I love my rescue dog

A white chihuahua we found and ended up keeping

She’s so small and fat and and happy all the time

The first night we got her, she ate out the trash can, cause I guess that’s what she’s used to doing

Her name is Willa and we found her in a Walgreens

We didn’t name her after the Walgreens, we named her because we kept asking “Will she stay or will she go?”

And then it became quicker and more silly and she became “Willa Chestei”

Get it?

She’s lived with us for 5 years now

But when we got her, I realized that English wasn’t her only language,

And she would listen to me when I spoke to her in Spanish

And bark when my dad entered my room

Or bite when other men got too close

I started wondering what her first name was

It obviously wasn’t Willa.

But she came to me with whatever name I called, even if I called my other dog’s name

When you pet her, she’d stop barking and would become like a pile of jello in your hands

I kept thinking

And thinking some more

Her little body used to quiver so bad whenever people cornered her.

Her shrill barks so loud when a man would try to touch her.

Isn’t it interesting how quickly we want to rename a rescue dog?

Even if they’ve been that name for so long, and then all of a sudden someone else just picks them up and makes them their own and now there’s a completely different name tied around their neck.

I wonder what happened to her

Why she was so afraid all the time,

So jumpy all the time

So barky

So nippy

I know she’s a chihuahua but what made her like this?

My other dog didn’t know how to beg until she taught him

She knew how to beg from day one

2 months in the parking lot of a strip mall, the vet told us.

She came with a dirty pink collar and a bell strapped around her 3 pound body, and an oil stain in her ear

And no chip.

I don’t think she ran away

I think she was left there.

As I write this, she is sitting in my lap, no shaking

My dad walks across the room and she doesn’t flinch anymore

All 6 pounds over her white body is completely at rest while the rest of the world keeps going on

I wish I could be completely at rest while the rest of the world goes on

I wish it were possible to get used to a new name after 6 years

To stop flinching after 6 years

To stop shaking

I wish I didn’t have to know how to beg

My pink collar with a smattering of blue paint that doesn’t quite cover all of the corners but it looks all the way blue if you squint enough

And my bell is different from hers, it doesn’t tinkle like a the sound of a nervous laugh, afraid but still happy

It’s a loud clang clack of a cowbell sized name tag, with an adjective written like a title

I don’t have an oil stain,

I was never given the liberty of a SAK test

But now I have to get used to two names

My own

And “Survivor”