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Ottawa (AFP) – Guy the beagle is living a fairytale.

The 25-pound (11-kilogram) dog was a few days from being euthanized in 2015 after being found abandoned in the Kentucky backwoods.

After a massive effort to bring the pooch to Canada, where by happenstance it cast its “big, sad eyes” on Meghan Markle, Guy will officially be welcomed into the British royal family when she marries Prince Harry on Saturday.

“Guy was living in a shelter after being found lost in a Kentucky forest, and now he’s living in a palace,” said Dolores Doherty, who runs A Dog’s Dream Rescue and arranged to have Guy driven 500 miles (805 kilometers) to Canada by a relay of volunteer drivers, for adoption.

“It’s a fairytale, a real rags to riches story,” she told AFP.

The beagle had been in Canada only one day when Markle, who was living in Toronto and filming her television series “Suits,” spotted him at an adoption event.

Markle had been looking for a companion for her other dog Bogart, a German shepherd mix, Doherty explained.

“He’s so adorable with his long brown ears and big eyes and little round beagle body. We’d shown Meghan another dog that we thought might be a good match, but she saw Guy and immediately she wanted to take him home,” she said.

Guy would go on to become a minor Instagram star with photographs showing the dog strolling with Markle along Toronto streets and curled up next to her and Bogart at home.

But that celebrity pales in comparison to its new role as a royal pet.

Guy moved to Britain last November to live with the soon-to-be-newlyweds. Unfortunately Bogart was too old and frail to make the trip and so is staying with friends of Markle in Canada.

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