Nine years ago, Jillian Reiff and her then-partner adopted a small Chihuahua-rat terrier mix from the San Francisco SPCA. The dog, named Rufus, became an integral part of the family — there for every milestone.
“He was involved in our proposal. He was involved in our wedding. He was literally dressed up in a little tuxedo,” Reiff, an avid volunteer and foster in the dog rescue community, told The Dodo. “He was there when we found out we were having kids. And he was the first, you know, ‘person’ to meet my children.”
There was never a minute that Rufus wasn’t with the couple’s kids, now 6 and 4 years old, hanging out near them or snuggling in bed.
“When my husband built the crib for our daughter, [Rufus] lay under that crib every single day until she was born. He just did not come out from underneath that crib and would lay across my belly and be very protective and calm,” Reiff said. “The minute both kids arrived, that was his primary focus: my children.”
At the age of 16, Rufus passed suddenly in April due to gallbladder failure. Faced with such a gaping hole in the family, Reiff thought she’d never find another dog like him.
Then she met Ziggy.
But it would take many more months for Reiff to realize just how similar the two dogs really were.
The night after they said goodbye to Rufus, Reiff’s daughter couldn’t sleep. Feeling emotional, she crawled into bed with her parents, and she and Reiff began scrolling through animal rescue profiles on social media to pass the time.
“It’s a thing that we’ve always done. We’ll look at Instagrams, we’ll look at Facebooks, and there’s so many Bay Area rescues and so many dog pages that we were going through,” Reiff said. “And she’s like, ‘Mom, look at this dog.’ And, I looked over and I thought she was in my photos — like, my actual photos on my phone — because the dog looked identical to Rufus.”
Ziggy had the same head tilt and coloring — their ears were even at the same angles.
Immediately, Reiff felt an undeniable pull to the dog featured in Muttville’s post.
“I literally just agonized over that photo for another 24 hours,” Reiff said. “I could not get that picture out of my head.” Nobody in their house was ready to think about adopting another dog, but there was just something about Ziggy that Reiff couldn’t shake.
Reiff emailed the rescue and set up a meet and greet with Ziggy and both her kids. The family had just lost Rufus days ago, but when Ziggy walked into the room, it was as if they were having a reunion.
“The adoption coordinator walked in with him, and it was like there were little pieces of glitter floating around,” Reiff said. “It’s so trite, but it was like watching my dog — my dog that I’ve had for the past almost a decade of my family’s life — there he was just, like, trotting right into the middle of Muttville.”
The similarities were just too uncanny, so when Ziggy made himself comfortable on Reiff’s daughter’s lap, they decided to bring him home.
“He jumped out of the car when we got here, ran straight up the stairs and inside like he had been in this house his entire life,” Reiff said.
The longer Ziggy lived with Reiff and her family, the more convinced she was that he was the same breed mix as Rufus — or possibly even some distant relative. In June, after months of watching the similarities grow between the dogs, she ordered an Embark DNA test.
When Ziggy’s results arrived weeks later, Reiff immediately felt vindicated. He was 50-50 rat terrier-Chihuahua just like Rufus. But then she noticed another tab labeled “relatives.” She’d tested Rufus’ DNA nine years ago, and there he was again, only this time labeled: Ziggy’s son.
Reiff and her family had spent years loving and caring for Rufus, and now a small part of him had returned when they needed it most. Reiff couldn’t hold in her surprise and excitement.
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