A new rescue pup, a chiweenie, adopts us on Mother's Day. The day I was mom’d again.

On momma day, Doodle and I headed to south San Diego, near the US border. We spotted a chiweenie, a rescued Mexican street dog named Memo on Petfinder. We met him in the Walmart National City parking lot after his foster mom braved a four hour border entry.

I had wanted Memo for several weeks, and it became more urgent after Doodle’s recent diagnosis of advancing arthritis.

I hate the part where your best friend starts falling apart. It is the curse of dog years. We love them and they leave us. Not yet though, we still have time. I’m still fragile after losing my dad and aware of how quickly life can change.

**3 rescue dog tangle on Mother’s Day. That’s Doodle on the left and Memo above him, new guy on the right.** Photo (c) Barb Ayers DogDiary.org

It was hard to get the rescue pup up from Mexico.

Memo was a sweet boy and a very skittish boy. He startled at any sound. He couldn’t stand to be further than a few feet away from his foster mom, no matter how hard I tried to win him over.

I wanted him and yet he clearly didn’t want me. He only wanted his foster mom.

When she tried to bring him over to me, he jumped up and out of his collar and ran off.

He tolerated the meeting for an hour. I felt so bad for him - he clearly only trusted one person in the world. I didn’t want to take him away, after all he’d been through.

I told his foster mom that clearly Memo was HER dog. I don’t think she even knew that for sure until that moment.

That’s just how this works - they pick us.

Cynthia, the manager of Frida’s Furever Dog Rescue surprised me with a couple of back ups stashed in her car - two more chiweenies, younger, with more puppy energy, but also unafraid of new people and things. I try to adopt older dogs that aren’t as popular.

But then the two chiweenie puppies, twins of different moms, tangled their leashes with ours. One had a “mellower” mom and had a more “chillax” attitude for a puppy. He seemed taken with Doodle.

He had a sweet little soul and seemed like the whole world was ready and waiting for him, just like Doodle did when I rescued him from that hateful jail cell he was in, eleven years ago.