Two rescue labs from Kentucky ended up in the same Tennessee home. A DNA test revealed why they'd always chosen the same bed

Doges Editorial · 2026-05-22 · 5 min read

Sheri and Dave Hogue fostered two stray Labradors — months apart, separately rescued from Kentucky — and eventually DNA-tested them on a hunch. Embark's results came back: 65% shared DNA. They were sisters all along.

It was the middle of the night in Tennessee when Sheri Hogue saw the post. Another stray Labrador from Kentucky — physically worn down, covered in scars, in urgent need of medical care. She took one look at the photo and woke her husband. "I think we found a dog," she told him. It was Easter Sunday. They drove anyway.

The dog who started everything

The Hogues had been rescuing Labrador Retrievers through Lucky Lab Rescue for years. Their foundation was Bella — a brilliant, loyal Lab they called their "soul dog," who became an Advanced Canine Good Citizen and spent her later years visiting nursing homes, sitting with people who had lost their own pets. When Bella died in 2021, the grief was significant. "We always wished we could find another dog just like her," Sheri says.

Three years later, Lucky Lab Rescue reached out with a lead: a stray yellow lab found in Kentucky who reminded the rescue team of Bella. That was enough. The Hogues signed up to foster her. They named her Honey.

Honey arrives afraid

Honey was not an easy dog to love at first — at least, not on her part. She arrived shut down, fearful, unresponsive in the way that animals get after a long stretch of uncertainty. She knew how to survive, which is a different thing from knowing how to live. She didn't know that the house was safe, or that the food would keep coming, or that these people weren't going anywhere.

Slowly, over time, she began to smile.

— Sheri Hogue

The Hogues had patience and a track record, and eventually Honey found her footing. She learned to trust. Fostering became adoption. Honey stayed. She had found, without knowing she was looking, her forever home.

Then came Poppy

The Easter Sunday midnight drive brought them Poppy: physically battered, different from Honey in almost every way. Where Honey had been emotionally withdrawn, Poppy was bright-spirited despite her injuries. She came covered in scars, recovering from illness, with an energy that the Hogues describe as warm even on the first day. Different dog, same driving impulse from the Hogues: they saw a dog who needed help and said yes.

Poppy and Honey met within hours of Poppy's arrival. Something clicked immediately.

They chose the same bed

Within days, Poppy and Honey had become inseparable. They slept curled together — "like puppies in a pile," Sheri says — choosing the same bed even when others were available. They walked side by side, lingered in the same rooms, stopped at the same spots on the same routes. If you found one, the other was close.

Their coloring matched. Their markings aligned. Their gait had a mirrored quality — a synchrony that Sheri noticed but couldn't quite account for. They had come from different rescues, different timelines, different stretches of highway. Yet the resemblance was uncanny.

We would always comment on how similar they were. It was almost as if they'd come from the same place.

— Sheri Hogue

Two stray Labradors, both from Kentucky, both with unknown histories, both arriving at the same house in Tennessee months apart. The odds of that sequence are already remarkable. But the Hogues had a feeling it wasn't just coincidence. Lucky Lab Rescue had noticed it, too. The coloring, the markings, the way both dogs carried themselves on a walk — deliberate, side by side, as if following the same internal compass.

What the genetics said

The Hogues decided to DNA test both dogs with Embark — partly for the breed and health information, partly to satisfy the hunch they'd been carrying for months. Embark's Relative Finder compares genetic markers across dogs to identify close relatives, mapping patterns of shared DNA the way ancestry services work for humans. When the results came back, they showed 65% shared DNA between Honey and Poppy.

The dogs weren't just similar in temperament and coloring. They were biological sisters. Two Labrador Retrievers found as strays in Kentucky — months apart, each separately transported, each arriving at the same home in Tennessee — and they were already family.

We were so very delighted. We had tears of joy at the sweetness of the story.

— Sheri Hogue

What good karma builds without knowing

Scientists who study canine behaviour have documented how sibling dogs separated in early life tend to reconnect faster when they meet again — something in the chemical signature of family, in the scent of shared genetics, that registers before any conscious recognition. Whether Honey and Poppy knew each other in any retrievable sense, they behaved from day one as if they did. Same bed. Same pace on the walk. Same rooms.

The Hogues didn't plan any of this. They responded to two late-night posts from a rescue organisation, drove long distances, and did the slow work of helping two frightened dogs feel safe. The DNA test was almost an afterthought — a way to satisfy a hunch.

Honey and Poppy have become such precious and special pets. It gives us great joy to watch them transform from fearful and unsure into confident, relaxed, and happy animals.

— Sheri Hogue

Some of the best things happen when you're paying attention to something else entirely. The Hogues were simply trying to help — twice. They drove on Easter Sunday because a dog needed someone to. In doing so, they reunited a family that had been scattered across Kentucky's back roads, waiting for someone to say yes to the post in the middle of the night.

Honey and Poppy choose the same bed every night. You don't need a DNA result to see why.