THE MAN BEHIN Z
Zach Skow turned his life around with the help of his rescue dog Marley and his lif ach Skow reached his lowest point in 2009, searching his life for meaning and connection. Eventually, it was his passion for animals and volunteering that led him from terminal diagnosis, to miraculous recovery. Along the way, he created two incredible organizations: Marley’s Mutts and the Pawsitive Change Program.
Today Zach has a beautiful family and works tirelessly to save and rehabilitate “extreme case” rescue dogs. And now he also works to rehabilitate people, giving time and energy to inmates at correctional facilities. This initiative, known as “The Pawsitive Change Program,” takes Zach and his colleagues into correctional facilities, giving inmates the the tools and training needed to rescue dogs and, in doing so, move further down their own road to rehabilitation; giving rise to the organization’s slogan “Rescue dogs, rescuing people.” After hitting rock bottom as an alcoholic and addict- diagnosed with liver failure at 28 and given ninety days to live- Zach turned his life around with the help of his dog, Marley. “My dogs just saw that I was there,” he says. With his life revolving around alcohol, he struggled to process the severity of his diagnosis, leading him to delay getting medical care. Finally his dad stepped in. “It was just a terrible time,” Skow recalls. When his symptoms worsened to the point he could no longer conceal his deteriorating condition, he was admitted to Bakersfield Memorial Hospital, where his health continued to decline. With six months sobriety required to be eligible for a liver transplant and given only ninety days to live, his future looked bleak. In a last ditch attempt to save his life, a nurse suggested Skow’s family take him to the emergency room at Cedar Sinai. He signed out of the hospital against doctors orders and, after what must have been the most terrifying two hour drive of his life, made it to Cedar’s, where he was successfully admitted to their transplant program as an emergency. Their job was to keep him healthy enough, and ensure he survived long enough, to get the transplant he so desperately needed. Withdrawals began as they took him off the long list of medications he had been on. “That was the first real thing that my dogs helped me get through, because I thought I was dying... I wasn’t mentally prepared for it, I was hallucinating and hearing voices and seeing things...
“...My dogs were with me the whole time, especially my Marley, just grounding me and keeping me where I needed to be, letting me know that things were going to be ok.”
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