Careful with animal control. At least up here the county has a terrible reputation for putting down dogs asap they consider "non adoptable". I found a mutt a few years ago that came right up to me on a very busy street, jumped right in my car, friendly as hell. I took it to animal control and checked back the next day. It had already been euthanized. I was going to keep it if not claimed. The stupid desk person said I had 72 hours. She made no mention that if their expert determined the dog not be be adoptable they killed them right away.

This has come to a end, my son called my wife and said he took the pup to the local animal shelter.:( The folks at the shelter said there will be no problem finding a new home for the pup in 24-48 hours. We wish the pup a happy life :)

They're going to give it away without giving the original owner a chance to claim it? That sucks.

This is why I hope everyone with a dog gets it chipped. We did it immediately. Best $25 you'll ever spend.

A responsible dog owner has up to date info on the tag and would have called the pound hours after the dog disappeared.

G

You can try one more thing re: the newspaper; check the lost pet ads to see if someone posted one for that dog.

We had a big mutt (around 100 lb) show up in our neighborhood.

Dog loving neighbor takes the dog in but has two medium size dogs and worries about them all spending the night together.

So she asks me if he can spend the night in the dog run I built on the side of the house (complete with dog house).

Dog was very well behaved through the night but woke me early in the morning... apparently he had enough of the dog run.

Neighbor went out door to door and found the owner. I occasionally see him out walking the dog... and he has no idea the dog spent the night at my house.

Sometimes people are just goofy. This holiday season, one of the folks in my office didn't think to do that and though the pound called her cell she couldn't retrieve the message (don't ask me, she is generally pretty with it as she is one of the receptionists and no complaints about her). Anyway, she eventually calls the pound and finds out that though the dog is licensed with her name/# on it they only keep animals for 5 days. She was told that the dog was "adopted by folks out of state" and "she can't get it back" (sounds like code for euthanasia to me). Crying all afternoon.:(

Even with an out of date phone number on the tag, the owner could easily get the dog back, if they wanted it.

Simply call the old phone number (you know, the one they had engraved on the tag, the poster tells us that someone currently answers that number), tell the current holder of the phone number that the dog is lost, and if any calls, to give out the new number.

Doesn't take a genius to figure that out - they probably don't really want the dog back.

Why didn't you ask the phone company for the owner's name?

In case you missed it in my original post we called the phone # on the tag and the people that answered stated they did NOT lose a dog. Tracing the number I'm guessing would have pointed to the people we spoke to on the phone. I really believe they abandoned the dog and didn't want to admit it. The dog is gone hopefully to responsible pet owners.

No, I would have asked the phone company for the previous owners of the number.