The Daily Coyote: A Story of Love, Survival, and Trust in the Wilds of Wyoming

Product Details

Shreve threw away her cell phone and took to the rules of the land, adjusting to a lifestyle that was a near antithesis to that of the urban jungle. Time is of a different essence, nature is both livelihood and enemy, deer and coyote mark the dawn and dusk. After she met a local cowboy by chance on the side of the road, first a friendship and then a romance blossomed between them.

When Shreve was unexpectedly presented with a ten-day-old coyote pup whose parents had been shot for killing sheep, she had a choice to make. Despite her reservations and the terror of her tomcat Eli, Shreve decided to do the unthinkable -- to raise the coyote pup she came to call Charlie in her 12 12-foot log cabin.

In arresting prose and illuminated with Shreve's breathtaking photography, The Daily Coyote is at once Shreve's month-by-month exploration of Charlie's first year and a meditation on the nature of wildness versus domestication, of nature versus nurture, and of forgiveness, loyalty, and love in all its forms.

Product Reviews

(5 stars) - the daily coyote
I thought this book was very good. It was the kind of book I could relate to. I have always wanted to raise a wild animal and study it and hope that it would love me as well as I would love it. It brought back memories of when I was a teenager and I could totally see me doing what she did. I couldn't put it down

(5 stars) - Just flat great!
Every once in awhile a book comes along that really strikes a tone with animal lovers - not overdone or too dramatic, but real, insightful and full of new adventures that we do not know of as we sit in our warm, urban cottages - The Daily Coyote is one such book - just flat great! You'll just love Chuck, and also find out what a greater person Shreve grew to be. I am inviting all my friends to pick it up and read it and, it makes a wonderful gift.

(5 stars) - Surprising and Inspiring
Who among us would undertake to raise a wild coyote pup as a pet? Very few of us would, but Shreve Stockton did. The resulting story is surprising and rewarding, even inspiring.

Stockton, a city woman, had recently transplanted herself to rural Wyoming. Lonely and still learning to live comfortably in this environment, she was given a coyote pup to raise - a pup so young that its eyes were barely open. "The Daily Coyote" is one result of that gift, and it's a gift to all of us.

This is a story of bravery, good luck, and love. I was surprised at how well Stockton was able to integrate Charlie, the coyote, into a human domestic life - though not without a few heart-stopping incidents along the way. I think that Stockton and Charlie were probably both quite lucky that Charlie had the innate temperament to be domesticated to the extent that he was. I doubt that very many coyote pups could be raised this way.

They were also lucky in the setting in which they lived - a very rural one, with lots of open space and with places where Charlie could be hidden from local people who would not have welcomed the idea of a coyote in their midst. Finally, they were lucky that Charlie was spared from the guns of the many coyote haters and hunters in his area.

Inspiring and moving as it is, and instructional as it is, this is a book which might well be labelled "don't try this at home", with a few exclamation marks after that warning. Few of us have the time, the self-discipline, the courage, and the resources which Stockton showed in raising Charlie. It worked out very well for both of them. Their story has usefulness for the rest of us, showing us something of the depth of the interspecies bond which can occur between humans and another species, and indicating some of the pitfalls which await the careless or uninformed when they try to raise a canine - a canine of either domestic or traditionally wild stock.

Mostly though, this is a love story, and a compelling and very moving one it is. If you have any interest in animals at all, read this book. I guarantee you won't be sorry.

Bill Hansen

(5 stars) - wow!!!
As an animal lover, I fell in love with this book and found it hard to put down... loved the story and it was so well written, I could visualize what the author was describing..it is a must read!!!

(5 stars) - Looking forward to tomorrow's issue
I first came across mention of the book in a brief snippet in the local paper. Interesting, I thought. Described as a story of a city-girl who gives up everything to live in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming and adopts an orphaned coyote puppy, I was all ready to write it off as a cliché warm-and-fuzzy sappy story of a pretend hippy nature-lover wanna-be with no clue who thinks she's doing the world justice by forcing a coyote to live a captive life because she finds the alternative to hard to handle. However, a little voice had me wondering if I might be wrong. I saw the book at Barnes and Noble and glanced through it. As a self-proclaimed harsh critic of wildlife photography, I confess the pretty pictures were not too shabby and I began to lick my chops at the opportunity to critique both writing and photography. So, here's my review.

I liked the book - a lot. The writing is beautifully done; Shreve writes in a manner that is both wonderfully descriptive and effortlessly flowing without falling into the trap of becoming obnoxiously poetic. The happenings and observations - pleasant and otherwise - throughout the book are refreshingly not sugar-coated and the often harsh reality of living with a wild animal is not disguised.

Indeed, the story is about a city-girl gone country and her adventures raising a coyote named Charlie. The content is primarily focused on the ups and downs of the bond between Shreve and Charlie and the story is essentially a chronological documentary of their first year together. Shreve also incorporates aspects of her relationship with a local man and her general life in Wyoming as they pertain to her decisions and life with Charlie. Although a fantastic read, I confess I did finish the book without the satisfaction of the roller-coaster ride of plot development; the story does not exactly follow the expected intro, rising actions, climax, falling actions, and resolution format of the typical novel. There are really not any nail-biting, OMG-I-can't-stop-until-I-know-how-this-ends moments and the story does not really end tidily wrapped with a bow. However, the unique content and writing style was effective at holding my interest and I found myself very eager to read on throughout the book.

Although merely a reflection of my own thoughts and not essential to a book review, it is worth noting that my initial assumptions of Shreve were in fact wrong. I found her character to be much more savvy and perceptive of the natural world and animal behavior than I expected. Alluding to my previous mentioning of nothing being sugar-coated, I whole-heartedly tip my hat to Shreve for vividly making it clear that living with a wild animal is far from living with animals that have shared their lives with humans for thousands of years.

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