by Allison Otto | on December 12th, 2011 | in Features
Let me start by saying that there’s no such thing as the “ultimate adventure dog.” In fact, I believe that all dog breeds are worthy of the “adventure dog” moniker.
Even—dare I say it—Chihuahuas. Yes, Chihuahuas.
I wouldn’t have believed this possible, though, until I met Cosette. And even then, when I first laid eyes on her at a dog adoption fair in Los Angeles I nearly kept right on walking. I was searching for a dog that would bound up 14ers with me, run recklessly across the mountainsides with me, and share a campfire with me while we stared together at stars and ate S’mores. The kind of dog that would inspire me to take grand adventures on the open road and would love nothing more than to ride shotgun with me into the distance.
And Cosette–well I wasn’t even sure that she could walk around the block with me. She looked like a sickly coyote pup. She had runny eyes, an aggressive case of mange, and she smelled like a ripe wool sock that had spent one too many days in a hiking boot.
But the rescuer who brought Cosette to the fair worked me over with the determined guile of a used car salesman. Cosette, the rescuer claimed, was simply a fixer-upper. She would only get better and more beautiful with time. Sure, when the rescuer initially found Cosette she could barely walk, was covered in scabs, and was oozing pus, but now she had an entire half a coat of fur and plenty of interest in adventures.
And if I would just be willing to fill out a bit of paperwork—and be sure to include my phone number–I could be added to the ostensibly long list of people interested in this dog.
The next morning–before I’d even made it out of bed–I received a call from the rescuer: After careful consideration and a thorough review of my paperwork, I had been selected as THE perfect match for Cosette. Of course I later found out the selection process came down to me and well, me, since I was the only person who had expressed any interest at all in Cosette.
And I’m a bit ashamed to admit this now, but I almost backed out. That’s because in addition to her health issues, Cosette spent most of our first two weeks together trembling in a corner behind the sofa and maintaining a near-constant distance of two feet. As for our initial “adventures,” they consisted of walking around the perimeter of our apartment building.
But even the most legendary adventurers begin with small journeys before tackling Everest.
And so did we. Eventually we explored the neighborhood together. And then we climbed to Griffith Park observatory together.
And pretty soon I discovered that Chihuahuas can make fantastic running partners–especially Cosette. With her newfound adventure confidence she ran roughshod for miles over the labyrinth of dirt trails that crisscross Griffith Park.
And they love road trips! When I moved back home to Colorado, Cosette jumped eagerly into the car to be my co-pilot across the Southwest. When I spent six weeks filming in remote regions of the Four Corners, Cosette faithfully followed me up the mountains and through the deserts.
And by the time I drove to New England to film the autumn foliage on the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Kancamagus Byway, and the National Historic Road, Cosette was an old pro at being my pocket-sized adventure buddy.
But Cosette isn’t a rarity in the Chihuahua world. Even though Chihuahuas are the smallest breed of dog, they are legendary for their intelligence, loyalty, energy, and bravery.
The Mayans and Aztecs even considered the ancestors of the modern Chihuahua sacred and believed the breed possessed the ability to guide the dead safely to the afterlife. And while there aren’t any Labradors in the Sistine Chapel, the same can’t be said for Chihuahuas: a dog that resembles a Chihuahua graces Botticelli’s fresco depicting the Trials of Moses.
A few months ago, I adopted a second Chihuahua, Murci, from the Ranchos de Chihuahua sanctuary in Chimayo, New Mexico. At 8 pounds she’s even smaller than Cosette. We went on our first hike as a trio this summer and Murci’s now officially an adventure dog-in-training. And while we have no plans to hunt ducks or jump into a pickup truck and go backcountry skiing, we’ve got plenty of other adventures ahead.
And Murci is a natural at it. Because, after all, she’s a Chihuahua.
by Grayson Schaffer | on September 27th, 2010 | in Features, Media, Small Furry Blog
So you think you’ve got big dog problems? Check out the small dog problems Steven Kotler, author of A Small Furry Prayer, which hits bookshelves this month, deals with on a daily basis. Kotler, who also wrote West of Jesus, and his wife, fellow author Joy Nicholson, moved from Los Angeles to Chimayo, New Mexico, a few years back to start Rancho de Chihuahua (www.ranchodechihuahua.org) as a sanctuary for small dogs. Amazingly, they’ve managed to preserve both their sanity and their relationship. The book is a sidelong look at the world of dog rescue as told by a novice—Kotler—who fell into animal activism by falling in love with an activist. If you’ve ever thought the world dog rescuers live in is probably a kooky place, Kotler and the bazaar culture of northern New Mexico don’t disappoint. When you put 30 chihuahuas and their L.A.-transplant rescuers in the black-tar heroin capital of America, crazy things are bound to happen. When I asked Kotler whether all of the stories—from the coyote that wanted to play with his pack to the altruistic lesbian dogs—he responded: Not only are these stories all true, but there are a dozen others that are even crazier. I didn’t include those because nobody would have believed them.
Read an excerpt of the book in Outside’s October issue and then buy it
by Steven Kotler | on August 24th, 2010 | in Features, Small Furry Blog
Welcome to a Small, Furry Blog. I thought I’d begin by making a somewhat brief introduction. For starters, there are a few other dog blogs on the Outside website and those are filled with sagacious, hard-earned advice about how to train and care for your dog. This advice comes from folks who really know what they’re talking about.
This is definitely not that blog.
In fact, whatever wisdom I might have on subject canid is ad hoc at best and probably better ignored.
The reasons for this are two-fold. First, the dogs in my care are not your average dogs. Alongside my wife, Joy Nicholson, I co-run the Rancho de Chihuahua dog sanctuary—a dog sanctuary for special needs dogs.
Our pack size varies, but usually we have around 25 dogs in our care. Those dogs fall into three categories. We do hospice care for the aged, giving elderly dogs a place to die in peace. We also do long term rehabilitation for severely abused, terribly ill and mentally and physically handicapped dogs. These are dogs that usually need a year or two of work before they’re eligible for adoption. Most of these do eventually find new homes, but a few end up loving too crazy for adoption. Rescuers call these dogs “lifers,” and we have about eight of those right now. Finally, we also take on a couple young fosters at a time. These are usually healthy puppies with mild traumas. We nurse them back to health in a month or two and then find them homes.
Our dogs have great lives—that much for certain. My wife has something of an international reputation for her ability to heal dogs. It’s not unusual for us to receive a dog from a vet with a warning that the dog has a month to live at best, but much of the time that month stretches into two, three, four…usually years. If you ask my wife the secret to her technique she’ll say “I just let the dogs be dogs and love them for it.”
What does that really mean? Well, we don’t cage any of our dogs. We don’t separate them from one another or from us. Outside of “No Fighting” our sanctuary has almost no rules. This is done intentionally. We go out of our way to cultivate an environment as close to the hunter-gather environment that dogs evolved to live in. This means large packs of dogs, a few humans, and a completely different rule structure—and that’s the real reason you might not want to take my advice.
Our goal—what we’ve discovered to be the very best way to promote healing and happiness— is loving cooperation. I want to find the best way to cooperate with the dog, and the best way for them to cooperate with me. This means I bend to their will the vast majority of the time.
Let me give you one example. We have a few feral dogs here—some have been here for years—none have I yet to touch. I co-exist in the same space with these ferals. I feed them and care for them and mostly stay out of their way. Why should you ignore this advice? Simple. Most people don’t want to be around a dog they can’t touch.
Another version of this is how we do our adoptions. If you want one of our dogs, you come over, sit down at a table on the back porch and then we open the door to the house and let the dogs pour out. The point of this is not to let the human do the choosing. We let our dogs choose. And if they don’t like the potential adopter, well they don’t go home with the potential adopter.
Essentially, if I were to sum it up in a sentence, we try to look at every situation from the dog’s perspective and then we try to cooperate with their vision. Of course, since we lack a verbal common language, this can get pretty messy at times.
But truthfully, that’s the real fun. And sometimes those feral dogs do come around. And when you’ve been living with a dog for two years before they finally walk over and decide to give your hand a lick—well that one lick, let’s just say it’s astronomically more than worth the wait.