In the final moments of its life, a little dog named Lulu was loved, but before that, she only knew a life of cruelty.
Eric Purdue was trekking near Rock Mountain Boulevard in Georgia with his son and nephew when he heard a faint cry come from nearby.
Looking down, he discovered two blue eyes looking up at him. A dog had been buried alive.
He fell to his knees and began digging into the dirt with his bare hands to rescue the little dog.
"It's OK, baby. We're going to get you out. We'll get you out baby," he can be heard saying in a heartbreaking video.
After 30 minutes of frantic excavating, they removed the frightened dog from the tight hole she had been buried in.
"I think she knew we were trying to help her, so she just laid there. She wasn't super responsive."
He took the pooch home after pulling her out of the ground, where he and his family bathed her several times that day, and never left her side.
"She was always with us... until we went to bed, she was always being petted."
From the moment he rescued Lulu, Purdue had already made plans to adopt the abandoned dog. But, despite his and the veterinarians' efforts, Lulu died the following day.
Now the devastated father has shared Lulu's photo and story in the hope of finding her killer.
"If somebody recognises that dog, that's all we need, please get in touch, we can find this person... somebody had to see something," Purdue said pleading with the public.
"This person needs help... or some serious jail time, or both," he added.
"I just couldn't believe that someone would take so much time to do such a terrible thing to a dog."
"They're sick. Sick. And if they're just plain cruel, maybe someone will bury them for a day or two, see how they like it."
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction for the person responsible, while the Humane Society of the United States is offering an additional $5,000 reward.
"Someone tortured this dog by packing her in dirt, where she couldn't move, drink or escape the terror of being buried alive," Colleen O'Brien, PETA vice president said.
"PETA urges anyone with information about this case to come forward immediately so that whoever buried this dog can be held responsible and stopped from hurting anyone else."
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