Rescue Puppies From The Same Litter All Grow Up To Look So Completely Different

Rocky, Chip and Brownie were brought into the Helping Hands Humane Society (HHHS) Topeka after their mother passed away. The rescue wasn’t given much background information on the three tiny pups. All they knew was that they needed help, and that was enough.

The puppies were only about a week old and needed to be bottle-fed, so they were taken in by a foster family so they could get the attention and care they needed. When they first arrived in the care of the rescue, all three puppies looked pretty much the same. As the three siblings began to grow, though, and they each developed their own distinct personality, they began to develop their own looks, too.

“Looking back at the pictures now, we started to see differences when the boys were about 3 weeks old,” Emi Griess, the communications coordinator at HHHS Topeka, told The Dodo. “Brownie's coat was longer and silkier, Rocky's was coarser and Chip still looked like a baby Chihuahua. Right around 6 to 7 weeks of age, we could easily tell that all three of them were going to look very, very different from one another.”

Pretty soon, the puppies had all grown into themselves — and it became impossible to tell that they were actually related.

“I was SO shocked,” Grace Clinton, director of business development and special events at HHHS Topeka, told The Dodo. “I couldn’t believe they were from the same litter. I’d never seen something like that before.”

Of course, the rescue couldn’t resist sharing the shocking littermates online, and the entire internet quickly went nuts over the trio. Some people couldn’t believe that they’d all come from the same litter, and some went on to try and explain the phenomenon. Regardless, the brothers' caught everyone’s attention — and they soon caught the attention of their forever families, too.

“The boys’ foster mom works for Hill’s Pet Nutrition and always had one or more of the puppies with her during virtual meetings,” Griess said. “They quickly became quite popular meeting guests, and Chippie and Brownie were both adopted by Hill’s coworkers! Rocky was adopted by a previous Hill’s employee, so the boys are able to get back together occasionally.”

Once the boys were settled into their new homes, their families decided to do pet DNA tests on each of the very-different-looking dogs to get to the bottom of what breed they actually are. Rocky (who looks like a Yorkie) hasn’t gotten his results back yet, but Chip (who looks like a Chihuahua) and Brownie have, and it’s definitely pretty fascinating.

Chip’s results are 22 percent silky terrier, 19.8 percent poodle (small), 16.1 percent Yorkshire terrier, 13.2 percent Chihuahua, 8.6 percent Pomeranian, 6.9 percent Russell-type terrier and 13.4 percent supermutt. Brownie’s results are 19.9 percent Yorkshire terrier, 17.8 percent silky terrier, 17.4 percent poodle (small), 16.6 percent Chihuahua, 12.3 percent dachshund, 7.7 percent Pomeranian and 8.3 percent supermutt.

Based on the way the dogs look, the results seem to make sense — it’s just so wild to everyone involved that three dogs from the same litter could all grow up to look so incredibly different.

“There are three different genes that determine the pattern of a dog’s hair coat,” Dr. Jolle Kirpensteijn, Chip’s dad, who is a small-animal veterinarian and chief professional veterinary officer for Hill’s Pet Nutrition, told The Dodo. “One for the length, one for the curl and one for the presence of ‘furnishing’ (beard, bushy eyebrows and wiry hair type) that are seen in 95 percent of the dog breeds. A combination (mixture) of expression of Mom and Dad’s genes made this possible.”

Now that the boys have all been adopted, their forever families can confirm that while they may look super different from each other, their personalities are pretty similar. All three dogs love making friends with every human and animal they come across, and they also absolutely love traveling and going on adventures. They may not look much like brothers, but they certainly act like brothers, making the whole situation even more adorable.