Audio (from NPR): Guide Dogs - learning to work with a guide dog reminded Kuusisto that life could be fulfilling again. Listen

Museum Exhibit
Dogs, Wolf, Myth, Hero & Friend - an exhibit from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles - will be traveling throughout the united States for the next five years.

Recommeded reading from the library:

A History of Dogs in the Early Americas by Marion Schwartz with selected drawings by Susan Hochgraf, New Haven [Conn.] : Yale University Press, c1997.

Here is a passage:

Dogs lived with people in the Americas as early as 9,000 to 10,000 years ago.

"In about A.D. 800, a group of Athapaskan speakers migrated from the western subartic to the southern Plains. Along with the northern cultural and linguistic traditions, they brought with them backpacking dogs. The archaeological record indicates that only small dogs were present in the Southwest prior to A.D. 800, but after this date larger animals appear among the faunal remains. This evidence confirms that the northerners brought their working dogs with them. These imigrants later became known as the Navaho and the Apache. In 1599 a Spaniard named Zaldivar witnessed the nomads, probably Apache, with medium-sized shaggy dogs. They drive great trains of them. Each, girt round its breast and haunches, carrying a load of flour of at least one hundred pounds, travels as fast as his master. Another Spanish chronicler, writing in his journal in 1590, says, "These people [the Apache} had with them many loaded dogs, as is the custom in those regions, and we saw them loaded, a thing new to us, never before seen." [p. 52]. The author says it is not likely that the dogs could really carry 100 pounds very far. More likely, the load was 30 - 50 pounds.

The author then goes on to describe how dogs were used to pull or drag loads with a "travois" "from the French word _travail_, or work." The travios "consisted of two straight poles produced from tree trunks that had been dried and debarked. The poles were lashed together at their thinner ends with sinew. The thicker ends of the poles dragged on the ground, and the other ends crossed over the dogs back. The harness consisted of a broad strap across the chest and thongs running back toward the travois cross frame or basket." The author says they would travel five or six miles a day [p. 53].

"The southern Athapaskans, the Navaho and the Apache, by their own acounts had an aversion to eating dogs. Sometimes dogs were used to hunt rabbits, squirrels, turkey and quail. The Eastern Navaho felt that dogs came from the gods, although in general the Navaho did not hold dogs in very high esteem. An Apache informant said that his village had had only one dog during his childhood and that, in the past, dogs had not been numerous. The typical Apache dog had yellow patches over each eye and white on each paw. To the Apache the yellow symbolized the sunset and the white the morning light, indicating that the dog was expected to protect the people both day and night." [I didn't write the page number, but it was from a chapter about eating dogs.]

This is a really interesting book. I have to admit that I have only read part of it, but now I want to read the rest. This book is available in hardback and paperback.

You can find it, and many more books about dogs at your local library or try abebooks & add all.