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When Nicole Grimes was 10 years old, she wanted a puppy.
And one day, her grandmother decided to surprise her.
“My mom picked me from school, and my Nana was there and sitting on her lap was this beautiful puppy with a pink bow in her hair!” Grimes told reporters Pittsburgh CBS affiliate KDKA.
Chloe was an adorable Pomeranian-poodle mix, friendly and sweet, but after four years, her parents made a difficult choice and decided to rehome the dog.
“My dad had gotten a job, and it was work from home. And when she was very young, she was like loud and everything.”
Reluctantly, they took Chloe to the Washington Area Humane Society, hoping she’d wind up in a good home.
Eight years later, Grimes noticed a Facebook post from one of her friends.
“She needed to re-home an elderly dog, and I look at the picture and think, hmmmm… that looks kind of familiar. And then I read the name Chloe and was like, that’s really odd.”
The dog, she said, clicked with her family immediately.
Her dad, Mark Bush, began to see it, too.
“Me and my daughter took her out to go to bathroom, and she started walking around in circles,” said Bush. “The original Chloe, we call her the O.C., used to do that.”
“And then she started doing the front paws… I said, I got to tell you the truth, I really think that’s her,” he said.
But they needed to know for sure, so they took Chloe to have a microchip in her scanned.
“And it was an exact match,” said Grimes with a wide smile. “This is my dog from when I was a little girl. It’s just the craziest thing.”
Given the unlikeliness of the two ever being reunited, Grimes thinks it’s the work of the woman who got her the dog in the first place.
“We think it’s a sign from my Nana. She passed three years ago, and we really think this is a sign from her,” she said.
Grimes believes Chloe had two different owners in the eight years that they were apart.
