A family found an abandoned dog on the side of a highway with fur so matted it took four hours to shave before nursing him back to full health and adopting him. Laura Chapman and sister Carla were driving along a highway near Houston, Texas, on March 31, when they spotted what appeared to be a dog hiding in the high grass. After pulling over, Carla, 38, approached the pooch for the first time and the sisters assumed the poodle-mix was a farm dog escaped from a nearby ranch. But when they noticed the dog’s fur was matted and he was standoffish, Laura, 33, said the sisters realized it was likely he had been dumped. Despite the dog being nervous, Laura revealed "it was like our souls connected with eye contact," and so she took him back to the car and helped him into the back seat with her daughter. After asking locals if they knew the dog, and with nobody seeing it before, Laura and her family took him home and fed him, before bringing him to a vet to be checked for a chip. When no chip was found, the vets cleaned him up and gave him a medical examination – but because the pooch's fur was so matted, it took four and a half hours to shave him down, Laura said.