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Russ had had a difficult start to life. Luckily, almost as soon as he ended up in the shelter, he found a loving owner.

It all began when a pitbull, Russ, was wondering the streets of Philadelphia. No one knows how he wound up being alone in the city.

But it was clear that he had suffered. The dog had been beaten.

Luckily, a shelter found him. At first, Russ, tried to run away from the volunteers.

He was terrified of humans. Eventually, the volunteers were able to get him in their car and drive him to the shelter.

Soon, one of the shelter’s volunteers, Kayla Filoon, was looking after him.

Russ and Filoon formed a special connection there and then. Russ could tell that Filoon was kind-hearted and started to hug her.

At first, Filoon tried to resist the urge to adopt Russ. She wanted to see if anyone else would give him a home.

But then Filoon had to take Russ on a walk, and she was soon convinced that Russ needed to come home with her. On the walk, the dog was being incredibly sweet. He was trotting along patiently and didn’t bark at any other dog that they passed.

But taking on a dog was a big responsibility. And Filoon was in college, which in itself was a lot of work. Could she really manage a big dog like Russ?

So she called up her mom, needing advice from her. At first, Filoon’s mother thought that her daughter would get over Russ. She fell in love with every shelter dog at first, after all. But Filoon knew that it was different with this dog.

The next day, Filoon learned that the shelter was overcrowded. This made the decision much easier.

She told her boss that she would adopt Russ and take her home after classes the next day.

So for one more evening, Russ waited in the shelter, not knowing that he now had an owner.

As soon as her classes finished, Filoon drove back to the shelter. In minutes, she had Russ on a leash. Russ only realized that he wasn’t going back to the shelter when he got inside of Filoon’s car.

But Filoon hadn’t told her six housemates of her decision to take Russ in. Luckily, they all soon fell in love with the pitbull as well and were amazed at how well behaved he was.

For the first few days, Russ got a lot of sleep. He had caught kennel cough, and the shelter was a noisy place. But soon, he had perked up and grown accustomed to his new home.

From then on, whenever Filoon was nearby, Russ would hug her.

Sometimes, such as when Filoon was trying to focus on homework, the constant hugging became a bit much. But Filoon realized that there were much worse traits in a dog than extreme affection.

In fact, one day, when Russ was cuddling Filoon, Filoon’s housemate snapped a photo of the two together.

She then uploaded the photo to Facebook, where it went viral.

To date, the photo has gained over 57,000 reactions, 62,000 shares and 6,700 comments. People have been saying things like this:

Clearly, Russ knows just how lucky he is to have Filoon.

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Source: Inside Edition, The Dodo