The other day, the staff at Michigan Humane got an unusual call from a concerned Good Samaritan. The caller described seeing a puppy hanging out in the chimney of an abandoned house, and it seemed like he couldn’t get down on his own.

The Michigan Humane rescuers raced to the home and found a brown-and-white puppy’s head poking out from the top of the chimney. His body was covered in filth, and his eyes looked weary and sad. He desperately needed help, but when the rescuers tried to run inside, they quickly realized their initial plan was too dangerous.

“The foundation of the house was crumbled, so we called [Detroit Fire Department] for their help!” Michigan Humane wrote in a Facebook video.

The firefighters arrived quickly and, instead of attempting to enter the home from the inside, deployed their truck’s aerial ladder to reach the dog. With all the commotion going on, the pup, later named Stack, couldn’t help but tremble.

“Stack was quite nervous during the rescue,” Abigail Roegner, Michigan Humane’s field agent, told The Dodo. “On the ground, our rescue team was trying to talk to him, which seemed to scare him. They decided to keep quiet and noticed he would poke his head out a little more.”

The Michigan Humane rescuers quickly realized that the best approach to keeping Stack calm was to not talk to him. They remained quietly hopeful on the ground, silently cheering the first responders as they were lifted to the roof, which seemed to help.

“Once the firefighters made their way to him, he seemed to calm down a little bit,” Roegner said.

The firefighters carefully plucked Stack from the chimney and cradled him until they safely reached the ground. There, he received a wave of love and attention unlike anything he’d ever experienced before.

“Once he was down, he was very comforted by being held/hugged,” Roegner said.

The rescuers’ hearts broke as they carried the slender puppy, whom they believed had been surviving on his own for one to two days before being found. It was devastating to imagine what the poor dog had endured before his rescue, but the Michigan Humane staff knew that the best was yet to come for Stack.

You can watch footage from his rescue here:

And when they arrived at Mackey Center for Animal Care in Detroit, they felt even more hopeful for his future as they watched his personality blossom.

“[H]e was a full-blown puppy, happy to see everyone and take the snacks we had!” Roegner said.

Thankfully, Stack passed his health check with flying colors, other than being slightly underweight. He spent the next couple of weeks eating regular, hearty meals and learning how to play, until finally he was ready for adoption.

On April 13, Stack joined Michigan Humane for an appearance on Fox 2 Detroit. He was hoping to land a home — and after the news segment, he found one sooner than anyone imagined.

“[H]e was adopted that afternoon,” Lish Dorset, Michigan Humane’s director of marketing and communications, told The Dodo.

From sheltering inside a chimney to sleeping in a warm bed just a few weeks later, Stack’s life changed completely thanks to the folks at Michigan Humane and the Detroit Fire Department.

And, while both rescue groups continue to help those in need around Detroit, they won’t soon forget the little dog who locked eyes with them in the chimney, or the joint effort it took to save him.

“Good calls, quick action and the right people at the right time made this rescue possible,” Michigan Humane wrote.