My other half has brought home a dog which appeared to have been abandoned (for at least 6 hours) in a very large park. She rang the council from the park to be told they could send a dog warden, but not till tomorrow, so she'd 'have to take it home'. So she did.

When the warden comes to take it away tomorrow, what will they do with it? They won't kill it, will they? It's a healthy six month old or so dog.

Dogs have to be kept for 7 days by law in a pound or holding kennels to give the owner a chance to reclaim their dog. Alternatively the finder can look after the dog but has to notify the authorities they have the dog - I think in that situation the finder cannot rehome the dog/take it on themselves until a period of 30(?) days has passed.

Please put the dog on DogLost site as they are brilliant at reuniting dogs and owners and it's a free service with a huge following. Although it may appear to be an abandoned dog it may be a stolen dog or a straying dog and owners may desperately be trying to find their pet.

http://www.doglost.co.uk/

You could also telephone all your local vets to see if anyone has contacted them re loosing their dog.
And possible put up a post on FB?
But definitely register your find on Dogslost as already suggested.
Did the Dog Warden take your contact details in case the owner gets in touch with them? We're lucky here, we have a 24 hour emergency number for our local authority, and the person who answered the phone when I called to report a found dog in the early evening was very helpful.

Are you able to take it to a vet to see if it's chipped?

Many thanks. I'll definitely put it on dogslost.

The warden I think said she'd ring back but hasn't.

Do the wardens/council not check whether they are chipped?

And - assuming for the sake of argument - that it's not claimed after a certain time, then what happens to it?

>And - assuming for the sake of argument - that it's not claimed after a certain time, then what happens to it?

If a rescue has a place they may well take the dog but if not it will be PTS if a new home/rescue place cannot be found.

>Do the wardens/council not check whether they are chipped?

They should do but it's amazing how often a chip is missed. A halo scanner is the best model of scanner to use as it reads chips implanted in all European countries - 10 or 15 digit chips - and also some of the chips used in the USA -although there are a couple of american chip companies that it can't read.

Thank you for putting the dog on DogLost :-)

What will happen to it if not claimed after the 7 days I guess depends on your council. Here the council has a non-destruct policy and the dogs are offered for rehoming.

We've put it on doglost. I do hope somebody turns up and claims him. He's a young entire male, whereas all our dogs are entire bitches, of which two are about to come into season, and we're not at all set up for the separation.

On the other hand, I can't hand over a healthy, young, very nice dog to be killed.

So I really hope he turns out to have been lost, not abandoned.

A friend foudn a lost terrier a couple of weeks ago and rang me for advise, they didn't want her to go tothe pound/kennels as she was clean and well fed, wearing nice collar.  Took her to vets and shewas chipped, but thephone number was no longer valid.  I told her that they had to report to Council, but they would be able to keep her with them till claimed etc.  However, the "phonline" operater for the council said this was not so, and the Dog Warden turned up on the doorstep and insisted on taking the little dog to kennels.  Later that evenign owners got in touch hainng see Facebook notices, but she could not be reclaimed till next day as in kennels.  Has there been a change in the law about keeping dogs till claimed or might this only be 1 LA?

Gwen I've Hurd the same thing from someone who found a dog. They called council to inform them about it and That they wanted to look after it untill owners found. They were also told u can't do that and warden must come and take it. I guess it's down to the council's to decide if dogs can stay with the finder or not.

I was surprised to lurn on the gov website that if you adopt a stray dog you are not the leagle owner of it and its orignal owner can still claim it back even years later!

"Tell your council if you want to adopt the dog - they'll probably check if you're suitable as a dog owner before you can adopt it.
Even if you adopt the dog, the legal ownership of the dog is never transferred to you.
This means that the original owner could claim their dog back at any time, even if you've had the dog for several months or years."
https://www.gov.uk/report-stray-dog

I was surprised to lurn on the gov website that if you adopt a stray dog you are not the leagle owner of it and its orignal owner can still claim it back even years later!


That depends on whether the dog was lost or abandoned. If the original owner can be reasonably proved to have abandoned it, they instantly lose all claims on the dog. I seem to remember Trevor Cooper used an example of tying a dog up outside a shop. Do it for half an hour and it is reasonable to think that the owner is coming back, and hence if you take the dog it is theft. After 6 hours however it is reasonable to think that the owner has abandoned it.

Yes but it must be heart breaking if someone adopted a dog that was found as a stray just wandering about and unclaimed rather than abandoned then years later it's orignal owner pops up saying it escaped and they want it back.

I rember reading of a stolen dog sold to new owners and the police wouldn't get involved as the dog was brought in good faith, would it not be be the same as the new owner adopted the dog in good faith?

> if you adopt a stray dog you are not the leagle owner of it and its orignal owner can still claim it back even years later!

Why do we see cases regularly in newspapers where people finally locate their lost dogs with a new family and cant get them back then?

The Doglaw page about stray dogs says:
"A finder of a stray dog is obliged to forthwith return the dog to its owner or take it to the local authority. Failure to do so is a criminal offence.

If you have lost your dog you should notify the local authority and keep in regular contact with them.

If after 7 clear days the owner of a stray dog has not come forward then the Council may give the dog to someone else and the original owner's claim to the dog is likely to come to an end."

Dealing with the council has been as much fun as it always is. When I asked if there was no chance they could come in, say, the morning to collect the dog rather than "some time today", as I may need to go out, they told me to "leave him outside, tied to the front of the property".

They also told me that, having taken him into my house, he is now my responsibility, which, though it feels morally true, I suspect is legally just a lie.

I really hope the council don't kill him after 7 days. He's a super-affectionate, ultra-vigorous, quite good-looking young animal. Slept very peacefully in a crate in our room last night. Seems weird then to just send off to possible death, but we really can't take him in permanently.

BeagleBaggie

Was there any reason why you couldn't have taken him to a vet to scan?  This is what I've always done before making any other calls - if a dog is chipped it's then a really quick process to get him back to his owner. 

The last time this occurred I discovered the dog wasn't chipped but brought him back home and trawled through all the dog lost info online and rang all the local vets.  I found the owner eventually :)

How about contacting the Dogs trust or whatever they are called and explaining the situation?

Hi dogs a babe.

The main reason was that I realised that, strictly speaking, the legal position is that you're supposed to hand over any dog you take in to the council. Making your own efforts to track down the owners is not what you're "supposed" to do. I work in a field which means I always have to do precisely what you're "supposed" to do and observe every letter of the law to an unusual degree. Doubtless seems odd, but is how it is for me.

If he has actually been lost rather than abandoned, his owners are bound to contact the council, and will therefore get him back. In the meantime, he has been very well looked after; they will doubtless have been worried, but I am lot more concerned about what could ultimately happen to him if he has been abandoned.  A young (I hadn't seen him myself when I posted six months above; he's actually more like a year) entire Staffie running around an urban park all day with no collar I think that's more likely.

> you're supposed to hand over any dog you take in to the council

That's not my interpretation of the law - and not my local councils either!  They are more than happy for finders to speak to a vet, or other scanner, first and them second.  I told the dog warden that I was going to make some calls and we agreed to speak again later that day to decide next steps if no owner had been found.  In the meantime he was going to check his records too...

I think that notifying the council is the important bit as most LA's don't have holding facilities or much time either.  On this occasion I had both :)

Don't forget to add as many details as you can to our very own Missing Dog Forum!!

Warden came late morning, scanned him very thoroughly with the same scanner they have at our vets, and he had no chip, as suspected.

The good news, though, was she said the only dogs they kill are very aggressive/dangerous ones; all the rest are kept till they can be rehomed. Was a huge relief, as I felt like we'd have had to have him back after the 7 days if the alternative was a lethal injection, but he really wasn't the right dog at the right time for us. Hopefully he will be for somebody else now though.

Many thanks for everybody's advice, which was very helpful.