Meet Boss. As you can tell, he's one happy dog:

But Boss wasn't always so happy. In fact, here he is just a short while before:

What made the difference? One of PETA's Community Animal Project (CAP) fieldworkers noticed Boss during one of her visits to a trailer park in a very impoverished part of North Carolina, where CAP delivers straw and signs up residents for SNIP's spay-and-neuter program.

Boss' owner had moved out and was paying someone to give the dog food and water, but the "caretaker" was simply throwing food over the top of the pen, which hadn't been raked or cleaned in some time. There was no clean or dry place for Boss to sit or stand. Even his Igloo doghouse was full of urine and feces, and his feet were wet, red, and irritated from standing in his own waste.

Determined not to leave him in that miserable condition, the fieldworker who found Boss persuaded the owner's mother to care for the dog and then drove Boss to her house, where he rolled in the grass. "He was so freaking happy," the fieldworker says, "I thought I was going to cry."

How You Can Help 'Outdoor Dogs' Like Boss

Please always be prepared to help animals in need and you may be rewarded with a smile that you'll never forget—like the one on Boss' face!

When a police officer asks you to do something, it’s generally a good idea to comply. And when a police officer asks you to help animals, well that’s a no-brainer! The Virginia Beach Police Department was routinely fielding calls in certain low-income neighborhoods about animals getting sick because they weren’t vaccinated or shivering outdoors with little to no shelter from the elements. The police asked PETA and the Virginia Beach SPCA if we could all work together one weekend and help. Did we ever.

PETA rolled out our new mobile clinic and altered nearly 30 dogs and cats. We also handed out bundle after bundle of straw bedding for outdoor dogs, so that they could at least have a warm place to lie down, and signed their families up for our free doghouse delivery program. The VBSPCA offered free rabies and distemper shots for animals who had already been spayed and neutered, administering a whopping 250 vaccinations.

Aside from the danger of some animals being arrested for excessive cuteness, the day was a huge success. Said PETA vice president Daphna Nachminovitch, “We'd like to see this example of teamwork to help stop animal suffering emulated in cities across the country."