Indeed.
Definitely call.
Ah, that’s what I figured. People walking dogs tend to find… things. Or rather, their dogs’ noses do. Hope the beagles weren’t upset.
Call, call, call…
They can’t blame you, I agree about wanting to know if it was my dog…
just got bad news via IM my friends cat got caught under the garage door on Thursday night and they didn’t find him until 12:30 AM, it had come down on his neck. 
Please call them, if you have the collar then it has to be their dog. I always try to pick up dogs running amok if I can or I call animal control. I caught a dog by the name of Houdini who lived waayyy up the other way from us and the owner had to send her mom to get him. Give them peace of mind and to say goodbye.
Lame. No ones going to blame you for the dog’s death because you found it.
People find human dead bodies all the time, go through a short questioning of the facts by the police, and are sent on their merry way.
I have never hear of someone running across a dead body informing the police and suddenly becoming a suspect.
Let them know that the dog is dead. Tell them where the body is, and warn them that it’s pretty knocked around so they can get someone else to dispose of it if they would find it too upsetting (unless you’re prepared to offer to dispose of it youself).
As horrible as the news is, it’s got to be better than worrying and waiting to find out what happened to the dog.
When I was about 10 or 12 years old my parents had the family pooch put down, because “it was nipping at people.” They told us the dog got out of the yard and disappeared. My brother and I cried ourselves to sleep every night for about a week, searched all the pounds, and rode our bikes around the neighbourhood for weeks looking for the poor lost dog.
My Mum finally came clean when I was in my 30s. I would have rather have known the truth than searched fruitlessly for a month for the dog. Do the right thing. Tell them. Please.
Sounds like coyotes to me. Or wild dogs. We have a problem with them in our forest preserves.
I agree you should tell them. You can spare them some of the gore, but you need to say something. They’ll thank you, I’m sure.
One can and I have would up in situations where I was trying to be helpful, & got blamed for the problem by emotionally upset people.
Confrontations are bad, if you have no iron in that particular fire.
If the dog was alive, the story would be different.
But, it is dead.
So fucking what? Did this result in any sort of legal action against you? If not, then quit whining.
I beg your pardon, I thought this was GQ, not the BBQ Pit.
Are coyotes big enough to kill a German Shepard? Scary. The OP is in Michigan; do they have bears up there?
Anyway, I would call the owners and say that I found a dog’s body, pretty torn up, in the park, that looked like it could be theirs. Are you sure that it’s the same dog?
I still don’t understand your sentiment. Wouldn’t you want to know if it was your dog? This “look the other way” philosophy has its merits but I see no reason to exercise it here.
Once my cat was lost, and eventually someone showed up at my door saying he had found the body, and that apparently it had been mauled by a dog. Of course, I was devastated, but I appreciated that he told me what had happened. He did not bring the body (I assume he buried it or something).
I totally agree. I am one of the most cynical people I know even I have the humanity to try to do the right thing here. Bosda, Do you honestly think that you are going to be accused of mauling a German Shepard? As has been said, call anonymously or contact Animal Control and have them break the news but don’t just walk away.
Please call. If you need some extra push to do it, think of the next person who will find it. Kid after a ball? The owners? Old lady’s dog coming back to her with a paw in his mouth? You already went throught the crap of seeing it, spare someone else.
Do call. I would want to know, if it were my pet. I did this myself a year or so back. Found a dead, stiff, none-too-pretty cat corpse in the yard of a client’s home. There was a tag and a phone number, so I called and broke it to them as gently as possible. They weren’t happy, but they already knew that there was a good chance that their pet had died, so it’s not as if they were shocked.
Call. It’s the kind thing to do so these people at least have closure.
No, you won’t get anything out of it, and yes, they might be very upset with you, but if the tables were turned and one of your begles was missing, I’m sure you’d want to know.
Isn’t this the obvious response? Call Animal Control (because a dismembered dog is a health hazard, I’m sure) and tell them you found the carcass, and that you’ve seen flyers for the missing dog. I’m pretty sure they’ll take care of it from there.
It would be a very distressing call to make, so I understand the OP’s concern about calling. The animal is probably looked at as a member of the family and who knows how they person answering the phone will react… leave it to the pros. Animal Control probably are used to delivering this sort of news to owners.
A few years ago, a cat died just a few feet from our front porch (made for one stinky entrance). Kitty was still wearing his collar and tag; I recognized him then as “Pinky,” one of the older neighborhood cats.
Not wanting to handle the carcass, we instead called animal control to have it removed. They did so and also removed and cleaned the collar, calling the owner and returning it to them. DeathLlama and I preferred that–we wouldn’t have wanted to see our kitties in that state–and animal control handles this kind of thing all the time.
Unless the dog is wearing a collar and tag, I’d hesitate to call–at least to say you found their dog. I’d also call animal control to have the carcass picked up, and describe the lost dog flier to them. Depending on their response, I may or may not call the owners on the flier–could be as simple as “I’m sorry to be the one calling you about this, but I found a dead dog in the park that seems to match the description of your dog. I called Animal Control and spoke with This Person, mentioning your flier. They said you could call and speak to This Person if you’d like to see the remains/pick up the collar/etc.”