When this poor pooch was spotted outside of Athens, Greece last spring, she was suffering from a severe case of the mange, which caused her skin to completely harden. The woman who saw her took the pooch’s picture and posted it to Facebook. The response was unbelievable. Kind-hearted people across the globe wanted to help the poor animal. When she was finally found, Petra was so scared of humans they could barely come close to her. Her condition was downright awful and she refused help at first.

According to her rescuers, the second anyone tried to come close, she would run away. Luckily, people refused to give up and Petra was captured and brought to a shelter in Oropos. It was only then that the job of restoring Petra to a healthy, happy dog had truly begun. According to Valia Orfanidou, who is responsible for saving Petra in the first place, Petra had always been a stray. She came to this conclusion because dogs who have been abandoned can still be relatively friendly to humans. In Petra’s case, it seems like she’d never even been touched by a person.

After coming to the shelter, Petra’s treatment started; she was treated for a variety of things: the mange that gave her a horrible stone-like appearance and a disease known as leishamiasis. As her health improved, it was obvious that Petra was still absolutely terrified of humans.

She’d never leave her cage and when approached by humans, she would run. She’d growl at other dogs at the pound. When Orfanidou once came too close, the poor dog soiled herself in her cage. Even then, Orfanidou knew that the dog was not beyond recovery, she’d come too close to give up.

As time went by, Petra’s skin got a lot better, her hair started growing back and she grew more trusting every day. The end result – a perfectly happy, healthy dog ready for adoption. She’s yet to find her forever home, but we assume it won’t be long now because Petra is a really sweet and beautiful dog. Check out the video documenting Petra’s life-changing transformation below.