Virgin River is set to come back for season 6, but one character may look slightly different than before.

Season 5 part 2 ended on a happier note thanks to the holiday season when viewers witnessed

a heartwarming moment between Melinda “Mel” Monroe (Alexandra Breckenridge)

and her fiancé Jack Sheridan (Martin Henderson). As a Christmas present, folks see Jack gift Mel with an adorable puppy that she eventually names Pony (for the animal she long for as a child). It’s a sweet moment between the lovebirds, and showrunner Patrick Sean Smith revealed to TVLine that the pup will be a part of the couple’s lives moving forward.

But with some time elapsing between the last episode in season 5 and the incoming installments in season 6, Patrick did disclose that Pony may look a little different by the time the season 6 premiere comes around.

“I’d always anticipated there would be a time jump after the holidays when we pick up with season 6, so we were going to have that dog age naturally as we headed back into production,” he told the outlet in early December. “But we didn’t account for the five-month strike. So I don’t know where Pony is now in their maturation. I hope we don’t have to recast, but we might have to.”

While this all seems a bit sudden given how Pony only just showed up in the show, Alexandra revealed the pet was actually supposed to come along earlier on in Virgin River. As she said in a video interview with TVLine, Mel and Jack were supposed to adopt Charmaine Roberts’ (Lauren Hammersley) dog in an earlier season. She also explained why the end of season 5 was the perfect time for the pup to appear in Mel and Jack’s lives.

“First of all, given the circumstances between Mel and Charmaine, I said, ‘Why would Mel ever agree to this? I don’t think that makes sense or is appropriate,’” she said. “Second of all, it was during COVID, so the sets were locked down, everybody was in a mask and had a shield on their face. So I just was like, ‘Given the circumstances right now, let’s not have a dog.’ Then when we talked about it for this year, and I was like, ‘Yeah, me and Jack should probably have a dog.’”

Only time will tell if we see a new Pony or not!