One lucky pooch's journey from abandoned dog to beloved pet is tugging at the Internet's heart this week.
On Tuesday, Redditor flibbertygiblet shared her dog Ringo's story in a moving series of Imgur photographs. "Was going through some pics today and realized how much Ringo has really changed in the 8 months I've had him. Decided to share, because it's such a happy tale," she wrote on Reddit. The photos have since gone viral.
"I was asked by an acquaintance to "check up" on this hunting dog he had while he was out of town and to also see what I could do about re-homing him," said the Imgur caption that accompanied this snap. (Credit: Imgur)
The Redditor, who told the HuffPost that she only wanted to be identified by her first name Crystal, said she first encountered Ringo at the end of September. Emaciated and suffering from a bad eye, Ringo was "so scared he wouldn't look at me," Crystal wrote on Imgur.
The 30-year-old brought Ringo back to her West Texas home and planned to rehabilitate him before finding him another family. What she didn't anticipate, however, was that Ringo would soon steal her heart.
Two weeks after Crystal brought him home, she said Ringo 'smiled' for the first time.
(Credit: Imgur)
"I will never forget this moment. I'm standing there with the treat in my hand, willing him to face his fears and look in my general direction, and he turns to me with this goofy grin on his face. That did it, I was in love," she wrote in a caption that accompanied this adorable snap.
Over the next few months, Ringo gained both weight and confidence. He also learned to socialize with humans and other animals.
"He's so completely in love with my dog Windy," Crystal wrote in the caption for this photo. "He cries when he has to be away from her."
It wasn't all smooth-sailing, however. Ringo's bad eye started giving him trouble so surgery was planned.
"His eye was getting worse and he didn't feel good a lot of the time. We scheduled to have it removed and decided that we better just go ahead and keep him forever," wrote Crystal in the Imgur gallery.
"He never did get the hang of the cone, and he hated it, but he was doing good," wrote Crystal on Imgur. "The blood clotting disorder caused a massive amount of swelling, but we have an amazing vet, and he was on the mend in no time." (Credit: Imgur)
Recovery was difficult, Crystal says, as Ringo suffers from a blood clotting disorder, which resulted in a "massive amount of swelling." But soon enough, he'd gotten much better.
Ringo celebrated his sixth birthday in May (Credit: Imgur)
Ringo's story has spread like wildfire on Reddit.
"A half blind socially anxious adult dog with health problems? Many, if not most, people would have just put him down. You're one of the good ones," one Redditor wrote in response to Crystal's post.
"The goofball bunch. He may not be very good looking to most, but I think Ringo's the most handsome guy in the world," Crystal wrote of this recent snap. (Credit: Imgur)
But the animal lover, who has other pets at home including five cats, insists that she's done nothing extraordinary. It's Ringo who's special, she says.
"I'm blown away by the response he's gotten. He totally deserves it, but its very weird to have people calling me a saint. I assure you, I'm no saint, I just really love my dogs," she told the HuffPost in an email.
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