Dog News

Abandoned Dual-Sex Dog Adopted by Gay Rights Attorney

by Fred

Life With Dogs is reader-supported. We may earn a small commission through products purchased using links on this page.

2.16.15 - Cody1

A dog called Cody that made the news last month for having been found abandoned has a new forever home.  Cody has been adopted by Dana Nessel from Michigan that gain a fair bit of notoriety from spearheading a fight against Michigan’s ban on gay marriages, and assisted in getting the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I’m really glad that we’re going to be able to provide a loving home for this dog, Nessel said.  “I’m not really certain what we refer to the dog as, pronoun-wise.  We’ll work on that.”

Last month, Cody was in the news for being taken in after being found abandoned by the Detroit Dog Rescue.  While there, the dog was given the name Cody, and was listed as a male.  However, after a transfer to Detroit Animal Control, it was found that Cody had both sets of sex organs.

The number of hermaphrodite dog births each year isn’t something regularly tracked, so it’s not exactly known just how rare Cody is.  For Shelter Director Kristina Rinaldi, Cody is a first.  After Nessel caught wind of Cody’s story, she got in contact with Rinaldi to inquire about adoption.

Nessel and her wife live together in Plymouth, Michigan with their twin 12-year-old children and two cats.  They happened to be looking into making an addition to the family at that point anyway, so Nessel went down to the Detroit Shelter for a visit.  She said she was instantly won over by the dog’s friendly nature.  The staff at the shelter decided that Nessel’s family would be a perfect fit, so they were happy about the adoption.

“We really wanted to go with somebody that understood him,” Rinaldi said.  “And it was just amazing with Dana’s background and her fighting so hard for gay, lesbian, transgender rights, that this was just the perfect fit.”

“I’ve always been of the philosophy that in the same way people deserve to be treated equally … we obviously don’t feel like there’s any difference for this dog, either,” Nessel said. “We’re all God’s creatures.”