A woman thought she knew what she was getting into when she adopted a rescue dog, but, as time went on, something unexpected happened.
Theodore came into Joanna Meadows’ life at a very important time, just after she had overcome a period of nine years of addiction. “After a year of sobriety, I had a good job and my own place, but I still felt sad and lonely most of the time,” Meadows told Newsweek.
That was when she decided to adopt a dog. “Since I was a child, I’ve always had a deep love for animals. So, one day, I thought I would go to the Humane Society and rescue a dog,” she said.
Canine companionship can play a crucial role in helping boost mental health. A 2019 study published in the journal Animals found university students experienced an improvement in mood and reduction in anxiety levels after spending time with a canine.
Meadows only had one criteria when it came to choosing the pup she would adopt. “I asked the girls at the shelter which dog had been there the longest. They showed me Theo,” Meadows said. “He was just sitting at the front of his kennel; all the other dogs were barking and going wild, and he was just laying there looking so sad.”
Taking him out of the enclosure, Meadows sat with Theo for a while around the back of the Humane Society. Pretty soon, her mind was made up. “I just thought ‘I like you, you’re coming home with me.’”
When Meadows adopted Theo from her local Humane Society in Columbia, Missouri, she didn’t know anything about where he came from. At that point, Theo looked like any other mixed-breed dog, save for a few patches of hair here and there. “He had longer fur around his ears and a little on his chest,” Meadows said. “The rest of him was shaved. They did not tell me they shaved him.”
Within six months, however, Theo’s appearance was beginning to change dramatically. “His fur was getting longer all over the place,” Meadows said. “I started to wonder how long it was gonna get, but I was not prepared for what was to come.”
Theo’s hair continued to grow, changing his appearance in the process to something approaching a mix between a pit bull and Old English sheepdog. Meadows always assumed he was mixed breed. That all changed after a chance encounter with a woman outside a grocery store in December last year. “She told me that she was the original owner of Theo,” Meadows said. “She proceeded to show me pictures of Theo as a puppy to confirm who she was.”
The pair exchanged numbers and, over a series of messages and photos, Meadows learned Theo’s story. He was a pit bull, but there was a twist. “I was shocked,” she said. She learned that Theo’s mom and dad had been carriers of a regressive fgf5 gene.
As a result, Theo and several of his siblings had been born with an fgf5 gene mutation. This disrupted the normal function of the Fibroblast Growth Factor 5 protein, which regulates hair growth cycles, meaning they grew longer hair.
Thankfully, Theo remains a happy and healthy dog, regardless of this gene mutation. In fact, his distinctive look has won him plenty of fans. “Everywhere I go, people stare and tell me how pretty he is,” Meadows said.
Theo has garnered even more fans online after Meadows began sharing his story to TikTok in posts shared under the handle @joannaleighmeadow. “It’s such a rare occurrence; it’s something that most people have never heard of, much less seen,” she said.
When Meadows and Theo met, they had both endured their own personal struggles. Now, together, they are enjoying their very best life and letting their hair down while they do so.
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