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Vee DeOllos-Hudson had a good question: What do you do when you see that a dog might have run away, escaped from his owner’s home or is a stray?
When I see a loose dog, I usually don’t do anything at all. It sounds bad, but there are a lot of dogs wandering around in my area. So many people don’t leash their dogs; they just let them be loose.
If the dog is obviously scared and lost, then I might try to get her to come to me so I can see if she is wearing ID tags. If the dog appears to be aggressive or in danger, that’s when it is a good idea to call animal control. But if the dog has tags, I’d just call the owner myself.
Unfortunately a lot of lost dogs don’t have tags. In this case, I would bring the dog to the pound or call animal control to pick it up. Once a dog is at the pound in Fargo, she has three business days to be claimed by her owner. Other cities might allow more time, but here it’s only three days.
It’s not really a surprise that a high number of impounded dogs are never reunited with their owners. If I brought a lost dog to the pound, I would probably already be emotionally attached to her and would be calling every day to see if she found her owner. Then I would most likely adopt her temporarily until a shelter had room. It’s costly to “bail” a dog out of the pound, though. Even if it’s your own dog, you have to pay a fee, plus boarding for each day the dog stayed there.
Animal shelters will often take in the most adoptable dogs from the pound, but shelters have limited space and can only do so much.
What do you do when you see a lost dog? What is the best thing to do?
Email your dog-related question to me at Lindsay@thatmutt.com, and I’ll post it for others to answer. Click here to read all my weekly question posts.
(Image from interestingjobs.blogspot.com)
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September 16th, 2008 at 6:01 am
I look to see if there is someone close by first - the dog may not be lost at all, but being elusive. Next, I ask around the area about it. If there is truly no place it belongs then I take the dog to a no-kill shelter or rescue. There are many dogs that don’t wear a leash around here also so it does not happen often.
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September 16th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Yeah, that is a good idea to ask around. If a dog really is lost someone might be looking for it.
September 16th, 2008 at 9:54 am
This actually happened to me, and my husband a couple years back. He was on his way home from dropping me off, and it was in the middle of winter. When he came to pick me up, he looked me dead in the eye and said, we have a dog! I said I know we have two dogs honey lol. He said no, we have another now. I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t really want a third dog, why did we have one. I listened as he told me his story. This dog just came up to me, it’s a little dog, he looked badly treated he laid down at my feet and rolled over onto his belly, just begging for some affection. My heart melted, I couldn’t turn the dog away, and I hadn’t even met it yet.
We get home, and the dog does look bad, hes dirty, and has a big patch of hair missing from his back. I get him in the tub and all cleaned up. Cut away any mats. Then I am left with what to do with this dog. He’s adorable, and he is very well behaved. He must belong to someone, but that someone has either lost him for a long time, or didn’t care for him in the first place. What turned out to be the most amazing thing, is that the day we got him, that night was the coldest night of the year, and I don’t think he would have survived it.
We wait several days checking out all lost dog leads and nothing comes up. We give him a name, we call him Max, and we think of who would want this beautiful little doggie, who brings you his food bowl when hes hungry, who is getting along well with my other dogs?
Then we come up with the perfect pair, my husbands grandparents, who lost their dog several years back, I just knew this little shitzu would be the perfect match for them. I brought him over all clean and buttered them up, and before they knew it, they had a new dog lol.
It’s been a couple years since they got max, and he is all my husband’s grandma can talk about. Max is a new light in their lives, all of his hair has grown back, and hes in the best shape he could be in.
I think back to that day, and what would have happened if my husband had just kept on walking past this dog, and I am so proud of him for stopping and taking in this animal. While it may not always be safe to do such a thing, this was one time that we were glad we did.
September 16th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Thats what might’ve happened to our mutt walter. He came to the shelter as a stray- he was completely matted from head to toe. We brought him home and he was a very mild-mannered pup. We were thinking some one clearly lost him. Sometimes I feel very bad though- He is such a sweetie someone must be missing him very dearly.
vees last blog post..National Pet Memorial Day, Tribute for Pearl
September 16th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
I have them checked by the veterinarian and keep them at my home while I try to find the owner. If none is found in a reasonable time, I have always been able to find a good home for dogs I’ve found. In fact, I now have two strays.
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September 16th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I think it depends on the situation for me. We don’t see many dogs wandering around loose near us. I have called our humane society several times on a dog that I know escapes from his yard. He is not friendly and his humans are never home.
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September 16th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Hmm, tough call!
We’re quite lucky as we know most of the dog owners on our street and adjoining estate so we can identify most of the dogs pretty quickly and know if they need catching or are likely to look lost when really they’re just playing independent — one JRT likes to take himself home from a walk and leave his owner up in the woods! It’s also a very quiet area so there isn’t a lot of danger from road traffic.
If we did find one, we’d take it in and keep it with us I think, providing it got on with all our dogs. We have dog food, spare leads/collars, a crate and bedding etc so it wouldn’t be a problem until the owner or a new home was found. If it didn’t get on with our dogs, we’d probably send it to the rescue centre we do a lot of work for, as we know the owner and would be certain it would get a loving spot there.
You can usually spot a lost dog by it’s behaviour, they tend to be running erratically or looking for someone. A dog trotting purposefully along the pavement and ignoring you probably knows where he’s heading.
September 16th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
We’ve never had to deal with this in NYC, because ANY dog off lead has got to be a lost dog, but that also makes the decision easy - any unleashed dog, if it’s not being aggressive, we’d try to get into a contained location and then try to find a no-kill shelter if we couldn’t track down its owner. But #1 priority would be to get it off the street before it gets hit by a car.
P.S. Left you an award on my blog.
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September 17th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
When we see a dog we can tell has just gotten away from home (look fat and healthy or has a collar and name tag on) we try to get it to come to us. We got a pair of lovely golden retreivers back to their owner that way.
We also ended up with Rusty that way since he had no collar and no owner came forth to claim him.
September 17th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
I used to be a lost doggy, and a nice family tried to find my owner, then kept me for their own when nobody came for me.