Toad is about 6 years old, she found her way to the shelter that I worked at several years ago. The whole staff was kind of in shock at her appearance. She was also highly aggressive when she came in. A shelter officer muzzled her and carried her to the vet clinic and while she was there being examined, it sounds goofy but literally, we made eye contact and she immediately relaxed.

That day I took her into my office to evaluate her and she immediately crawled into my lap. This big scary, insane-looking dog, just climbed into my lap and rested her head on my shoulder. I adopted her and we have been inseparable ever since.

She is the reason we started Mutt Misfits, our rescue organization dedicated to helping special needs, sick, injured and deformed pets at risk for euthanasia. We were founded by employees of the shelter in May 2017 after seeing what happens to the “misfit” dogs that are brought in and have saved about 200 dogs.

Yep. That’s 2 ears on Toad’s left side. So lift up one ear and BAM there’s an extra mouth. Equipped with teeth and saliva glands. Most people would be grossed out but the misfit group loves her even more for it.

The 2nd mouth does not have a jaw so she can not chew but the mouth does salivate and is connected to the first mouth. The 2nd mouth will drool after she eats a meal with her first mouth. She gets her extra mouth, which has three teeth, cleaned and teeth brushed by the vet every so often.

We have heard many theories from vets on her deformity but most believe it was a twin she absorbed in the womb (do not overbreed dogs, this happens). She’s healthy and happy and has a good quality of life although she will not live as long as a healthy dog.

We took more X-rays of Toad’s skull. Now that we have had Toad for a long time and learned about her issues more than when we first met her, we are able to understand the X-rays a bit better. The first image shows how wonky her skull is shaped. She has an extra orbital bone around her eye socket, likely from the skull of the twin she absorbed in utero, which makes her skull extra bulbous. The red circle shows two sets of hyoid bones. The yellow shows how the vertebrae aren’t attached the way they are supposed to be. The green circle shows her extra trachea, which is not fully formed.

She’s a sweet and absolutely perfect girl who is extremely loved.

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