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An Agoura Hills-based animal rescue organization needs donations to help care for a 7- to 10-year-old Maltese dog found suffering from severe burns over half her body in North Hollywood earlier this week, volunteers said.

Candy, as she’s been named, was brought to the Veterinary Angels Medical Center after being found and turned over to the East Valley Animal Shelter in Van Nuys in August. The dog had extensive burns on her sides and rear legs believed to have been caused by chemicals or being set on fire with an accelerant. The gruesome injuries left the dog without much of her skin.

Volunteers from the Little Angeles Project in Agoura Hills took in Candy on Tuesday. But she has a long road to recovery, with many procedures needed in the near future.

“She was burned over about at least half of her body,” Veterinary Angels Veterinarian Yvette Archie told KTLA. “It scalded, or basically just took off, her top layer of skin.”

And Archie said she doesn’t believe it was an accident.

“It looks like it’s probably something intentional, and that’s so sad,” she said.

The Little Angeles Founder Darlene Geekie said the abuse was “horrific.”

“Nobody wants to ever believe that somebody would do something like this to an animal,” she said.

Candy is not the only badly abused dog to turn up in the area recently, according to the animal care organization.

Two other dogs have been found with unexplained burns in recent months, and another dog was found with all of its legs broken, Little Angels Project founder Darlene Geekie told KTLA.

For more information, or to make a donation, visit The Little Angels Project web site.

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