Bri Bagwell Joins with More than 200 of Her Fans — and Their Dogs! – for ‘The Rescue’ Music Video (Exclusive)

Bri Bagwell was on her way to a show when her lights found the sad eyes of the little chihuahua she would eventually name Whiskey.

“I turned the corner and there [she was] in the middle of the road,” Bagwell, 36, tells PEOPLE of the dog she found in February 2019. “I chased her for a while, but eventually she stopped and I picked her up. It breaks my heart because it was a cold day. It was supposed to freeze that night.”

And that was just the beginning of this dog’s suffering, because the little chihuahua was thin, cold, hungry, and very scared. That is, until she’s lucky enough to be rescued by a woman who also happens to be the Texas country artist of the decade.

“We’ve been inseparable ever since,” Bagwell says of the dog, who he estimates is now 7 years old. “And now she’s just living her best life.”

Bri Bagwell and whiskey.

Courtesy of Bri Bagwell

It’s that special relationship between the dog and her rescuer that now appears in Bagwell’s new single “The Rescue,” a new song the Texas artist co-wrote with fellow singer/songwriter Helene Cronin.

“We weren’t even planning to write a song about Whiskey,” the New Mexico native explains the day “The Rescue” was written. “But the second day, we were writing together, and I wanted to write a song about my girl, but every time I tried, I just burst into tears. But when we started, it just flowed out.”

Bri Bagwell finds a way to her own heart on new album ‘Corazón y Cabeza’

Bri Bagwell.

Haley Hayes

As easy as the song was to create, the music video for “The Rescue,” which features more than 200 of Bagwell’s biggest fans with the rescue dogs they too saved from a life that could have been so uncertain, was simple.

“I don’t know any of these people, but the love just pops off the screen,” Bagwell explains of the fans and their dogs featured in the music video premiering exclusively on PEOPLE. “You can feel it. I cried when I first saw the finished video. I asked myself: ‘Why am I crying?’ I don’t know any of these dogs.”

But she knows one of dogs, as Bagwell is depicted with her dog Whiskey towards the end of the video. “It was never a ‘who saved who’ moment for me,” Bagwell wrote in a recent Instagram post. “She saved me from a relationship that was unhealthy for me. She gave me a new focus, a new emotional support system and a new best friend, just by existing.”

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But it wasn’t always easy for Whiskey and Bagwell.

“Whiskey definitely still has a big problem with letting go of time,” says Bagwell, who will donate a portion of the proceeds from her Feb. 13 Valentine’s Day live concert to the New Braunfels Humane Society and Las Cruces Safe Haven. “The first time I left her alone, she tore my blinds. The second time a man raised his voice and she immediately started shaking, so I think there’s some history to that. She’s definitely had issues, but we love her through it all. .”

‘We’ are Bagwell and her longtime boyfriend and fellow music artist Paul Eason.

“He’s just the greatest man who ever lived,” Bagwell says of her boyfriend of more than four years. “We don’t see each other because he spends a lot of time on the road with his band The Wilder Blue and I’m on the road with my band, but we always try to find quality time to spend together.”

“The Rescue” Bri Bagwell.

The time they often spend making music.

“Paul recorded the whole song [of ‘The Rescue’] at our house,” says Bagwell, who alone played more than 120 shows in 2023. “He played all the instruments, including drums and steel guitar — everything. He is amazing.”

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Source: HIS Education