In January 2016, Sara Harper was working as the vet technician at the low-cost vaccination clinic in Florida run by Concerned Citizens For Animal Welfare. As soon as she laid eyes on Dobby, she knew it was her mission to help heal him. The woman who brought him in said he was 5 years old — and that this was his first time ever being seen by a vet.

“We were horrified at his malnourished condition,” Harper told The Dodo. “Along with his whole body raw and bloody, his feet were too, and toenails grown so long they curled into his paw pads. She admitted her flea treatment all the years she had him was pouring a flea powder meant for carpet and to be vacuumed up. She said she did not want to spend money on him. I begged her as a rescuer to surrender him, and she agreed immediately.”