His crime? Chewing on a cell phone.

Warning: Graphic image below

Animals AsiaBut this puppy certainly could understand the compassion of a passerby. After all, if not for a woman who chose not to walk past the tiny creature, scalded and writhing on the concrete below, his story would have ended before it could even begin: at just 6 weeks old.

Instead, he found love, healing and maybe even a miracle — to go along with his perfectly fitting new name, Tuffy.

The woman, 30-year-old Yan Yingying, immediately rushed Tuffy to a veterinarian.

Animals Asia

“The sight must have been horrific, and I’m sure many people would have walked past and pretended not to see,” Emily Drayton, a vet with the animal welfare group Animals Asia, noted in a statement. “But she didn’t. She took Tuffy to a local vet in Chengdu and paid for all his veterinary care. That saved his life.”

Tuffy’s agonizing odyssey back to the land of the living would require more than the efforts of a local vet. His savior drove him an hour outside of Chengdu to Animals Asia, a group best known for its efforts to rescue bears from the bile trade.

Animals Asia“When I saw Tuffy I was shocked and sickened to my core,” Drayton said. “Never had I seen an animal in so much pain.”

Indeed, blisters covered much of the puppy’s body. While round-the-clock injections were needed just to keep him alive, Tuffy’s burnt eyelids meant sleeping with his eyes open.

“Cases of animal cruelty and neglect are never something you get used to,” Animals Asia founder Jill Robinson recalled. “You just learn to put your emotions aside and focus on what you need to do to help. Never had I seen an animal in so much pain.”

Cue the cavalcade of compassion. A team of specialists, including a surgeon who flew in from Hong Kong, got to work. Skin was grafted from Tuffy’s scrotum, one of the few areas left unscathed from the attack.

“Tucked under his body, this had been a place where the boiling water hadn’t reached — so Tuffy was duly neutered, with nothing left to waste,” Robinson said.

But repairing a puppy’s broken body was one thing. Bringing a withered spirit back from the brink was another.

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That was a job for Team Tuffy.

Soon, just about everyone at Animals Asia was sporting Tuffy T-shirts. Even strangers donated to the cause. And the organization donated all of Tuffy’s nursing care.

Slowly, carefully, a puppy regained his puppyhood.

Animals Asia

“The cruelty he faced was inexcusable, but he refused to be beaten, and that strength was infectious,” Robinson recalled. “Tuffy has more passion for life than any animal, or person, I have ever met. Nothing can keep him down. He is boisterous and full of play. To say Tuffy is a fighter is an understatement.”

Animals AsiaBut this puppy will never need to fight again. Because the angel who first took Tuffy under her wing, Yan Yingying, is now her forever owner.

Puppyhood found.

Animals Asia

Animals AsiaIf you would like to help Animals Asia in its ongoing efforts to make the world a better place for animals, visit its website.

Animals Asia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB-Eox1ggCo