The Dogtown Chronicles, Our Life and Times with Sheep, Goats, Llamas, and Other Creatures

A middle-aged couple of escaped New Yorkers become shepherds in the rural outpost of West Marin, California, and learn much about life and about death from the experience. The Dogtown Chronicles is a memoir as much as a layered love story, in which love of place, love of animals, and love of an inventive, adventurous partner grows over more than 20 years. Readers meet the author in her 40s, when she was afraid of most animals, and afraid to admit it to Richard, who introduced Moe and Curly, two Scottish Highland steer, to his 10-acre property in Dogtown not long after she moved in. After 10 years, the cumulative effect of Moe and Curly, sheep and goats, lambs and kids, and llamas, horse, dog, and cats and Richard had opened her heart to animals. The book shows how, through stories of the couple's adventures and misadventures with their menagerie of creatures great and small. Threatened and endangered domestic animals are featured in this book, including San Clemente Island goats and Jacob sheep.