Amanda Richter had no plans of getting a dog. Then she stumbled upon a photo of a rescue with a crooked snout.
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“I just fell in love with him right away,” said Richter, 35, a photographer who lives on Vancouver Island.
Richter discovered Brodie the dog through a Facebook post by a shelter in Alberta – where she was living at the time – in September 2019. She immediately called and scheduled a visit.
“It was definitely not planned,” she said. “And more of an ‘I needed him, I wanted him and I went and got him.’”
Staff at the shelter told Richter the dog’s facial deformities occurred because his mother – then a 10-month-old stray – bit him on his head when he was two weeks old. He is otherwise healthy, Richter said, but the deformities caused him to be blind in one eye with a partially shut jaw.
“I was just so head over heels in love with him that I was ready to take on anything that came with him being like that,” she said. “Dogs that aren’t perfect also need homes. There are a lot of dogs that have wonderful personalities and are amazing, and they get looked past because they’re not perfect. That just breaks my heart.”
Other people who came across the shelter’s post about the deformed dog thought he was adorable, too. Many people wrote comments asking the adopter to share updates, so Richter decided to make an Instagram account for Brodie.
“It didn’t take long to take off. He got very popular very quickly,” Richter said. “It was quite surprising, actually.”
Brodie – who is turning 6 next week – has more than 1.6 million followers on Instagram and TikTok combined, and in his bio, Richter describes him as “just a spunky partially blind rescue pup who looks a bit like a Picasso masterpiece.”
“He really embodies Picasso’s work perfectly…everything is moved around a little bit, a little bit crooked,” said Richter. “He’s a living piece of art.”
Strangers on social media agree. Brodie gets hundreds – and sometimes thousands – of comments on his posts admiring his unique appearance. A recent video of Brodie eating a cheese string got thousands of comments.
“Not to be dramatic. But I would die for Brodie,” someone wrote.
Richter said the outpouring of love for Brodie is what fuels her to continue chronicling his life on social media.
“I think people feel the same way that I felt when I first saw his pictures,” she said. “They see how loved he is even though he’s so different, and it makes them feel good.”
A few years after adopting Brodie, in 2022, a follower of Richter’s social media accounts sent her a post from Fuzzy Texan Animal Rescue, a special needs rescue in Texas. They had a female dog with a twisted snout who looked exactly like Brodie.
“I just instantly again was like, ‘I have to get this dog,’” Richter said. “I fell in love with her.”
“What are the odds that there are two of them that are almost identical?” she continued. “I was like ‘there’s no way this isn’t meant to be.’”
Richter worked with a rescue organization to transport the dog, Raven, from Texas to Seattle, where a volunteer picked her up and drove her to Vancouver.
Raven is a German shepherd-husky mix, and she is about 4 years old. Richter said the rescue she adopted her from believes her crooked face was likely the result of abuse from her previous owner.
“She still cowers and reacts to things that she shouldn’t,” Richter said. “It had to have been something traumatic.”
Although their faces match, Brodie – who is also half German shepherd, as well as a mix of other breeds – and Raven have entirely different personalities. While Brodie is on the wild side, Raven is meeker and more relaxed.
“They’re the best of friends,” Richter said.
Social media fans seem to adore Raven as much as her brother.
“She is so beautiful,” someone commented on a solo shot of Raven.
Richter said she hopes her posts might even help to open some minds.
“I hope that Brodie and Raven brighten their day, but I also hope that they have a little more compassion and empathy and kindness towards animals and people with differences,” she said. “It’s OK to be different. It’s OK to be imperfectly perfect.”