A trio of dogs who lived in a landfill and shared a mattress were reunited a year later and their lives are now very different. His rescuers have the photos to prove it.

Ruff Start Rescue of Princeton, Minnesota, recently shared heartwarming before and after photos of the rescue pups on their Facebook page, writing, “The holidays will be very different for these rescue pups this year!”

“The first photo shows Cooper, Trixi and Bruno living in a garbage dump on Christmas Eve 2021.”

In the photo you can see the dogs sleeping together on a mattress discarded among the garbage. Ruff Start Rescue explained that through “collaborative efforts, the three were rescued and adopted through different organizations.”

When the rescue group recently posted a photo update of RSR student Cooper (the lab mix), followers asked, “What happened to the other two dogs?”

Ruff Start Rescue responded by sharing that “Cooper’s foster family located Trixi and Bruno and they all reunited last weekend.” They shared a touching photo of the three dogs reunited and looking very happy. The group added: “The rescue couldn’t be much sweeter.”

How the three dogs went from sharing a mattress to sharing a meeting turns out to be a story of rescue collaboration done right.

Kelli Hanson, marketing and communications manager for Ruff Start Rescue, shared with The Dodo that the dogs were found at a known landfill site.

A rescue partner approached them for help and Trixi and Bruno were rescued the same day.

Cooper proved harder to get. But a few months later, after they had survived the winter, Cooper was looking for them.

“[The rescuers] knew he was still out there, so they continued to look for him frequently,”  said Hanson. “[At] the end of February, he was ready for the rescue and got into the truck.”

It turns out that the trio are “three” in more ways than one. Each of the dogs had to have a leg amputated in order to recover its health. Each was lucky enough to find a permanent home where they thrived and were loved.

As Ruff Start Rescue said, rescue doesn’t get any sweeter than this.