In the dusty outskirts of a small town in rural Romania, a local farmer named Ion was repairing a fence on a rainy October afternoon when he noticed something moving under a collapsed shed. At first he thought it was a large rat – hairless, pink-skinned, trembling violently in the cold mud. When the creature lifted its head, two cloudy, desperate eyes met his, and Ion realized with horror that he was looking at a dog so emaciated and sick that it no longer resembled any canine he had ever seen. The animal’s ribs jutted out like the ribs of a broken umbrella; its spine looked like a string of knots under translucent skin. Patches of raw, infected sores covered what little fur remained. Most people would have turned away, assuming the creature was too far gone. Ion, however, called a friend who knew someone who knew someone – and within hours the skeletal dog was on his way to a veterinarian in the city of Timișoara, 180 kilometers away. What happened next over the following nine months would stun even the most experienced rescuers and turn a nameless roadside ghost into one of Europe’s most celebrated animal comeback stories.
The dog – later named Costel by the shelter staff – arrived at the clinic wrapped in an old blanket, weighing just 8.4 kilograms (18.5 lbs). The average weight for an adult male dog of his presumed mixed shepherd breed is 28–35 kg. His body temperature was so low the thermometer barely registered. Blood tests revealed severe anemia, advanced mange (Sarcoptes scabiei mites had eaten away almost all of his coat), heartworm infestation, and a cocktail of intestinal parasites. His skin was cracked and bleeding from constant scratching, and secondary bacterial infections had turned large areas into oozing wounds. Dr. Andreea Popescu, the lead veterinarian, admitted privately to her team that she gave Costel less than a 20 % chance of surviving the first week. “I have been doing this for fifteen years,” she later told reporters, “and I had never seen an animal in such critical condition still clinging to life with that intensity in the eyes.”
The first surprise came forty-eight hours later. Despite the grim prognosis, Costel began to eat. At first it was only a few teaspoons of prescription recovery food licked from a syringe, but it was enough. The clinic started an aggressive treatment protocol: medicated baths every 48 hours, intravenous antibiotics, anti-parasitics, pain relief, and tiny portions of high-calorie food every two hours around the clock. Volunteers took eight-hour shifts so that someone was always with him, talking softly in Romanian and stroking the few patches of skin that weren’t painful. On day ten, a faint peach-fuzz of new hair appeared along his spine – the first visible proof that his body was fighting back.
Weeks turned into months. The physical transformation was slow and often heartbreaking. As the mites died, Costel’s skin itched unbearably, and he would scrape himself raw against the kennel walls. The staff wrapped him in soft baby onesies to protect the healing skin – an image that would later go viral. His legs, weakened by months of malnutrition, buckled constantly; a volunteer physiotherapist designed a homemade sling so he could practice standing without putting weight on his fragile joints. One particularly cold November night, his temperature plummeted again, and the team feared they would lose him. They moved his crate into the clinic’s kitchen next to the oven and took turns sleeping on the floor beside him. At 3 a.m., Costel lifted his head, placed a tentative paw on a volunteer’s hand, and wagged his tail for the first time – a weak thump-thump against the blanket that brought tears to everyone in the room.
The second major twist came in January, when a routine X-ray revealed something no one expected: Costel was not a senior dog, as everyone had assumed from his gray muzzle and clouded eyes. Dental examination and bone density tests showed he was barely three years old. The “old man” appearance had been caused entirely by extreme suffering. The news electrified the team. If a three-year-old dog could survive that level of neglect, his potential for full recovery was suddenly enormous.
Spring brought the changes the world would eventually see. Soft cream-colored fur began to grow in thick, luxurious waves – a complete surprise, because no one knew what color or texture his adult coat would be. His eyes cleared, revealing warm amber irises. Muscle returned to his frame; by April he tipped the scales at 27 kg and could run clumsy, joyful laps around the clinic garden. The baby onesies were replaced by a tiny fleece jacket a donor had knitted, complete with a hood that made him look like a plush toy. Photos of Costel in that jacket – tongue lolling, tail a blur – exploded across social media. Overnight, the Romanian clinic’s Facebook page went from a few thousand followers to more than 180,000. Messages poured in from as far away as Brazil, Japan, and Alaska. A children’s book author in Canada wrote a illustrated story about him; a folk-rock band in Portugal composed a song called “Costel’s Coat.”
Yet the most unexpected detail was still to come. In May, a woman in Sweden recognized the distinctive heart-shaped scar on Costel’s left shoulder – a burn mark visible in the early rescue photos. She contacted the shelter with documentation proving that Costel had been born on her cousin’s farm in 2019 and stolen as a six-month-old puppy. Microchip records confirmed it: the skeletal creature pulled from the rubble in Romania was actually a purebred Romanian Bucovina Shepherd named “Lupul” (“The Wolf”) who had vanished almost three years earlier. The case made international headlines. How a pedigree livestock guardian dog ended up 1,200 kilometers away, starved nearly to death under a shed, remains a mystery. Some speculate he was taken by traffickers who abandoned him when he became too sick to sell; others believe he escaped and simply walked until his body gave out.
Today, Costel – still answering happily to either name – lives with Dr. Popescu and her family on a small farm outside Timișoara. He weighs a robust 38 kg, sports a magnificent thick coat that requires brushing twice a week, and has become an unofficial therapy dog for the clinic, greeting new critical cases with gentle nudges and calm energy that seem to say, “I’ve been where you are, and look at me now.” His story has raised more than €87,000 for the shelter, funded the treatment of dozens of other severe mange cases, and inspired a nationwide campaign in Romania against the abandonment of large-breed dogs.
From a trembling, hairless specter that most passers-by assumed was already dead, Costel has become a living testament to what happens when one person refuses to look away. His journey reminds us that beneath even the most horrifying exterior can beat a heart determined to live – and that sometimes the universe returns lost souls in the most astonishing ways. Every time he rolls joyfully in the grass, wearing the little red coat that once protected his raw skin, thousands of people around the world are reminded that no case is ever hopeless as long as someone is willing to try.