It was love at first site for 3-year-old Sapphyre and a German shepherd puppy. The pair share bond: both don’t have feet.
The two found each other after the puppy’s owner, Karen Riddle, was trying to find the perfect situation for the disabled dog that was born without a paw.
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Naming the white German shepherd pup Lt. Dan, after the Forrest Gump character without legs, Riddle thought the dog would make the ideal therapy dog for a disabled person.
So she brought him to South Carolina’s Shriners Hospital, where he met Sapphyre, a 3-year-old girl that has been a patient of the facility since she was 3 months old, according to Greenville Online. Sapphyre was born without a few fingers and toes. At the age of one, she had surgery to have her feet amputated so she can wear a prosthetic. When Lt. Dan is full grown, the hospital said it would make a prosthetic foot for him.
After the pair met on Monday, it was true love.
“Sapphyre immediately noticed that he was missing a paw. She said, ‘He has a foot like mine,'” Johnson told ABC News.
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