“And I watched them get closer to the dogs”: A Native Educator’s Experiences Teaching about Rez Dogs on a Rural Reservation

This article reports the findings of a long-term, qualitative study that examines the experiences and perspectives of a Native educator who developed and taught an English curriculum focused on “rez dogs.” This curriculum was framed by culturally revitalizing and Indigenous pedagogies as well as Critical Rural English Pedagogy. Findings reveal that the process of developing and teaching this curriculum functioned to support the teacher in (a) fostering relationships among the students, dogs, and community; (b) giving back to the community and fulfilling a sense of relational responsibility; (c) facilitating healing and joy; and (d) building confidence as an educator. Set against the backdrop of structural settler colonialism and ongoing apocalypse within what is currently known as the “United States,” this research demonstrates ways such a revitalizing curriculum operates as an anticolonial act of rupture to settler colonialism’s ongoing attack on Indigenous Peoples and as an Indigenous-centric act of healing and self-determination.