Chiona

Fall 2012, I am with my mom and my siblings (5) in Vytina Arcadia, on a bend where cars rush trough all the time. My mom has been a stray for two years and she knows her way around but we are don;t. As she moves off the road we follow her blindly. But we grow quickly and we want to try to go elsewhere, get to know the world. Me and one of my two sisters have a particular fear of the loud sounds of cars passing. A few days after I understand that this fear saved our lives. My siblings died, right there, in front of me. So me and my sister start again to follow my mom.

In a few days the streets are illuminated with many more lights. People have this celebration who I later learned is called Christmas. People pass by us and pay no attention. A lady puts a grid in front of our little shed so that we won;t cross the street. She comes and feeds us every day. Then a child and his parents pass by us. They see the lady Maria feeding us and they start talking. The parents lift bot me and my sister and take us to their hotel. Our mom wonders but she can’t do anything at all. The next day, they put us in a car and we travel for a long time. The kid says he wants to be with me, keep me and name me Chiona because he says I’m so dirty that after they wash me I will become pure white. Everyone laughs. My sister Ina was taken by another family, a very good one, after being fostered by a friend named Penny and was socialized with other dogs and her daughter. I’m still black but I’ll stick around anyways… In schools the children hear my name and think that they will see a white dog. But after they see me, Christina often says how funny this is and that nobody wants black dogs. I do not understand why, and eventually the kids who meet me are also wondering about that.  One day in an institution, a child kicked me, I got scared and Christina did not manage to react quickly. I just turned and looked at it. Later on we met and he stroked me a lot, and I licked of his hand. He had this special scent, I knew he did not mean to kick me, he actually needed me …