How I Became A "Dog Person" (Almost)

The story of Divina, the rescue chihuahua

So- I’ve never been a dog person. It’s not that I don’t like dogs. I just didn’t like them around me. Maybe it’s my upbringing, most traditional Indians do not allow animals inside the home. I didn’t grow up with them. Their wagging tails, the drooling and shedding, the licking and potential chewing of shoes and furniture, oh and the accidents on the rug. I could never pick up warm poop, even with my hand cloaked in a plastic bag. Yuck!

Do I sound cruel?

My daughter, on the other hand, never met a dog she didn’t like. Even the ones that growl and bare their teeth at her on the street. She sees the good in every dog.

Then came the pandemic- and all that that brought with it. But for an only child of ten years old, whose parents decided to cohabitate for the first time in her life, it was challenging. Especially when you consider we did so out of the city, where she saw no other children and barely anyone outside the household for months on end. I began to worry for her, for us.

After six solid months of this cohabitation, except for one weekend in May when we came into the city to visit our apartment, we went to film Top Chef in Portland, Oregon. Our time in Portland made the last six months look easy. At least before she could walk on the beach, jump on the trampoline, or chase the rabbits that hid in the bushes. In Portland because of the fires, the civil unrest, as well as Covid, and being so scared one of us would fall sick, she barely left the house. When we came back to New York, I was desperate to do something to lift her mood. I needed to change the glum atmosphere, give her some joy that she so rightly deserved after all the stolen months of childhood spent in stasis: bored, anxious, annoyed, and lonely.

The email came on a busy fall afternoon. There were some details and a small picture of a fawn-colored creature who weighed eight pounds. It didn’t even look that cute.

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I went down to Animal Haven, a shelter in our neighborhood. The place was filled with the riotous noise of dogs barking. There was an old white cat in the lobby behind some low fencing that had one eye and seemed to be paralyzed from the chest down. And, while it was run well and kept clean and orderly, I couldn’t stomach the smell at first: a mix of sawdust, musk, kibble, and urine.

I was about to go where the kennels were kept, in the basement, when the kind manager of the place directed me up the stairs to their offices. “We’ve been keeping her up there because she is scared of the other dogs and just wants to be on our laps,” she said. I opened another baby gate at the top of the stairs, and a woman came out of her office, behind her about 15 feet away was a small creature who looked like Bambi without the white spots. The manager called out, “Divina!” I repeated after her and held out my arms, bending my knees slightly.

Divina, the rescue chihuahua, came out tentatively towards me and then jumped up (at least twice her height) into my arms all at once without so much as stopping even for a sniff of the air or my person. I scooped her up right away. She was all of seven or eight inches tall. I held her in my arms and looked at her face. She didn’t make a peep. She seemed very calm. I couldn’t believe neither of us was squirming. Divina, who was at this time sporting a baby onesie that was falling off of her hind legs, also didn’t lick me, which only added to her appeal.

I’m not sure of the precise moment I decided to keep her, but I spent the next forty-five minutes asking all sorts of dumb, inane questions because I didn’t want to kill her, or hurt her, starve her, or poison her. I was worried about so many things! And also worried about the things I didn’t even know enough to ask about. Somewhere during those questions, I took a bag with cans of dog food, weewee pads, and a carrier with a blanket and walked out of there with the agreement I was just going to foster her for a while. They kept assuring me they’d take her back if I couldn’t handle it.

Divina had already been taken back there once. She had been rescued from a one-bedroom apartment in Queens where a mother and two grown adult children lived with 16, that’s right dear reader sixteen chihuahuas, that had been hoarded and boarded in one room. The mother sadly passed away due to Covid, and her children called to have the animals removed. Most of the puppies that came to Animal Haven were all adopted within two or three weeks. Divina was too but the family that took her brought her back after a month. They took great pains to tell me it wasn’t Divina’s fault that she was brought back. The family just couldn’t handle her. This raised a red flag to me, but it didn’t quite square with the docile creature that was curled up and cozy in my arms all this time.

I took the leap.

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I brought her home that evening and surprised my daughter. I thought her heart would burst. Mine already had. You can watch the video of that here. I have never seen my child so incredulous or in shock. I have never seen her so happy.

Divina has now been with us since November of 2020, and I can honestly say she is the best thing to come out of this whole mess by a long shot.

I cannot believe I am a dog owner- that I could love a four-legged creature this much. But I do. She has been such a balm to our frayed emotions. She gives us such undying emotional rescue.

While my daughter’s father and I tried and succeeded in riding out the hardest months of the pandemic together, our romantic relationship did not survive. Those long months of deep winter and the early months of 2021 have not been easy. I can honestly say that Divina has made such a difference. She has the sweetest disposition and the cozy comfort she gives me while in my arms or laying between me and my daughter as we watch tv or read has been healing and renewing.

She gives so much love to all who come near her. She rarely barks but loves to howl along when we sing high notes. She curls up like Bambi into herself and you can forget she is even there for long stretches, except when her collar makes a sweet tinkling sound.

I’m told it is custom for new owners to change a dog’s name, though we kept her name as Divina, attaching only Devi Lakshmi, for her proper, full name. We decided she had been through enough already. She fits her namesake beautifully.

Dogs aren’t for everyone. They’re a lot of work and responsibility.

I’m still not a dog person. I’m a Divina person. And Divina has been nothing short of a divine influence on us all.

Love,