The only problem with pets is that they don’t live long enough, and Kaley Cuoco, who’s still grieving the death of her dog Dump Truck, is no stranger to loss. After giving a new life to King, who was starving and scared when she rescued him, Cuoco was desperate to save the ailing dog, who was dying from a mysterious illness. Now Kaley Cuoco, an animal lover and advocate wants to warn others.

The actress shared photos of King, showing images of the little dog, shaved and covered bandages after life-saving surgery. When Kaley Cuoco and her partner Tom Pelphrey rescued King from a shelter in Atlanta, the little dog was “scrawny, underweight scared and hairless.” Nursing him to health and tre ating him like “a king,” King Cuoco-Pelphry quickly earned his position as “His Majesty.”

But recently, the star of Big Bang Theory warned pet owners of the fatal foxtail plant that was slowly killing King in a two-month battle. Addressing her “dog lovers out there,” Cuoco, 37, shared an image of a wispy foxtail plant resting on her leg, with the caption:

“This is a foxtail. They are extremely dangerous to animals esp dogs .. we spent the last 2 months trying to figure out what was wrong [with] our King.” She continued, “He had been violently ill and nothing was working. Many vet appts, surgery and endless meds. Finally found a specialist who found 2 of these in his body days away from piercing his heart !!”

WedMD explains that foxtail, if not removed, can lead to “serious infection” or death: “The barbed seed heads of the foxtail plant can work their way into any part of your dog or cat, from the nose to between the toes and inside the ears, eyes and mouth. They can even simply dig themselves directly into a patch of skin.”

The feathery foxtail plant, commonly found in the Western United States, is known to move “relentlessly forward, never back, they can migrate from inside your dogs’ nose to its brain. They can dig through skin or be inhaled into–and then perforate–a lung.”