A dog photographed wandering the rainy streets of Detroit carrying a dingy toy in her mouth has had a major change of luck.
The heartbreaking image of the dog, now named Nikki, was posted on Facebook last week by Michigan nonprofit Almost Home Animal Rescue League.
“This beautiful German shepherd dog has been wandering the streets with his toy stuffy in his mouth. We were told his owner passed away,” the post read. (Nikki was initially believed to be a boy, but rescuers later learned she was a girl.)
Two days later, the post was updated with good news. Another organization, South Lyon Murphy Lost Animal Recovery, had managed to catch Nikki. And things only got better from there.
“Nikki is in the most loving foster home as I write this,” Gail Montgomery, director of Almost Home Animal Rescue, told HuffPost in an email. “They already love her and omg Nikki loves them.”
Montgomery suspects that if all continues to go well, Nikki’s foster family will adopt her permanently.
“Nikki is enjoying the good life,” she said.
As for the toy seen in that first photograph, Montgomery told The Dodo that it was “extremely dirty and a total mess.” Rescuers washed it, repaired it and returned it to Nikki, and at first she couldn’t wait to cuddle with her freshened-up toy. But Montgomery told HuffPost that the dog now isn’t as attached to it as she used to be.
“She is so content with her foster parents she doesn’t even need her stuffy much anymore,” Montgomery said. “I guess it was her security binky.”
