Fifty-six dogs were rescued recently from a vacant home in Ooltewah by the Humane Educational Society, where officials are preparing the dogs for adoption and seeking help from volunteers and other agencies to temporarily house the animals.
The agency had been to the home several times over the past few weeks to check on the dogs in response to calls from neighbors, who expressed concerns about the large number of dogs living at the then-occupied property, Humane Educational Society Executive Director Rebecca Bryan said.
“There’s really no limit to the number of dogs you can own in Tennessee, so there’s really nothing for us to cite them for if they have a lot of dogs,” Bryan said by phone, adding the dogs seemed relatively well cared for during previous visits and the home’s occupant did not want to surrender the animals. “We didn’t have enough of a problem to step in and seize them legally.”
But last week, the agency received a call that the home’s occupant was no longer living at the property and had left 60 dogs behind in the yard. A neighbor took in several of the dogs and had been going by the property to feed the others, Bryan said.