A Virginia woman took this pooch from a muddy hole to a loving home.

After Laura Seymour met a neglected neighborhood dog, their friendship quickly escalated — and she eventually freed the perky pooch from its chained-up life outdoors.

“There was no food in the bowl. She had dug a little hole in the mud, and she slept there,” Seymour tells Soulmates by the Dodo of her and the Akita’s first meeting. Although initially intimidated by the dog’s large size, Seymour decided to pet the muddy canine anyway — and her heart quickly melted.

“She was the happiest dog I’ve ever seen,” she says, despite the canine having been chained up in a yard and being barely cared for. “I didn’t even think anyone lived there.” She was soon filling up the hungry pup’s food bowl three times a week for a full year.

During near-daily visits, Seymour got ever closer with the Akita, whom she named Takia. “The more I stopped by, the more excited she got,” Seymour says. Takia even began to recognize her car.

Wanting to give Takia a better life, she called animal control to report the rough conditions the poor animal was living in. She was told that as long as a dog has a doghouse and adequate food and water, no action would be necessary.

“It rained, it snowed, and she was just sleeping outside in the mud,” she says.

As summer approached, Seymour became increasingly worried about Takia’s ability to survive outside in the heat. She called animal control again.

“They called me back the next day, and they said, ‘The owner had to surrender the dog over. Do you know anybody that is looking for her?'”

Seymour immediately offered to take her — and was finally able to give Takia a good home.

Now Takia sleeps in Seymour’s bed and is able to run freely, no longer being chained to a fence.

“I was like, ‘holy cow, this is a brand-new dog,'” Seymour says, adding that she feels like she’s the lucky one in getting to adopt the sweet fur baby. “I got super lucky, I really did.”