When William Atek first met Elko, the tiny pup was shivering in a crate, rescued from a sealed box in the middle of the road. He’d never owned a dog before. “The shelter basically handed me a crate, some food and this little dog, and sent me on my way,” Atek recalls with a laugh. “I had no idea what I was doing.”
That was 2022. Atek was living in Los Angeles, working a steady 9-to-5, when a local shelter called with an urgent plea over Fourth of July weekend: they needed an emergency foster for a puppy just found abandoned in the street. What was supposed to be temporary turned into a foster fail almost immediately.
Elko, a dachshund-chihuahua-Jack Russell mix, was shy and skittish, especially around men, but he quickly won Atek’s heart. “I had always been terrified of traveling alone,” Atek says. “But then I realized I’d never really be alone again. I had Elko. He gave me the courage to take a leap and completely change my life.”
Within months, Atek quit his job, packed up, and booked a one-way ticket to Thailand, Elko by his side. Eventually, his partner, Heather Borngesser, joined them. The three have since traveled to more than 40 countries, from the mountains of Norway to the streets of Italy, where, Atek laughs, “We were ordering swanky meals for Elko that cost more than ours.”
Travel hasn’t always been smooth. “We were once in a remote part of Bosnia, and the only hotel for miles suddenly said they didn’t allow dogs,” Borngesser recalls. “We had no car, had been dropped off by a taxi, and were trying to negotiate through Google Translate!”
Still, Elko’s become a natural traveler, planes, trains, boats, buses, you name it. “He’s honestly the best companion ever,” Atek says. “The scared dog in the box is long gone, now he’s the heart of our adventures.”
Next up? Backpacking through South and Central America, with Elko leading the way. “He completely changed my life,” Atek says. “All of this started because of that little dog in a box.”
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