To cut a long story short(ish) - a lovely stray dog moved into my grandma's garden. She's very sweet but terrified of being caught or contained. (I know where she came from and what happened to her, but that's another story.)
Anyway, she proceeded to have 9 puppies . They were so gorgeous that they became quite well-known (I live on a small island! :)) and we kept 2 and managed to find good homes (I thought)for all of them.
Today, though, 3 people have been in touch with me to tell me that one of the puppies (a year old now)was found wandering, was taken to the local Animal Shelter and has been there since Saturday.
I recognise the dog and can dig around and find the contact details of the person who took her, but I am so cross that in nearly a week they haven't called the Shelter to ask about her or put up any signs to say she's lost! It's the only Shelter on the island and everyone knows it's the first place to ring if your dog goes astray. She had no tag, either, and it's just luck that the people who run the Shelter know me well and had my phone number.
DP is going down the the Shelter after work to pick her up (the Shelter people begged as they are stuffed full with dogs at the mo)and she'll spend the night here with us and her brothers, but I am sort of in two minds about whether make a big effort to get in touch with the people who took her or not. They don't seem to want her back very badly. Poor Molly :(
If you're worried about your pet's health, please speak to a vet or qualified professional.
The doghouse
Should I give this dog back?
Tolalola · 11/11/2010 19:52
Thanks very much for all your opinions, you seemed to think pretty much the same as me - it was reassuring to hear that I probably wasn't being an evil dog-thief!
Just after DP got home with her from the Shelter, I got a call from the woman who runs the Shelter saying that the owners had (finally) turned up looking for her. She said she hadn't really told them much as she wanted me to talk to them and decide what I wanted to do, re: giving the dog back or not.
So she put the woman on, who sounded like she was nearly in tears and explained that they'd just moved house, had gone sailing for the day, and the dog had escaped from the garden and run off. Apparently they'd been searching the area for the dog every day since.
Clearly they were a bit dim clueless not to have put up some notices or contacted the Shelter sooner, but they said they thought she wouldn't have been taken to the Shelter because she had a collar on 
.
She was a lovely dog, really sociable, not nervous, a bit fat , but obviously looked after well in general, so I told them to come to my house (I wanted to see how they/the dog reacted to each other, tbh).
When they got here, the 3 kids in the back of the car all started crying the dog's name when they saw her, the dog went into massive squiggle mode and squeaked a lot, the mother fell over herself with thanks and apologies and they all drove off together into the sunset. It was quite sweet, actually. 
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