Bentley is one of 20 dogs that Animal Rescue Corps rescued last week from an abandoned property about an hour-and-a-half from Nashville.
Three dead dogs were discovered, among the living.
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Animal Rescue Corps spokesperson Michael Cunningham tells BarkPost Bentley just escaped that fate.
Bentley would have died, he says, "like the three that didn't make it. Either died slowly from exposure or starving to death."
Instead, Bentley is now at a temporary emergency shelter, where he, and the other survivors, are being cared for.
Bentley's rescue was just one of five major operations that Animal Rescue Corps undertook in Tennessee last week on the group's five-year anniversary.
Another involved 31 dogs who'd been living in the woods with their owner, who was ill but wouldn't seek help for himself until he knew his dogs were also safe.
"Members of the community have been working with this man to improve his way of life and this rescue is part of it," ARC President Scotlund Haisley said in a statement.
"He wasn't going to abandon the dogs and accept the help for himself without first finding a group to take the dogs. We are very glad to be able to assist."
In all, ARC - working with local law enforcement and rescue groups - rescued more than 124 dogs last week, along with some abandoned pet mice, rats and a cat.
Some came from hoarding situations or were abandoned and left to die.
All of them, like Bentley, now can look forward to luxuriously normal lives - being "loved, adored and every need fulfilled," Cunningham says.
"No more bad days! No more hunger," he says. "No more freezing, over-heating, rain, fleas, ticks, flies, broken glass, sharp rusty metal. And no more living on and under a broken-down, crappy Grand Am."
Follow Animal Rescue Corps on their Facebook page. You can donate to Bentley and the other animals' care here.
And get in touch at [email protected] if you have an animal story to share!
Featured image via Amiee Stubbs/Animal Rescue Corps
