Ella had been at the Animal Resource Center for seven long years without getting adopted. No one seemed to want her, but her friends at the shelter never gave up on her. Finally, an email came through that everyone had been waiting for. The subject line read, “Interested in adopting Ella.”

A woman named Kaitlyn arrived at the shelter, and everyone was cautiously optimistic. She had lost her beloved dog, Jo, and was finally ready to welcome a new dog into her life. Ella has some fear aggression and usually needs multiple visits to get comfortable with someone — but as soon as she saw Kaitlyn, everything changed.

“When Ella first saw Kaitlyn, we think she already knew that this is MY person,” the Animal Resource Center wrote on Facebook.

It was already such an amazing moment — and then something happened that can only be described as fate.

“Staff noticed Kaitlyn was getting teary-eyed and kept looking down by Ella’s neck,” the shelter wrote. “She looked up at staff, pulling up a picture of her dog, Jo, wearing a bandana and said, ‘This bandana that Ella is wearing, it’s Jo’s. I donated them all here when he passed.’ Tears now filling staff’s eyes as well — out of the 20 dogs in our shelter right now, this bandana. This specific bandana. Jo’s bandana. It was on Ella.”

It was as if Jo was telling his mom, “Ella is the one!”

Ella waited seven long years to find her forever home, but now that she has, it couldn’t be a more perfect happy ending.

“Kaitlyn said it best by saying, ‘I like to think of it as Jo’s stamp of approval,’ knowing it was meant to be,” the shelter wrote.