Workers at an animal shelter found themselves crying tears of joy when they sent their oldest residents Sam and Brutus off to their new forever home. Both the dogs suffer from medical issues that made people not want to adopt them, but they finally found the loving forever home they deserved.

Sam had been living at the shelter for six months, and though he was once adopted, he was later returned. Brutus, who had been living at the shelter for five months, was scheduled to be euthanized before he was saved by Leslie Sacks. She showed up at the Asheville Humane Society in North Carolina asking for their oldest, most overlooked dog, and she ended up taking them both home with her.

“These dogs have wisdom, they have love, they’ve been through a lot, and it really tugs at my heart that they are just sitting there being overlooked,” Leslie said. “We can’t let that happen and we shouldn’t let that happen.”

Leslie’s family had just lost one of their dogs, and her children were not sure if they were ready to lose another.

“It was really hard for me to lose the dogs,” said 10-year-old Siena Sacks. “I thought my mom would be strong, but that’s actually the first time I’ve seen her cry before.”

Despite this, the family decided that they wanted to give these two older dogs a loving home, even if it means saying goodbye to Sam and Brutus, now named Bella and Bruno, in a few years. Now, they are hoping that others will be inspired to adopt older shelter dogs after hearing their story.

“You can afford giving the amount of love these animals give you back,” Leslie said. “Go out there and adopt a dog today. You can do it.”

Find out more about this in the video below.