When Poleng was abandoned on the streets of Indonesia, he was desperate for someone to help him. He found his way into a community, where a kind family fed him and looked after him.
Unfortunately, they could see he needed a lot more help than they could provide.
When a team member from Little Steps Matter was helping another dog nearby, the family approached them and asked if they could help Poleng — and the entire rescue team was shocked by how he looked.
“The moment we saw Poleng, it was clear he had suffered tremendously,” Little Steps Matter wrote on Instagram.
“His body was ravaged by severe mange, with painfully inflamed skin and thick crusted layers covering him so heavily it almost looked as though he had turned to stone.”
The team had never seen such a bad case of mange and immediately rushed the pup to the vet for intensive care. It seemed like his recovery journey would be a long one — but after only two weeks, Poleng already looked like a completely different dog.
“After all the scraps had fallen off and his skin was healing, he allowed us to touch him,” Sabine Kaufmann, founder of Little Steps Matter, told The Dodo.
Poleng began accepting all of the cuddles he was in too much pain for before and transformed into the sweetest, most loving dog despite everything he’d been through.
After making significant progress, Poleng went back to the family who’d helped him at the start. Unfortunately, they ended up not being able to keep him long-term.
Instead, his rescuers found him a foster home, where he continued to heal and thrive. Four months later, Poleng’s forever family finally found him.
They’d fallen in love after watching his journey on Little Steps Matter’s social media pages and couldn’t wait to give him the loving home he deserved.
“He’s living a dream life with his family now,” Kaufmann said. “They adore him so much. He was really the worst case we ever saw. And then he turned out to be the most goofy, funny, sweetest boy.”
