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Found a Pet? |
| You’ve found an animal. What should you do? 1. Try to find the owners. First, check the animal for tags and if it has them, contact the owner immediately. If there are no tags, put up signs in the neighborhood where you found the animal. Many people don’t want to take the animal to the shelter in fear the dog will be automatically euthanized. However, this is the place where many pets and their owners are reunited. Even if the animal does not have tags, it may have escaped from a yard and if it is microchipped, it’s owner could be determined when the shelter scans the animal for the chip. If you want to keep tabs on the animal, get the impound number from the shelter and track it through the shelter system to determine when the animal will be available for adoption if the owner doesn’t show up. You can also place “First Rights” on the animal so that you can adopt it when it does come up for adoption. Remember to check out the shelters where logs are kept of owners looking lost dog or cats and see if any of the descriptions matches your animal’s. If you decide against taking the animal to the shelter, many veterinarian’s offices can also scan the animal for a microchip. If no microchip is found, you must place ads in local newspapers and place “Found” flyers in the area where the animal was roaming for at least 10 days before you can legally claim ownership of the animal and try to find it a new home or keep it for your own. When placing an ad be vague in your description, note the area the animal was found in and your telephone number. This is to ensure that the people calling are truly the animal’s owner. Make sure they can give a description of the animal and ask for the animal’s name to see how it reacts when called. If so far so good, ask to see proof of ownership in veterinary records, dog licenses or a photo of the animal. Most newspapers will place “Found” ads free of charge. 2. If you cannot find the owner, consider fostering the animal and working with a rescue group to find a new home. We do suggest when contacting these organizations that you consider keeping the animal in your home as a foster until a new home can be found (at least temporarily). Most rescue organizations and shelters are full but they would be happy to help you find a home by letting you bring the animal to their adopt-a-pet locations on weekends and posting the animal on their website and petfinder.org. They can usually help defray some of the costs of fostering as well as help you with screening potential new homes. Please have the animal spayed or neutered as soon as possible as it may increase the possibility a shelter will take in your animal….and please, please, never adopt your animal to someone without having it “fixed” first. Low cost and/or free spay-neuter is available at the HSUS Clinic (972 488 2964/ hsus.org) and through Spay Neuter Your Pet (http://www.wwoww.com/snyp) and the Metroplex Animal Coalition (214 343 3666/ http://www.metroplexanimalcoalition.com) If you do want to try to re-home a stray on your own, we highly suggest that you screen potential adopters thoroughly and charge an adoption fee of at least $50. There are people out there trying to make a buck and will look for FREE dogs and cats. They know just what to say and come across as very friendly animal lovers, but will turn around and sell that animal to a research lab or backyard breeder and the animal will live in deplorable conditions or worse, be killed, usually suffering. These people usually find their victims through ads in the paper for FREE dogs or cats. Here is a list of organizations to contact: A Different Breed Animal Rescue League Little Orphan Angels Treasured Friends Dog & Kitty City ( no kill shelter) Operation Kindness ( no kill shelter) SPCA of Texas ( shelter) Animal Refuge Foundation (sanctuary) Companion Pet Rescue DFW Humane Society of Irving (shelter) East Lake Pet Orphanage Lexee’s Legacy Metroport Humane Society Serenity Springs Sanctuary Cat Specific Rescue Feral Friends Texas Cares Kittico Kool Kats Feline Rescue |
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