Photographer Courtney Udvar-Hazy began the Instagram account @wander_with_willow in 2017 to document the life of Willow, her striking wolf-dog hybrid.
Udvar-Hazy, a 29-year-old from California, documented Willow from the moment she got her, and followers watched Willow grow from a tiny puppy to a strapping adolescent who roamed California’s wilderness on hikes with her owner.
Then, in 2018, tragedy struck: Willow escaped from her pet sitter and was struck by a car. “When I got there, she was still alive. My friend was driving us to the vets,” Udvar-Hazy says, her voice quavering. “She passed away while I was holding her in the backseat.”
Yet Udvar-Hazy continues to run @wander_with_willow to this day. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that recent photos of the enormous canine creeping through the snow, howling in the woods, and sitting in front of a mountain range were of Willow. But the subject of these pictures is in fact another, identical-looking wolf-dog named Phoenix. Phoenix, now age two, is a clone.