Picture the classic New York City “adventure dog,” the one bounding across a ridgeline in golden light, and you probably picture something lean and athletic: a shepherd, a husky, some blur of a mutt built for distance. You do not picture a stocky, flat-faced English Bulldog-Boston Terrier mix. Which is exactly what makes Zelda such a good story.
Zelda belongs to Steven Rojas, a born-and-raised New Yorker who has spent his career as one of the city’s most visible fixtures. He came up in the early-2000s DJ scene, spinning at parties in New York, LA, London, and Paris, then translated those connections into a career as the face and digital ambassador for a string of Ian Schrager hotels and other luxury brands. If anyone has the city wired, it’s Rojas. And his running mate through all of it is a five-year-old bulldog mix who, on paper, should be napping on a couch, not clawing up boulders.
Love at first flop
The origin story is pure impulse. Rojas spotted a chunky, easygoing bulldog at his gym one day, watched it just flop around and hang out, and decided on the spot that he wanted one of those in his life. Not long after, he and his then-girlfriend were making the drive home from Ohio with a puppy small enough to hold in one hand riding along, racing the clock so he could make it back for the New York City Marathon.
He finished, though he’ll admit that folding himself into a car for a long haul right before a marathon was not his sharpest athletic decision. He’d weighed putting the puppy on a plane and decided it felt unkind. That instinct, prioritizing the dog’s comfort even at his own expense, turns out to be the whole ethos of how they travel together.
”Everywhere” is not an exaggeration
Ask Rojas where Zelda has been and the list runs long enough to shame most humans. They’ve hiked Mount Zion, driven the Pacific Coast Highway from California up to Oregon, and explored Big Sur and Oregon’s Oneonta Gorge. They’ve trekked near Seattle, Olympia, Maine, and New Hampshire. Closer to home, they log endless miles in upstate New York, Bear Mountain, Sam’s Point Reserve, Minnewaska State Park, the Catskills, where Zelda gets to indulge her love of swimming, kayaking, and even whitewater.
On the water, she doesn’t ride in back. She hops in to sit up front and they push off together, an arrangement serious enough that Rojas bought her a flotation vest from Ruffwear, the same brand that makes the rock-climbing harness they use. Because, yes, Zelda climbs. She keeps to small boulders, but Rojas swears he’s watched her scrabble up a wall as tall as a grown adult, and when he’s out climbing with friends, they’ll simply belay her up.
Faster than she looks
Here’s the detail that breaks people’s brains: Rojas is a member of the Brooklyn Track Club, and he’s clocked Zelda at a seven-and-a-quarter-minute mile. In the city she can get a little naughty, but out on the trails, where they run often, she’s usually off leash and glued to his side, checking in and responding without fail.
He was, understandably, terrified the first time they camped, convinced she’d bolt into the dark. Instead, once he started pitching the tent and building a fire, she simply settled in beside him, tapping into what he figures is some ancient instinct to stick with the pack. The bolder he’s let her be, the more reliably she’s chosen to stay.
A dog with opinions
Zelda is not just an athlete; she’s a personality. Around town, Rojas takes her to dog-friendly spots like Ray’s Bar on Chrystie Street, and brings her along to work all the time. She also has an uncanny read on his love life. He swears she can tell the instant he’s flirting with someone, her whole attitude shifts, and she’ll start barking, leg-humping, generally staging a one-dog intervention. His ex reports the same phenomenon in reverse, that Zelda made her displeasure known whenever a new guy came around. Say what you will, the dog has boundaries.
For Rojas, a dog’s welcome has become a genuine litmus test for people and places. He’s found he simply can’t connect with someone who doesn’t like dogs, and if a business won’t let Zelda in, he’ll just leave. Life’s too short, and his best friend is right there.
The quiet that made them closer
The bond deepened during a hard stretch. When the pandemic hit, Rojas was a programming director at Equinox Hotels and got laid off. He watched the crisis break some people he knew, and steady others into a new calm. For him, stuck home with Zelda near Central Park, the forced pause became strangely clarifying: they’d run the trails, walk, and keep each other company, and in that stretch he launched his own company, S Rojas Consulting, now working with hotels and luxury clients.
Most of his old party-scene crowd, he notes, has scattered into marriages and kids. He’s got his dog, and a life built around going everywhere with her. For an animal who was supposed to be a couch ornament, Zelda has covered a lot of ground.
What’s new for adventure dogs like Zelda
The “brachycephalic athlete” is a real and growing category, and the guidance around it has sharpened. Flat-faced breeds and mixes, bulldogs, Bostons, and their crosses, are far more prone to overheating and breathing trouble than long-nosed dogs, because their shortened airways make it harder to cool down through panting. That doesn’t ground them, but it does mean smart adventuring: going out in the cool of early morning or evening, carrying plenty of water, watching closely for heavy or raspy breathing, and building in more rest than a husky would need. Cooling vests, collapsible bowls, and canine flotation gear have all gotten better and easier to find in recent years. The lesson of a dog like Zelda isn’t that any dog can do anything, it’s that with the right precautions and a person paying close attention, an unlikely body can still live an enormous life.
References
- American Kennel Club. “Brachycephalic Dog Breeds and Heat Safety.” https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/health/brachycephalic-dogs-and-heat/
- American Veterinary Medical Association. “Hot Weather Safety for Pets.” https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/pet-owners/petcare/hot-weather-safety-pets
