OKLAHOMA CITY - An Oklahoma rescue shelter has made an unusual discovery - a dog with two mouths.
5 year-old mutt Toad was a stray, but she found her forever home in Oklahoma City.
Toad has a second mouth growing on the side of her head where an ear should be, and it even has teeth and salivates.
But, her family said, despite her strange medical condition, Toad is pretty normal.
“She's special,” Heather Hernandez, owner of Mutt Misfit Rescue, told KFOR. “She's one in a million.”
Hernandez said it was love at first sight. When she saw Toad at the shelter, she had to have her.
“We realized immediately she was different,” she said. “Obviously, the way she looks but, her personality and her bond to me and my family, it was just so immediate.”
Toad's two mouths, misaligned face, limited hearing and vision didn't change her mind about making her apart of the Hernandez family.
“We were completely shocked when we first saw it,” Hernandez said. "It kind of sounds like something from a science fiction movie."
And, they're still not sure how or why toad has the deformity.
“Her primary veterinarian thinks that maybe she absorbed a twin in utero and so that's kind of how the deformity surfaced,” Hernandez said. “The main teeth, the ones you see primarily, they are connected to her skull, so we leave them."
Hernandez said, with her rescue, they save a lot of cats and dogs that would otherwise be put down, due to the injuries they come in with. Her goal is to show the ones that look different, like Toad, need to be loved the most.
“Just because an animal doesn't look perfect, it can still make a perfect pet and a perfect part of the family,” she said.
Toad has to have her mouth on the side of her head cleaned out at night, otherwise the drool would stick to her fur.
But, Hernandez said she doesn't mind going the extra mile to make sure her furry friend is happy and healthy.
“Toad came into my life at the exact time that I needed her, and she has brought me infinite joy and happiness,” she said.
Hernandez said they expect Toad to have some complications as she gets older because her facial alignment is off. But otherwise she's expected to live a normal life.