Police see a lot of different things while performing their job, but sometimes even the bravest of cops are left stunned by what they find.

So, when a Jefferson County, Missouri police officer came across an abandoned dog on a cold, February morning, he was horrified, to say the least.

It started with a ball of duct tape

When he found the dog, the temperatures were in the 30s. However, the Dachshund had been abandoned 12 hours prior and had to contend with overnight temperatures in the teens.

Worst of all, the dog had been bound with tape and had no way to escape the bone-chilling temperatures.

It pulled through the freezing night.

Hanging onto life by a thread, the dog, named Jimmy by the police officer, was taken to the officer’s car.

Carefully, the officer tried to peel the tape off of poor Jimmy. Then the officer rushed Jimmy to County Animal Control.

The staff took one look at Jimmy and immediately rushed him to Ivan Animal Hospital.

Jimmy received much-needed medical care

There, Jimmy was checked for serious injury and his wounds were treated.

“His prognosis looks very good. He has a little bit of a residual head tilt which basically implies that he is off balance a little bit, which when they tilt their head, they’re actually seeing straight ahead of us,” veterinarian Dr. Laura Ivan told FOX 2 News. “But he’s been happy, he wags his tail a lot, he’s active, he’s eating.”

Finding the person responsible

Despite Jimmy being okay, the officer was determined to find who had done such a horrendous thing to the dog.

Fortunately, he had kept all of the tape used to bind Jimmy.

“The deputy having that forethought to save that duct tape and took it back to the evidence lab and the techs worked on it for hours and they were able to slowly peel that duct tape apart and they found a fingerprint on the sticky side of it,” Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Grant Bissell said.

This in turn led to the arrest of the culprit who had abused Jimmy.

Checking the department’s database, the police were able to identify 39-year-old Paul Garcia, who had run-ins with the police in the past.

He was quickly arrested and charged with animal abuse and armed criminal action for using tape to bind Jimmy.

The search for Jimmy’s owner begins

Meanwhile, the search for Jimmy’s owner continued.

The animal hospital posted a picture of Jimmy and asked that any inquiries be made through the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

It didn’t go unanswered.

Eventually, a woman named Katie Kofron stepped forward, claiming Jimmy was her dog Flick.

Kofron was able to prove that she was the dog’s owner. It seemed that Flick had come up missing after she let him out to use the bathroom.

A Good Samaritan paid Flick’s vet bills.

In addition to being reunited with his owner, Flick received some more good news.

A local funeral chain owner had heard about his story and had stepped forward to pay all of Flick’s medical costs.

Learn more of Flick’s harrowing survival story below!

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Sources: YouTube – KSDK News, The Dodo, Facebook – Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office