I’m Doc Cathy — a retired nurse-midwife (DNP) living in Montrose, Colorado, at the edge of the Colorado Plateau. For thirty years I helped bring people into the world. Now I spend my time exploring it — with my small dogs, a full tank of gas, and a lot of miles of red rock and sagebrush ahead of me.
This blog started as letters to my grandchildren, Maia and Isaac. It still is, in a way — and that’s why the posts are addressed to my kin first — because I hope that someday they’ll come back and read about the places their grandma went with her Three Amigas tribe. Until then, I’m posting about my travel in hopes of reaching other desert wanderers and K9 parents.
It’s grown into something else too. A few years ago I started using my clinical background for a different kind of work — rescuing small-breed senior dogs with serious medical needs, the ones who don’t get easy odds elsewhere. That’s Three Amigas, and it travels right alongside the road trips now.
We travel Western Colorado and the American Southwest — canyon country, high desert, mountain towns, and the back roads most people drive past. Mesa Verde, Monument Valley, Dead Horse Point — this is our territory and we know it well.
Follow along on Instagram @threeamigasminidoghaven
Why Three Amigas?
I was a cat person until I decided I wanted a travel companion. I adopted Maizzy (named for my grandkids) as a travel companion in 2013. In 2016, I added Kachina, a once-feral terrier mix. Then, in 2017, I had a failed foster dog named Sazi Ana (Anasazi). Someone called them the Three Amigas and it stuck.
In 2021, I lost Maizzy and in 2023, I lost Sazi. It was the loss of Sazi that shifted me from finding a cute rescue dog to using my medical background for special needs rescue dogs. Sazi was my first soul dog and she would have a legacy! That year, I got two new female senior rescue dogs, Kokopelli (Koko) and Cimarron. They, of course, became Three Amigas II.
I lost Cimarron in the fall of 2026. Because of the special “soul” bond I had with her, I felt renewed energy to continue my rescue efforts. I found it was the tinest dogs in the pack who I developed that soul-deep relationship with, and decided to consider both male and female dogs. That is when the name became a legacy to the Three Amigas who started the legacy: Maizzy, Sazi Ana, and Cimarron.
Meet Three Amigas I: Maizzy, Kachina, and Sazi Ana
Maizzy came to me the day after Thanksgiving in 2013. She was rescued from Black Canyon Animal Sanctuary at age 8. I was so unsure about dogs, but she was the most mellow dog ever. For 2.5 years, it was just the two of us and a bunch of cats.
Kachina came from Black Canyon Animal Sanctuary, too. She was a stray who had become feral, but she was so cute. I had no experience with dogs who needed socialization, but we figured it out (eventually). Well, mostly Maizzy figured it out. Kachina is still with me and has helped me socialize to new kids to the pack. She was named for a daylily from my Colorado Kid Daylily collection – Kachina Firecracker.
Sazi Ana was a foster fail from Black Canyon Animal Sanctuary in 2017. She came from a poverty situation and hadn’t been socialized. She was a project, but the project stalled. She was unadoptable but happy with the pack, so she stayed. She developed IVDD and through our 5 years of conservative therapy, we developed a very deep bond. It was that bond that drove me to want more special needs dogs.
Meet Three Amigas II
Kachina – see her story (above).
Koko — short for Kokopelli, also a southwestern daylily from that same Colorado Kid Daylilies world — was rescued from a hoarding situation in Texas, one of ninety dogs. She arrived labeled hospice. Nobody told her that. With good veterinary care and a lot of love she has absolutely flourished, and she would like you to know she has opinions about everything.
Cimarron Esti came to me at age twelve after her person passed away. She was born in Estes Park — my own childhood hometown, which felt like more than coincidence — and her former name was Simone. She needed a name that fit where she was going, so she became Cimarron, named for the mountains. She arrived with big anxiety, the way sighthounds carry their feelings in their whole bodies, and a lot had changed in her world very fast. She settled. She belonged here. In October 2026, heart and airway disease took her far sooner than any of us expected (read more about her final journey here). She rode shotgun on more miles than I can count, and this road, and this blog, carry her with them still.
Meet the Current Trio: Two Amigas and the Bean
Kachina – she’s still with us and going strong (see above)
Koko – on her second round in the trio!
“Bean” – Will join us October, 2026
All of them are why the miles matter. Visit @threeamigasminidoghaven for more.
When I’m not on the road, I’m home in Montrose making things by hand — hand-cast cement planters, gnomes, and art rooted in the same landscape I love to travel. That work lives at Art from the Hartt and in the Art from the Hartt Etsy shop if you’re curious.
Welcome to the journey, Doc Cathy
