Lost Puppy Found in the Middle of the Desert

Professional explorers Cedar Wright and Alex Honnold are accustomed to expecting the unexpected. The duo is known for grueling and dangerous adventures, which involve bike rides into the middle of nowhere and climbing some of the most daunting rock formations in America. But on a recent adventure, a nearly 800 mile biking and climbing adventure called “Sufferfest 2,” the explorers stumbled upon something truly unexpected: a tiny puppy, lost in the middle of the desert.

“I just stop on my bike randomly in the desert and all of a sudden I hear this whimpering sound and at first I can’t figure out what it is and then I look and there’s this little puppy curled up in an old tire hiding from the wind. I quickly realized that he had been abandoned,” Wright told National Geographic.

The pair immediately adopted the tiny dog, naming him “Sufferpup” after their latest journey. Then, they nursed the shivering, dehydrated puppy back to health, feeding him string cheese and building a tiny bed for him in an empty beer box. Sufferpup ended up accompanying them on the rest of their adventures before finding a permanent home in Boulder, Colorado.

And though the explorers saved Sufferpup’s life, the pup wasn't the only one who got something out of the new friendship. Wright explained, “For me, it was like ‘thank goodness for Sufferpup,’ because when you’re just pushing yourself to your absolute limit, biking further than you want to, climbing more than you really want to, it’s really heartening at the end of the day to come down and have this adorable little puppy to cuddle with. Without Sufferpup I don’t know if we would have made it.”

[h/t: National Geographic]