Shelter Dog’s Transformation Two Months After Adoption Melts Hearts

Animal lovers’ hearts have melted for a shelter dog who was totally transformed by the love of her new owners.

Zoey the rescue dog is a Siberian husky and Belgian Malinois mix, with heterochromia giving her one blue eye and one brown eye. She may sound utterly unique, but when her now-owners saw her at the shelter, they instantly realized she “looked identical” to their own dog, Jazz.

Zoey’s story has now gone viral since her owners shared it to their Instagram account @jazzandzoeythehuskymalinois on December 21 where it boasts over 430,000 likes and 4 million views.

It begins with Zoey “scared and not doing well in the shelter environment,” as California-based rescue Santa Clara County (SCC) Animal Services pleaded for a foster home for her.

Despite not knowing how Zoey would get on with their own husky-Malinois mix, they took the risk and brought Zoey home to foster.

“She was so terrified of people, she wouldn’t even come out of her kennel at first,” her owners wrote over the video. “She wouldn’t let us put a leash on her. We could only pet her if she was in her kennel.”

While Zoey showed interest in meeting Jazz, she was “still very scared”, and the couple took time and patience to slowly introduce them. And when they were finally given space to meet outdoors, “they loved each other immediately,” chasing and playing together right away.

Zoey became more comfortable with the humans in the house, and in just three weeks they knew they had to adopt her.

“Two months later and she’s the happiest girl,” they wrote on the video, over a montage of Zoey relaxing on a bed, getting belly rubs, and playing and going on walks with Jazz—who they have since learned after DNA tests, is in fact Zoey’s biological sister.

“We found them 2.5 years apart at two separate shelters over 30 miles away from each other,” they wrote on the video. “They were always meant to be together.”

Newsweek has contacted @jazzandzoeythehuskymalinois on Instagram for comment.

Instagram Users React

Instagram users were in tears, with one writing “I love this so much,” and the shelter’s account, adding: “Thank you so much for adoption we are all crying!”

“Oh my gosh what a beautiful story,” another Instagram user declared.

A third added: “They truly are twins! That’s actually insane, even the eye colors are on the same side!”

One Instagram user wrote in part: “How amazing that her sister could be the one to help her feel safer and that they’re together again!”

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