[QUOTE=Sansena;7580172]
The fact that previous owner mentions a refund of money is a little thump on the head. I have a feeling once she realizes dog is neutered she wont’ be contacting you again.
Im also getting a head thump that this situation will bring you a boat load of crazy. Good luck with that.[/QUOTE]
Yes, I mentioned in the first reply email to her that she was spayed.
She is also microchipped with registration to our info, and has a tattoo to mark that she was spayed
Former owner just sent me two emails - I guess now that she knows the dog is staying with us it’s time for angry emails, lol.
I felt my email to her was kind but firm, but oh well.
She said “Wow! It is really sad people are very into them selves more than having a heart and compassion. Thanks for taking (dogs name) from us a second time”
She sent a “sad” pic of her baby son with the dog.
Then apparently she need to say more and sent another email stating: “She is seven years old. I am not going to waste my time you don’t care. just keep loving our dog”
Alrighty then…whatever.
I’m not going to reply, hopefully they’ll be no more communication and she’ll move on. At least with her facebook page, I know what she looks like in case she decides to go full crazy 
Wow. Well, that’s a little cray-cray. Maybe it wasn’t a car accident she was hospitalized for…
I know, I know. Mean Girls. We wear pink on Wednesdays.
[QUOTE=suz;7580577]
still sounds fishy to me. and I am truly sorry she was in an accident and lost her dog, but what’s done is done.
they can adopt a new dog from the shelter and let the shelter absorb the cost if that part’s even true.[/QUOTE]
Technically, I don’t see much evidence that the shelter did anything wrong. There is no reason for the shelter to absorb the cost.
As for what happened, I doubt anyone will ever really know the true story. A lot of people turn a dog over to a friend and don’t come back for the dog. Who knows who to believe in this case. It’s a strange story, but it is still hard for me to grasp why the shelter would ever mention this to an adopter. It just doesn’t seem like a good practice to me. If I were in the OP’s area and heard this story, it would definitely impact my decision as to whether or not to adopt from that shelter.
Yeah don’t reply.
And does the dog appear seven?
This is really getting strange (actually, it passed strange to looney tunes a few postings ago). OP said young, and now the old owner says the dog is 7? This is totally ridiculous, and then to have the previous owner (if they really are) say you stole their dog twice? Please be extra careful with someone who is this angry and removed from reality. If this person comes near you or on your property, then dial 911. They don’t sound rational at all. You definitely are the best home for this dog, and I’m glad you found each other.
I hate irresponsible pet owners more than probably anything else on the planet, so take that for what it’s worth…
Keep the dog.
My husband, my parents, my in laws, and myself would all have to be DEAD before my dog went somewhere where her whereabouts weren’t known every single day. No way is she gone for 5 months and I don’t know about it (unless I’m DEAD).
Mom in the story had two kids not in the hospital, and she didn’t farm them out to some rando. How hard would it have been to make sure the dog has food and water and gets outside a couple of times a day?
Sorry, but I call BS on the whole story. Good on you for standing your ground, OP.
Interesting thread. I agree with frenchfry and the others taken aback by the tone. OP and others sound very much as if they’re scrambling to justify an emotional decision - and not just the emotion of love for the dog. The quick, harsh assumption that the original owners were “lesser” makes it pretty clear that a lot of people are thinking of themselves with great satisfaction - we’re good owners, we’d NEVER breed a dog that wasn’t an AKC champion or a superlative duck retriever, etc. We’d NEVER not find our lost dog in 5 months. We’d NEVER lose our dog. Yeah, well, maybe.
Honestly, I look askance at people whose pets are on rotation through their extended family/friend circle. Not because I think I’d NEVER do that, but because it’s a phenom you see frequently in bite cases - somehow, the owner is always 3 states away and didn’t realize Aunt Joan gave Primal the pit to his cousin Soda, who gave it away on CL… Chaos. So I get being cautious. I just don’t buy the unbreakable bond between a person and their pet of 5 months, or the idea that the original owner deserves to be scorned and ignored (which is what sending an email saying “Yeah, thanks for the inquiry, sorry about you losing your dog, he’s happy now, though.” is saying.
Also confused about the disconnect between OP saying the dog is young, and original owner saying the dog is 7. I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure a dog’s teeth show the difference very clearly.
Keep the dog. Block the e-mail.
I’m not quite buying the story either, not all of it. I’m sure it was her dog at one time, and I suppose I believe the accident part, but the rest seems a little fishy.
Wow. Well it’s all fine and good if you have a devoted family surrounding you, but what if you didn’t? What if you had to trust a friend to take care of your dog? What if you think this friend is a wonderful person who is going to take great care of your pet…except she doesn’t. You have no way of knowing…you are in the hospital or recovering from a serious accident.
So you finally are well enough to go get your dog…except your dog is gone. You search and search and call all over looking for your dog. You FINALLY find out what happened to your dog…but wait…the person that has YOUR dog won’t give it back.
Tell me…how pissed off would you be??
I guess I’m saying this because everyone is jumping on the fact that angry emails were exchanged…well I can completely understand that.
[QUOTE=Casey09;7580609]
snip … but it is still hard for me to grasp why the shelter would ever mention this to an adopter. It just doesn’t seem like a good practice to me. If I were in the OP’s area and heard this story, it would definitely impact my decision as to whether or not to adopt from that shelter.[/QUOTE]
This is the exact reason, the shelter should NOT have made any contact to the adopter. Shelters either kill animals or adopt them out. It’s a sad story for the original dog owner. Sad stories happen every day. Dogs get lost, killed, stolen, etc.
A microchip is cheap prevention to this type of sad story.
The original owner didn’t chip the dog. Sad for her and her kid.
And this is why contact wasn’t a good idea. Drama. It was pretty much guaranteed to happen.
Hope this will be the end of it.
I had something similar happen when I was a kid, minus the drama llama.
When I was 7 or 8ish we adopted a JRT mix that was brought into the shelter as a “stray”. It was clear he’d been hit by a car as he had a back leg that didn’t quite work right and he skipped when he trotted. He was also very fearful of men (this becomes important later) and acted like he’d never been in a house before. He was quirky but overall a great dog.
About 6 months to 1 year after we adopted him, we hired a painted to come and do some work in the house. Normally Rocko was fearful and a little aggressive towards strange men. However, he LOVED the painter. We were afraid that he was Rocko’s old owner. Turns out, he was a neighbor to the owner who was horribly neglectful to the dog. He lived the first year of his life tied to a tree with nothing but a rusted out car for shelter. The painter was the only person who had showed the dog love. He’d come over everyday and feed and play with him. Rocko had been hit by a car and when the owners didn’t take him to the vet after several months, the painter threatened to call animal control. The next day Rocko was gone and he didn’t see him again until he came to our house.
We were terrified that he’d ask to take the dog. I was a kid and the family had fallen in love with him. The painter was just SO thankful that he had such a wonderful home. We told him that he’s welcome to come to the dog park and play with him whenever he wanted. We never saw him again though as far as I remember.
Rocko lived to 15. It was a happy ending to a rough beginning for a quirky little terrier.
[QUOTE=hosspuller;7580775]
This is the exact reason, the shelter should NOT have made any contact to the adopter. Shelters either kill animals or adopt them out. It’s a sad story for the original dog owner. Sad stories happen every day. Dogs get lost, killed, stolen, etc.
A microchip is cheap prevention to this type of sad story.
The original owner didn’t chip the dog. Sad for her and her kid.[/QUOTE]
she also never spayed her 7 yr old dog.
OP- please keep all emails to cover you ass if ANYTHING weird starts happening.
Keep the dog. We have this happen more frequently then people would expect and the majority of the time tell the old owners nothing can be done. The animal was held for the legal holding period and has now legally been adopted to a new family. We have also had scumbag family/friends bring in animals as strays while the animal owner is deployed, on vacation or traveling for work. 
Those are completely different scenarios and are handled on a case by case. Though even with deployments the owner usually gets wind that Fido is missing fairly quickly.
FWIW, we have also had some whackjobs file FOIA requests for adopter information and sadly found out we had to comply with the FOIA request. The couple of times that happened the adopter was called with a heads up.
It’s a little concerning to me (okay, more than a little) that the shelter didn’t vet this out a little more. The fact that the dog was unaltered and owner got nasty leads me to believe this situation is not as she says.
I can imagine special situations where maybe it really would make sense to give a pet back. Just making one up but lets say that I got hit by a bus tomorrow. DH is overseas, no family within 1k miles, dogs would probably end up in a shelter. Might be really hard for my family to find the dogs quickly and they’d likely be adopted out because they’re such wonderful mutts! So I come out of a coma and desperately want my dogs back. I would really hope that could happen. My one dog is like my kid. He’s 10 YO and I’ve worked second jobs to pay for his medical issues.
It would be so devastating to lose my dogs.
But if horrible things happened and 5 mos later someone had them, maybe I’d be okay. No. I wouldn’t. I’d want them back. I would do everything in my power to get them back.
[QUOTE=NorCalDressage;7580080]
I did google her name, nothing really comes up. I did find her facebook page - know it’s her because the kids’ pictures match, but there are no pics of the dog. Which doesn’t really mean too much - she may have non-public pics.[/QUOTE]
Was there anything on her facebook page mentioning her car accident and how long she was in the hospital? Just curious.
FWIW, I adopted a young dog from a shelter about 7 weeks ago. If the shelter called me tomorrow with a similar story, the answer would be “no.”
[QUOTE=RHdobes563;7580940]
Was there anything on her facebook page mentioning her car accident and how long she was in the hospital? Just curious.
FWIW, I adopted a young dog from a shelter about 7 weeks ago. If the shelter called me tomorrow with a similar story, the answer would be “no.”[/QUOTE]
Her “wall” was not public. Just some photos - about 15 were public.
She’s a dobie, BTW 
[QUOTE=vacation1;7580698]
Interesting thread. I agree with frenchfry and the others taken aback by the tone. OP and others sound very much as if they’re scrambling to justify an emotional decision - and not just the emotion of love for the dog. The quick, harsh assumption that the original owners were “lesser” makes it pretty clear that a lot of people are thinking of themselves with great satisfaction - we’re good owners, we’d NEVER breed a dog that wasn’t an AKC champion or a superlative duck retriever, etc. We’d NEVER not find our lost dog in 5 months. We’d NEVER lose our dog. Yeah, well, maybe.
(…)
Also confused about the disconnect between OP saying the dog is young, and original owner saying the dog is 7. I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure a dog’s teeth show the difference very clearly.[/QUOTE]
I certainly have no problem with responsible people breeding “non-AKC Champion” dogs. However this dog has obvious leg conformation issues - she should IMO not be reproducing.
I don’t feel I made unfair judgements about the former owner. The “I was in the hospital” story is a common one among scammers, liars, etc. Yes, it could be true, but more likely not. Call me skeptical - maybe we have more than our share of scammers and crazies in CA and we’re overly suspicious.
AC estimated the dogs age at 2. I assume they have quite a bit of practice at this…the vet that examined her after the adoption thought that was about right or she may have been a bit younger. 7 is a big difference! Doesn’t matter to me, but I mean for the breed, 7 would be senior. She certainly doesn’t seem 7. Who knows if she is even telling the truth. I wondered if we are even talking about the same dog, but the pictures do seem to match.
[QUOTE=asb2517;7580773]
Wow. Well it’s all fine and good if you have a devoted family surrounding you, but what if you didn’t? What if you had to trust a friend to take care of your dog? What if you think this friend is a wonderful person who is going to take great care of your pet…except she doesn’t. You have no way of knowing…you are in the hospital or recovering from a serious accident.
So you finally are well enough to go get your dog…except your dog is gone. You search and search and call all over looking for your dog. You FINALLY find out what happened to your dog…but wait…the person that has YOUR dog won’t give it back.
Tell me…how pissed off would you be??
I guess I’m saying this because everyone is jumping on the fact that angry emails were exchanged…well I can completely understand that.[/QUOTE]
This is funny because none of it has anything to do with the situation in question.
The owner wasn’t in the hospital for an extended period of time, her kid was. She also had two other kids to care for at home. It really wouldn’t have been that hard to at the very least check on the dog. But she didn’t bother and now the dog is gone.
I don’t have any patience for those that only care about their pets when it’s convenient. Sorry, not sorry.
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