When Emily and Justin Thomas and their dog, Pax, moved into their new home in October of 2020, Pax was so excited to have a big yard to run around in and awesome new neighbors to meet. Then the neighbors welcomed home a puppy named Penny — and for Pax, it was love at first sight.

“When Pax and Penny met in March of 2021, she was only around 3 months old, but even then they played well together,” Emily Thomas told The Dodo. “Our neighbors decided to fence their yard too, and they put in a gate at the back so we would be prepared for playdates! Pax started looking for her every time he went outside, and as soon as she could reach the top of the fence, we would look out the window to see them greeting each other and ‘kissing’ over it every day.”

Ever since then, Pax and Penny greet each other and share kisses over the fence every single time they’re both outside. They love sharing toys over the fence too, and have even played tug-of-war over the fence together with a rope toy. Their parents make sure to get them together for playdates all the time in their respective yards. Nothing could ever keep them apart — until it started snowing.

“While Pax loves the snow and will lay outside in a pile of it as long as we’ll let him, Penny is not a fan of snow or rain,” Thomas said. “When we got a lot of snow in the past few weeks, she was not pleased and didn’t really want to go outside. We noticed him standing at the fence a lot, staring at their back door, clearly missing her.”

Poor Pax was heartbroken that Penny wasn’t there to greet him every day as usual. He didn’t understand why he and his best friend suddenly had to be apart. Penny’s parents could see how sad Pax was being separated from her — so they came up with a plan to do something about it.

They decided to try shoveling Penny a path from her house to the fence to hopefully make her feel more comfortable venturing out into the snow. She was hesitant at first, but she did it for Pax — and finally, she made it back up to her usual spot and was at long last reunited with her best friend.

Once Penny was able to see that Pax was OK with being in the snow, she suddenly became OK with it too. He helped her overcome all of her fears, and now the pair never has to be kept apart like that ever again.

“They were super excited to see each other, and once she had Pax to motivate her, she dove right in,” Thomas said. “They’ve had play dates in the snow almost every day since!”

Clearly, Penny and Pax were meant to be best friends, and they’re doing everything they can to make sure that nothing will ever get in the way of that.