It was the children that alerted police officers when they were serving eviction notices in a neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale. In the cold of early November, Dice was in a cage outside an abandoned apartment.

"The tenants moved out and left him in the backyard in a crate with no food or water," Tracey Godin, co-founder of Feeling Fine Rescue in Loxahatchee, Florida, told. "The police, of course, asked the children how long the dog had been there, and they said they thought he'd been there a week or more."But it's possible that Dice had been left in such a heartbreaking state for a very long time."He was not fed properly for months," Godin said. "The last week would have just been the final deterioration."

Dice was transferred to a local shelter after police officers called animal control. It was Godin's friend, who volunteers at the shelter, that snapped the pictures of Dice and sent it to her. Unsurprisingly, it deeply shocked and saddened her loving heart.

"It took your breath away," Godin said. "I didn't know how he was still alive. Tears immediately came to my face."The very next day, Godin, with her daughter, Micela, took her to the vet from the shelter.

"He couldn't walk about 5 or 6 feet without falling," Godin said. "We were in [the] parking lot at the vet, and when he took one step to get up on the sidewalk, he couldn't hold his body weight up and just collapsed. I didn't think he was going to live."

He was 30 pounds, but he should have been 65 pounds," she added. "He was dehydrated and anaemic. You could see his skull — there was just no muscle mass in his body at all. His eyes were sunken in his head. In my opinion, if he had been in that cage another day, he would not have made it.

Dice started living at Feeling Fine Rescue after he was considered healthy enough to leave the vet. Since the place is run by Godin and her daughter from their home, Dice's rapid recovery left them both astounded.

"Within a week, he gained 10 pounds," Godin said. "He was 40 pounds within one week. Two weeks later, he was 50 pounds, and by the weekend, he was 65 pounds. Basically every day, you could see a difference in the dog."The lovely doggie also started glowing with happiness, he smiled and laughed much more than when he was first brought in.

"It's really incredible to see how a dog can go through so much at the hands of people, and … be immediately ready to love and trust new people," Micaela Godin told."From the minute we met Dice, he's been the most loving dog. He has an amazing personality." Luck found him again, and in late December, a family with two dogs wanted to adopt him."They really fell in love with him the moment they saw him," Tracey Godin said."They came to visit him several times. They asked if they could do a meet-and-greet at their property with their two current dogs."

Their first meeting went very well.Dice got along with both of their dogs and easily bonded with their two small children. Then he went on home with them on a foster-to-adopt basis two weeks later.And in just a few days, the family wanted Dice with them forever."They called me last night and said, 'We're more in love with him than the moment we met him, and we would like to never bring him back,'"Tracey Godin said."I was crying because this family is absolutely incredible … and I don't think that Dice could have gone to a better home."

Dice loves them just as much."The family is telling me they can't believe how quickly he adjusted like he's been there forever,"Tracey Godin said."One (of the children) came home from school yesterday and said, 'I'm so glad you're here, Dice, you're not going back to the rescue.I missed you so much when I was at school." "We save a lot of dogs, and they all have stories, and they all come from such awful beginnings,"Micaela Godin said."But Dice is resilient in how quick he was able to bounce back, and how gracefully he did it.He's so lucky, and he's strong to be able to make it through this, and to come out on the other side so quickly and so successfully.I would say that it was a miracle, for sure."