In loving memory of the 2019 Heart & Sole Walk for Animals Cover Model, Cha Cha

As written by her mom: Patricia Leonard

Cha Cha came into my life in the spring of 2003. I was living in Stafford, VA, with my rough-coated Jack Russell mix, Eddie, and 4 cats, Buster, Inky, Smokey and Rudy. While I was out on a Saturday morning doing my weekly errands, I stopped to buy pet food. A large commercial trash truck was parked in front of a dumpster beside the store and the driver called out to me. He told me there was a dog in the dumpster. I went over to look and there was a chocolate and fawn Chihuahua in a box with 2 deceased puppies that were also brown and looked like baby Chihuahuas. I took the dog out of the box and brought her into the pet store. I asked them if they had seen her before and they said no. There was a rescue group in the store doing adoptions and they told me they would find her a home. I left her with them and went home. 

Later that night, I couldn't get that little dog off my mind and I decided there must be some reason that I was walking by that dumpster at the same time the trash man heard a dog barking. I called the rescue group the next morning and went and picked her up. When she met Eddie, they danced around in circles with each other, tails furiously wagging. It was at that time I named her Cha Cha and Cha Cha and Eddie became best friends for life.

Both dogs were rescues, and my vet estimated they were both about a year old in 2003. They lived very long and exciting lives, always together, never separated, until Eddie told me in early January that it was time for him to go. Cha Cha said goodbye to the love of her life. 

Deaf and almost blind, Cha Cha loved to roll in the grass in the back yard. She proudly posed in that grass for her photo shoot with the Potter League. She was a tough little dog, surviving the dumpster, heartworm disease and two disk decompression spine surgeries in her 17 years. In Mid-July, Cha Cha’s age finally caught up with her. She could no longer get up and it was an effort to even walk. She told me it was time for her to go and be reunited with her buddy, Eddie. I know the two of them are dancing in circles again with their tails wagging. Together forever.