A guard was working in New Orleans, Louisiana when he came upon a pit bull who had clearly just given birth and appeared to be very distressed. She was wandering around alone and there was no sign of her puppies, so the guard called animal control.

What happened next was shown on Animal Planet’s “Pit Bulls and Paroles,” and it’s touching the hearts of people all over the world.

“I got a call from a local security guard about an emaciated dog that was roaming the parking lot,” said Tia Torres, who hosts the show. “A dog loose on the streets of New Orleans can be a real issue and it’s clear she just had litter of puppies and was currently nursing.”

Tia is the founder of Villalobos Rescue Center, a New Orleans-based rehabilitation and rescue facility that helps dogs who have been abandoned. Their main focus is on helping pit bulls.

Workers with he rescue center rushed out as soon as the guard called them. When they found the pit bull, they could tell that she was in pain, but they were surprised by how friendly she was. The pit bull came to them as soon as they called her, and once she was on a leash, she proceeded to lead them to a nearby house.

When the rescue workers questioned the man inside the house, they learned that the dog’s owner was currently in jail and the man in the house had supposedly been taking care of her as well as her newborn puppies. However, the rescue workers doubted that the man had been taking care of the dogs and her puppies at all.

“The guy says he’s been taking care of her but it’s pretty clear that he hasn’t,” one worker said. “You don’t have a dog at home that looks like this. This is something that you’d think running the streets for months.”

The workers tried to take the pit bull and her puppies away, but the man refused to give them up. The rescue team, however, was not going to leave without the puppies.

“The first two they appeared to be okay,” one of them said. “The second two puppies, though, they looked like they had some trouble. I don’t think these guys were taking care of the puppies whatsoever. But it is a relief that everybody’s accounted for.”

The two puppies had to be rushed to their mother so that they could be nursed before it was too late, and thankfully, the workers reunited them just in time. The mother’s reaction to being reunited with her puppies is beyond priceless!

The puppies have since made a full recovery, as has their mother! Find out more about their story in the video below!