Girl With Cleft Lip Adopts Dog Born With the Same Feature

February 14, 2025 journo

Kynlee Rogers, 10, with her dog – credit: Kimberly Rogers

This is Kynlee Rogers, born with a cleft lip; and her dog, Tennee, born with a cleft lip.

Rogers used to ask her mom Kimberly why she was different from other kids, a challenging thing for any parent to have to answer. She doesn’t ask anymore though, because she’s not different; just look at her dog!

From the Washington Post comes the story of a nonprofit that works to connect dogs born with craniofacial defects with the ‘craniofacial’ community, to strengthen both through common cause and love.

“Our mission is to combine the two different cleft communities: the human community and the canine community,” Lindsay Weisman, who started Cleft Rescue Unit in May 2023, told the Post. “We get puppies from across the country.”

She added that many humans with clefts adopt dogs with clefts, delighting in their shared difference.

“They love that the puppies look like them. It’s really special.”

In humans, cleft palates and lips develop in utero from a variety of environmental and genetic factors. Difficulties lay ahead for these children, without a doubt, but puppies born with the same conditions might have it even harder as they tend very strongly towards dying in infancy.

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Cleft lip or palate, says Weisman, prevents a puppy from nursing properly, leading to malnutrition and death if they are not recognized and taken into veterinary care for tube feeding.

Mandy, another dog with cleft lip (right) Kynlee hugs Tennee in the airport – credit Cleft Rescue Unit

Cleft Rescue Unit works to raise awareness of the dangers to these pups and take them off the hands of breeders or owners who aren’t capable of taking care of them. Once they can eat solid food, the unit seeks to pair dogs with a human owner with the same craniofacial feature.

As it happened for Kynlee, she asked her mother one night if dogs also have cleft lips—to which her mom, feeling the lightbulb moment above her head, replied “of course they do.”

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The Rogers adopted Tennee in September, and the dog has had a profound impact on Kynlee’s life.

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