Los Angeles, California - This abandoned dog wouldn't let anyone near him – no one, that is, except for a special toy pig that helped animal rescuers finally catch him!

Getting Bruce was tough, Suzette Hall told the Dodo. This pooch "would cry and bark for people to notice him," but he wouldn't let rescuers come close or catch him.

As soon as residents next to I-710 in Los Angeles noticed the dog back in May they started leaving out food for him, but he remained standoffish.

Suzette said every time rescuers tried to approach, he'd bound away. But everything changed when someone gifted the dog a little friend.

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"Someone had tossed a squeaky pig out to him, and he literally made it his best friend," she said.

"There were so many times when he thought we weren’t looking, and he would just be playing with his pig. He’d throw it up in the air and catch it, then run around with it."

Fortunately, the whole neighborhood was trying to help catch the abandoned dog, and in early August, Suzette Hall got the call.

A neighbor had managed to keep Bruce in their garden.

Suzette rushed over and took him to the Camino Pet Hospital. But she almost messed up: the poor pooch was devastated to be temporarily separated from his little pig.

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Thankfully, that mistake was soon rectified. As soon as the piggy was back with him, the handsome hound's mood brightened.

"He literally knew it was his pig," Suzette said. "It was the first time we saw him smile."

Since Bruce's rescue and reunion with the pig, the two have been inseparable – and no wonder, according to his rescuer: "If he did not have his pig, I don’t know how he would've survived out there."