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.
