Earlier this week, emergency workers in the Russian city of Khabarovsk rescued a dog that had been trapped between two buildings for more than three years. When it was still a puppy, the dog was immured in the gap between a high-rise apartment building and a small grocery store, the Vesti-Khabarovsk television network reported.

Realizing that the dog wouldn’t be able to escape, the building’s residents fed the animal and kept it alive. Locals made multiple appeals to city officials, trying to save the dog, but there was no response for three years.

For those three years it was trapped between the buildings, the dog only had space to poke its head through a small gap. When they finally responded, rescuers merely had to widen the gap slightly by chipping away at some of the bricks. With a hole large enough, a local animal rights activist then crawled between the walls and pulled out the dog.

According to reports, a family has already volunteered to adopt the animal.