An Albuquerque shelter this month instructed would-be adopters that two available small dogs were a package deal. But that’s not only because the two are pair-bonded—one of them is the seeing-eye dog for the other, reports KRQE News.
Scarlet, six, is a Chihuahua mix who acts as a pair of eyes for the blind Rhett, a six-year-old Miniature Pinscher. The two were surrendered by an owner who could no longer care for them, the station reports.
Rhett “relies on [Scarlet’s] eyes basically to get around,” Lucky Paws Animal Adoption Counselor William Pierson told the news station. “She wears a collar with a bell on it. He basically follows her by the sound of the bell.”
“If they were to be split up, he would have to start the process all over again basically, and maybe it wouldn't work,” Pierson added.
After the station aired the dogs’ story, Rhett and Scarlet were adopted almost immediately by a nurse who said she’d previously had a blind Min Pin.