Couldn’t care less.
Wait. She had a great family with plenty of space lined up to adopt the dog – why weren’t they the ones to go to the shelter and fill out the forms and such? If it’s such an aboveboard situation, why weren’t they aboveboard about it? What need was there to be deceptive at all?
Wait – you keep saying “in touch” with this family. Does that mean you emailed or phoned them, but have never actually been to their ‘place in the country’?
Anybody else wonder if their ‘nice home in a rural area’ is the site where the dogfights are actually held?
Or people contacted by another Craigslist/whatever ad. 
“Please help, this guy I adopted a dog from wants to know that it’s living in a nice house in the country. I have a smaller yard than he liked, so I lied and told him I gave up the dog. If you could claim that you adopted it from me…”
Is there some huge all-pervasive dog fighting ring that you all know about but aren’t giving us any information on? This seems, once again, to be a hysterical response to somebody doing something (arguably) a bit unusual.
Clearly I am doing this “society” thing wrong. I stupidly assume that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, most people are decent individuals. It would be good if the posters could provide some detail on this “every person I don’t know is part of a dog fighting syndicate”, so that I can worry about every random person being both a paedophile **and **a dog fighter.
Going by the number of “OMG dog fight” comments it seems that every second person is a secret sadist, so given the number of posters in this thread are any of you dog fighters too? Or have I misunderstood the paranoid ramblings.
To the OP, it seems to be a bit of a strange thing to do but if you are happy with the situation I see no reason to beat yourself up. You decided to help somebody, their situation didn’t set off any alarm bells and to the best of your knowledge it all ended well. I think giving people the benefit of the doubt is a good thing; your actions go some way to restoring my faith in community, which is then sadly dashed by everybody claiming there are dog fighting rings behind every bush and under every stone.
I would be rather upset if an animal rehoming charity I contribute to[1] spent money on litigation rather than the welfare of their animals[2], so I hope that rather unlikely scenario doesn’t play out here.
t.
[1] I do indeed support local animal charities so please don’t go for the “why do you hate animals so” angle.
[2] I am sure somebody will come back and say suing the OP is taking care of the animals. I personally disagree. The cost of tackling this one person is going to be enough to provide food and care for a large number of animals.
I think it’s highly suspicious that she was able to find a home for the dog so quickly. My daughter and her fiancee have been trying to find a home for their German Shepherd for months now with no luck. In addition to being harassed by people on Craigslist for even trying to find a home for the dog, they had given the dog to a family who two days later returned it because they didn’t know their lease limited the size dog they could have…asked her to keep the dog for them for a year (sort of a layaway) until they moved into a house!
And you called the people at a number she gave you, right? You haven’t actually seen the dog? I have a bridge I’d like to sell you…
And trmatthe it DIDN’T end well…the OP is now in potential legal trouble as a result!
Moreover, if there was a family on a rural farm looking for a dog - there is a dog in a shelter somewhere that didn’t get adopted by that family. The problem with pet adoptions is that its a zero sum game for the most part. People only adopt the number of pets they are interested in. If they adopt this dog, that one stays in the shelter. There is only so much room in rescues and shelters.
So one dog the OP didn’t know but met was supposedly saved likely at the expense of another dog the OP will never meet. And for this he might get legal trouble.
But we’re not talking about your average person. This girl went out of her way to fraudulently adopt a dog with a total stranger and then gave it away days later. She’s a little more suspect than the average person. This whole thing just feels so scam like.
People keep saying “dogfighting ring” because people really do get large shelter dogs for dogfighting, see. Especially under false pretenses. If you want to adopt a bully-looking dog from the Animal Protection League here they do a background check on you because rural South Carolina is crawling with dogfighting rings, and not in a “OMG more at 11!” sense, in an actual sense.
Also, there are professional “pet flippers” who use Craigslist and other listing services to make a fast buck on animals - if she sold the Dobie for, let’s say, $350, she just made a fast hundred. Do this 10 times, “profit!!!” And, of course, all the reputable shelters won’t let you within 100 feet of them. Her whole family may be involved.
And trust me, this happens regularly.
We returned the cat we adopted back to the “No-Kill” group when it was determined it wasn’t working out. What is the difficulty with going back to the group and explaining it didn’t work out after all and returning the animal? Bring the “new family” with you, if you found one, and fulfill the agreement signed at the original adoption. It saves everyone trauma & stress. It isn’t as though you weren’t made aware of the terms. You agreed to the arrangements.
Some people would also tell you that people sell animals to labs for experimentation, but I think that’s far-fetched and unlikely to be common. Dogfighting, on the other hand, is. And they need a lot of dogs, both to fight and for bait.
Yeah, our local Freecycle group stopped allowing pet postings because this was becoming a major problem.
Animal abuse happens every day. There are reasons the shelters have the requirements for adoption and it is to prevent animals from going to unsuitable homes. Even though they are sometimes stringent and prevent pets from going to otherwise loving owners they are meant to protect animals from harm and I can’t fault them for that.
I live in a neighborhood where every day I see pit bulls being walked that have had their ears and tail surgically removed and are covered in scars or missing an eye or whatever. I believe that there is probably a dog fighting set up somewhere in my neighborhood but I can’t prove it so it really can’t be reported. I hope for this dog’s sake that this woman on CL is legitimate but somehow I doubt it.
But there is evidence to the contrary.
She had already been turned down by the shelter. Then she persuaded you to conspire with her to falsely obtain a dog from the shelter. Then she suddenly sold the dog (against the shelter rules) to someone else (whom he’s never actually seen).
Smells to me like a whole lot of evidence to the contrary.
The original question has long since been answered. The actions described were illegal. They’re illegal because doing what you did was dangerous to the dog, if the family you’re “in-touch” with is telling the truth, you got lucky, very lucky.
And it shoujld be pointed out we do NOT think you had any bad intentions in this situation. On the contrary, you seem to be genuinely concerned about animals and the fate that awaits unwanted dogs at the overcrowded pounds, and you went out of your way to take an action that you thought would help this dog. That is a good thing.
It’s just that several of us think that this situation smells of some dog adoption scams that are becoming common, most often involving dogfighting operations. We think it possible that you may have been fooled by one of these. If not, great. But we want to warn others about this possibility, and prevent them being unwitting accomplices in such a scheme. Sorry if it sounds like we are being a bit harsh on you. You meant to do a good deed.
What law did Logical Phallacy break?
I’m skeptical. If it became apparent that the dog wasn’t going to work out with the condo, and if it didn’t occur to the girl to return the dog to the shelter, wouldn’t the logical next step be to see if the OP could take the dog?
I know on the phone this idyllic farm and loving family are described in glowing terms. I’ll bet you a large sum of money, though, that if the OP suggested a visit, there’d be excuse after excuse about why that wasn’t a good idea.
Sorry, OP, but you really fucked this one up.