While searching for her first dog, Joelle Andres saw a photo of a scrappy-looking rat terrier on a pet adoption site and was immediately drawn to his face.

"His eyes were very soulful, but he looked kind of shut down and forlorn," she tells PEOPLE. She quickly put in an application, but learned the pup was on his way to an adoption event she couldn't attend because of a wedding the same weekend.

Andres, 41, accepted that the pup named Bastian would likely find a different home, so she was surprised when Burlington County Animal Alliance of New Jersey contacted her and said Bastian was the only pet not adopted at the event. Upon hearing this, Andres, a special education administrator who lives in Levittown, N.Y., drove hours through torrential rain to meet Bastian in person.

"He was ju

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