When Queanbeyan dog Splash was dropped off at the vet clinic he was emaciated, riddled with parasites and only hours away from death.
Now, one year on and with a new lease on life, he has reunited with the vets who saved him.
"It's undeniable that he experienced extreme cruelty," Carrie Doble, a vet nurse and Splash's new owner told the Daily Liberal.
"You regularly see sick pets in the hospital environment but just realising how much he'd endured, it was real long-term neglect. It really just broke everyone's heart to see him."
"But from the first day, he was just so good natured and sweet."
On Saturday, July 13, Ms Doble and her family travelled from their home in Queanbeyan to Dubbo for a reunion with the team from Orana Veterinary Service who brought him back from the brink of death.
"We're so grateful for everything they did ... I understand how busy hospital environments can be and just hearing the stories of everything they did for Splash, they went above and beyond," Ms Doble said.
Queensland-based dog rescue operator Mika Darbie of DARE Inc heard about Splash's plight on social media.
Splash's owner had given him and his brother Commando to someone else to care for. But after that person had a falling out with a relative of the owner over farm machinery, both dogs were starved in retaliation.
Commando had already died before the rescue was contacted.
"I was tagged in a very confronting photo on Facebook, and it was this skeletal dog curled up on a passenger seat of a car... the dog had been starved intentionally," Ms Darbie said.
"I just said, 'yeah I'll help'. I didn't know of any vet in Dubbo so I found Orana Vet and told them we have this incredibly emaciated dog and they agreed to take him on.
"And the photo didn't even do justice to how thin he truly was."
At first the vets didn't think Splash would make it, he had a body condition of 0.5, the lowest it could be.
He was emaciated and weighed just 11 kilograms, well below the healthy weight for his breed. He had a heavy infestation of intestinal worms and his eyes were sealed shut from infection.
Vet notes from the day he was admitted say he likely had been starved for 60 to 120 days.
After looking him over they called Ms Darbie and asked what she wanted to do.
"I said, 'throw everything at him' and she said 'but you know, the owner is not willing to pay'. I told them we would pay and to just throw everything at him," she said.
When Ms Darbie posted about Splash's plight on social media she was overwhelmed with support. Her rescue raised $26,000 to help fund Splash's care.
"A lot of people are used to seeing cruelty cases but when you know his story ... that someone was willing to do something like this to an innocent animal in revenge, it went viral," she said.
"$26,000 sounds like a lot, and it is for an individual dog, but when you look at everything Orana Vets had to do, they did well to keep the costs down."
Splash stayed at Orana Veterinary Service for about two months and became part of the family. Some clinic staff even stayed overnight at the hospital to make sure he'd make it through to morning.
"They all loved him to bits ... they gave him weeks and weeks of around-the-clock care," Ms Doble said.
"They used to sit there and cook him broccoli every day because it was something that would fill his tummy and without making him sicker.
"And they bathed him and they played ball with him... they gave him little jumpers to wear because he was so cold and emaciated and just spent so much time with him when he was in such a bad state."
Now Splash has his colour back, weighs 23 kilograms and is by most accounts a healthy dog.
"It's really good to see he's so healthy now. He was so skinny, this just shows that it was all worth it," Orana Veterinary Service nurse Thania Celestin said.
"He was just skin and bone then but he was always happy, he was a fighter," fellow nurse Kasey Allen added.
"There's not many patients that know that you are helping them and seem grateful. But he was so grateful."
Ms Allen said saying goodbye to Splash when he left the clinic was "bittersweet". She said it was "amazing" to be able to reunite with him.
"He's still the same happy dog but he's happy and healthy now," she said.
"Seeing him again was a great treat for us."
