Last week, DogTime reported on two 8-month-old Lab-Pit Bull-mix siblings — one (Jeffrey) is blind, the other (Jermaine) serves as a guide — who were available for adoption at Operation Ava in Philadelphia. Since the pups’ story went viral with an adorable photo of the pair snuggling during sleep, the no-kill shelter was flooded with more than 10,000 applicants wanting to adopt the animals.
The wait is over, as last Saturday the dogs found their new parents: Jonathan Hochman and his wife Veronica McKee.
“What really mattered to us was that someone was looking for two dogs together,” Claudia Gutierrez, CEO of Operation Ava, said of Hochman and McKee’s selection. “And there was an instant bond: When you saw them together, you knew they were a family.”
“A girlfriend of mine had just adopted from Operation Ava, and sent me the list in a post, and I did what everybody did, I said ‘that is the cutest thing I have ever seen,’” McKee told Fox & Friends of how she heard about the dogs. “Then I took the next step and sent it to Jonathan and said, ‘can we please [adopt them]?’”
“The first day that I met them, you could obviously see how close they were, how much they needed to be together,” Hochman says. “They constantly check in with each other.”
Hochman and McKee, both 44, live in Springfield, Delaware County. The couple has no children, but the two dogs will have a new sister in Blabbus, the couple’s existing cat. According to the pups’ Facebook page, the chatty feline “is not impressed at all…but we [Jermaine and Jeffrey] are ready to win her over.”
Sources: Brotherly Love Pups, Fox News, Philly.com, The Today Show
