and had a child. And then one day, he went to Lake Havasu, and before he left, he said, “By the way, you're fired!”

  I said, “Why?” [He laughs incredulously.] “Why are you firing me?”

  “Because you're ready to do it on your own—I'm certain.”

  It's like: “What are you talking about? I have a child. I'm married….”

  “No, no, you're ready.”

  And it was “Bye-bye.” [He laughs incredulously again.] Just like that.

  I was a good car washer, but at the same time, he knew that my future was with the dogs, and he saw something in me, and he said, “No, you're ready to go out on your own. You just have to go for it!” One thing, though: he still let me drive the car, and without the car I couldn't go and pick up dogs. So he said, “Keep the car. Just make sure to take care of it, and, you know, call me.”

  I was thinking, “Oh my God, what am I going to tell Ilusión?” I just got fired. I can live on one dollar a day, but when you have a child and a wife, one dollar a day is not gonna make it. And then the rent. After I stopped being so chaotic about it, I just went back to my normal state and calmly, confidently figured, “I'll just go out there and tell people I need a job.” But what happened is I started walking more dogs. I became the Mexican guy who can walk a pack of dogs. And so I was walking thirty, forty dogs at ten dollars per dog—that's $300–400 a day, and so that was great.

  That's when I found out that in America it's illegal to walk dogs off a leash. I mean, I had no clue. In Mexico, everybody walks dogs off the leash. Actually, it's more diffi
cult to walk a dog on the leash. If my clients can't control the dog, I would say, “Take the leash off!” and the dog follows them. That's the nature of the dog. That's the nature of an animal, not to have a foreign object on his body. I mean, when I grew up I never saw a leash on a dog! So that was shocking to me, and that's when the whole thing about dog psychology versus dog training came to my awareness. “The Energetic Mind: The Revolutionary Style of Dog Training” I was calling it back then. I created business cards, passed them around, went to dog parks where people were training dogs. That's how I got to meet many African American dog trainers, and then we started networking, and they passed me clients who were not able to control or train their dogs….

  The businessman in me came out later. I have a mind to work with people, and I have a mind to follow sometimes, but when the fundamentals don't match my core, I can't be part of that group, you know? It's just very difficult, and that's when I thought maybe I should open up my own business. I didn't know how. I didn't know what it entailed. I was totally clueless about business. What am I going to call myself? That's when I came up with “The Dog Psychology Center of Los Angeles.” America will not buy a title that says, “Common Sense for Dogs,” you know? And that's when I realized that a lot of people go to psychologists. And so, OK, Americans will buy a title if it has “psychology” in it. So then, I thought, how much is it going to cost? Many people around me said, “You're not a psychologist; you can't get that title.” So it was a little discouraging, but at the same time, I thought, it doesn't hurt to try! Everybody told me, “You can't jump the border,” right? So it's like the same metaphor.