A Small Furry Hope

Book excerpt: Steven Kotler was forty years old, single, and facing an existential crisis when he met Lila, a woman devoted to animal rescue. "Love me, love my dogs," was her rule, and Steven took it to heart. Spurred to move by a housing crisis in Los Angeles, Steven, Lila - and their eight dogs, then ten, then twenty, and then they lost count - bought a postage-stamp-sized farm in Chimayo, New Mexico. A Small Furry Hope chronicles their adventures at Rancho de Chihuahua, the sanctuary they created for their pack with special needs: the very old, the very sick, and, as Kotler says, "the really retarded." An insider look at the culture of dog rescue, A Small Furry Prayer weaves personal experience, and scientific inquiry into a fast-paced, fun-filled narrative that explores what it means to devote one's life to the furry and the four-legged. Along the way, Kotler combs through every aspect of canine-human relations, from long human history with dogs to brand new research into the neuroscience of canine companionship, in the end discovering why living in a world made of dog may be the best way to uncover the truth about what it really means to be human.