Alone in the woods for days, a 3-year-old German shepherd barked and barked in hopes someone would hear her.

She had been tied up without any food or water, and she waited for her owner to return, but each day she was disappointed. Still, the dog wouldn’t give up hope that someone would find her.

Finally, a nearby resident decided to report the dog’s frantic cries for help.

“I got a call from one resident who said that there was a dog tied somewhere in the back of their building, and the dog was hollering and screaming all night long,” Alex Kelly, an animal control officer with New Jersey’s Irvington Township, told The Dodo. “So I asked her, ‘How long has the dog been hollering, and barking?’ And she said, ‘I’m going to be honest with you, the dog’s been back there at least three days.’”

Kelly rushed to meet the resident, but when they both went to investigate the back of the building complex, there was no dog.

Scanning the area, Kelly spotted a soft, brown head peeking above a thicket across a river.

Kelly eventually found the anxious dog tethered to a tree by a thick cable, sitting on a pile of trash, with only a plastic doghouse and a few empty bowls to protect her from the hot day.

Approaching the nervous animal, Kelly saw that the cable was wrapped tightly around her leg, putting pressure on it.

“Had it been another day or so, the circulation in her leg would have been cut off, and she probably would have ended up losing the limb,” Kelly said.

Kelly moved slowly to gain the dog’s trust, putting a snare around her neck so he could hold her still while he freed her from the cord. He disposed of the dog crate and bowls so no one could abandon a dog in the lonely place again.

While she was wary of Kelly at first, the dog finally began to calm down, realizing that he was there to help. When they got back to the truck, Kelly hooked a leash to her collar, and by the time they arrived at an animal shelter in Newark, she was a whole new dog.

“I put on a leash, and she was perfect,” Kelly said. “She’s a nice dog. She’ll make someone a nice pet.”

The shelter named her Genesis to signify a new beginning after a life of neglect. After a medical examination and plenty of food and water, Genesis was transferred to the Associated Humane Popcorn Park Shelter. Shelter workers could see life had not been easy for Genesis, even before she was abandoned.

“It’s obvious that Genesis has been bred in the past and likely made her owner a great deal of money with her adorable puppies, yet this is how she was repaid,” the shelter wrote in a Facebook post. “That is all a thing of the past now, as we will help her to put her terrible past out of her mind and focus on her future.”

Despite her mistreatment, Genesis loves people and is eager to show off her affectionate nature. While she’s still shy when meeting new people, shelter workers quickly realized it didn’t take much to win the sweet dog over.

“Within minutes of knowing you, she nudges her head against your hand and wants you to pet her,” the shelter wrote. “If you should stop, she’ll nudge you again for more attention.”

It didn’t take long for a family to fall in love with the shy dog, and, just a few weeks after her rescue, Genesis settled in at a her new quiet, loving home.