Max by Lexi! #maxlove #cute

A photo posted by IMAN (@the_real_iman) on

Late rocker David Bowie's dog has mismatched eyes like the singer's. Max, the dog, has one blue eye and one brown eye caused by a hereditary condition called heterochromia, which is more common in dogs than in humans. The condition though is harmless.

The similarity between the singing legend and his dog came to light when Bowie's wife Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid, 60, took Max for a walk in New York City on 2 February – the dog's first outing since his master's death. The dog is a mix between a Shih Tzu and poodle.

Earlier it was thought that the Starman hit-maker suffered from heterochromia but it was not. Bowie suffered from a medical condition called anisocoria, whereby one pupil remains permanently dilated giving the impression of having two coloured eyes.

Bowie suffered from anisocoria after his friend, artist George Underwood punched him and sliced his right eye with his fingernail in 1962. Bowie was just 15 when he had a fight with Underwood over a girl.

Underwood has revealed that Bowie later thanked him for giving him his famous look. "He later told me I did him a favour," Underwood was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail.

Bowie and Iman, who is a supermodel, were married in 1992. The couple have a daughter named Lexi aged 15. It was revealed on 29 January that Bowie had left his wife a $100m (£69m) fortune and an apartment in Manhattan in New York.

Though Iman has made no public comments about her late husband, she had posted some messages before and after her husband's demise. On Bowie's birthday on 8 January, Iman tweeted: "I will love you til i die, i will see you in the sky #tonight happy birthday mr. bowie." "Happy Birthday to the man who fell to earth. Forever Bowie," another tweet read.

On 10 January when Bowie died, Iman tweeted: "The struggle is real, but so is God." Another tweet read: "Sometimes you will never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory." Bowie died after battling cancer for 18 months at the age of 69.