Case in point: a raccoon was hit in the head and badly injured by a golfer and left for dead.

Fortunately, someone found the poor thing and called for help. Dorothy “Dot” Lee was caring for several abandoned baby squirrels, so her friend thought she could help.

That phone call changed Dot’s life forever.

She rushed to the golf course and thought at first there was no hope for the little raccoon.

 “He’d been hit so badly in the head that I couldn’t find his right eye, and he was suffocating in his own blood and couldn’t breathe.

I didn’t see much hope there,” she explained.

But Dot, being a wildlife rehabilitator, took the baby raccoon home.

She estimated him to be about nine-weeks-old and still wasn’t sure his tiny body could overcome what he had been through.

She bandaged him up and cared for him around the clock for five days.

The little guy still didn’t move and she cried because she thought she was going to have him put down.

But then…

“I stood over him, tears dropping on his little head, telling him I’m sorry,” she says, “and then suddenly, the little bugger opened his mouth and yawned.

And then he stretched every limb. From that day forward, he kept getting better.”

And he continued to get better!

Today, her raccoon, named Trouper, lives with Dot in Florida.

She moved there because the state of North Carolina, where she originally lived, has a law that says that she would have to release Trouper in six months, or she would have to have him put down.

He had fought too hard to live, and she wasn’t going to give up on him now!

“I made Trouper a promise that I would never give up on him and would never let another human hurt him.

So I sold everything I owned and moved to one of the few states where I could keep him if I licensed him as a service ambassador.”

The two visit schools each week to teach children about wildlife.  “I tell them that he’s not a pet. The only reason he lives with me is that he can’t care for himself.”

But Trouper is pretty spoiled, too. She added:

“Trouper has his own bedroom — he’ll never be in a cage,” she tells PEOPLE.

“He’s family and so I treat him as such,” while cuddling him in her lap.

Check out the video. You can see how much they love each other, and it’s such a beautiful relationship!

Source: People

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