When two runners were out blazing the Frozen Head Trail in Tennessee, they had no idea what they would find. They saw a black animal wiggling in the bushes and feared it was a bear. However, when they came closer they realized the animal wasn’t just one animal, it was several. Several tiny puppies that had been abandoned on the trail.

Ashley Blake, and her trainer Scott, were out running and it was a small rustling in the leaves that caught their attention. While they were used to hearing animals along the trail, this one seemed to be different so they stopped to investigate, and boy were they glad they did.

Huddled together in a pile of leaves were five brown and black puppies. They were without food and there was no mother in sight. Temperatures were nearly at freezing and the babies had no blanket or shelter to keep them warm. They had obviously been abandoned on purpose and left to die.

The runners knew they couldn’t leave the pups there or they would surely die so they contacted a park ranger for help. Ashley and Scott cuddled the pups to keep them warm until help could arrive. Soon a ranger came to rescue the pups.

The ranger told the runners that this wasn’t the first litter of puppies that had been abandoned in this particular area of the trail. He explained that an old abandoned road comes near the trail in that area, and it is often the spot where animals get dumped and left to die.

The ranger took them to his home for the night where he fed them and offered them a warm place to rest. The next day he took them to an animal shelter so they could be adopted by loving families. Scott and Ashley stopped by the Oak Ridge Animal Shelter to visit the puppies they had helped rescue and Scott decided he wanted to adopt one himself.

Scott took home one of the male puppies and named him Barkley. The shelter named the other puppies Willow, Winky, Winnie, and Wendy and they are waiting to be adopted in to loving homes just like Barkley.

In the meantime, the shelter is keeping them safe, warm, and healthy. The shelter recently gave an update on the pups saying they had all been adopted into loving homes and had a life full of happiness ahead of them thanks to Ashley, Scott, and the park ranger who came to their rescue.