Well fine. But apparent the dog in the OP liked to sneak out of the yard occasionally.
There was no mention of it being thin, abused, malnorished or in any way mistreated.
Sorry dude - you’re wrong.
Sam, your situation was different. IF the animal is being neglected to that degree, sure – I’ll be the last one to castigate you for stealing him. Fuck the dog owners indeed, in that case.
But the letter writer didn’t only fuck the dog owners. He fucked the humane society, too. And that’s not a bit cool. If the dog owners come looking for their dog, there’s a significant chance that they’ll raise holy hell at the humane society. Trust me: I’m speaking from experience.
The letter writer put the shelter in a very difficult position. He’s got a moral obligation to help them out of it, regardless of any moral and legal duty he has to the dog’s owner.
Daniel
Gawd, I don’t think that anyone here will argue that the dog you describe was being abused/neglected. The point here is that simply because a dog gets loose, even repeatedly, does not BY ITSELF equate to abuse/neglect.
I thought I remembered from another thread that Miller worked at a shelter - maybe that’s what he’s referring to?
I took it from that line that Miller works at the shelter. I hope I’m right, and this isn’t something that Miller did (unless there are signs of abuse on the dog).
Where in the fucking hell do you guys get off calling Miller the author of this letter? I get the distinct impression that he works at the shelter, as he’s the one who’s been caring for the dog. The letter-writers just dropped it off. Accusations coupled with the reprimands without waiting to hear his response is 100% fucking bullshit.
My neighbor is a foster parent for the Humane Society because the organization is so overrun with unwanted animals. Even though I’m not a cat person, I took an older one that was placed in her care. The cat’s mother decided to move to Las Vegas and put her two dogs to sleep because they were old, but she figured that Misty had a few good years left.
About a week after taking the cat, the former mom moved back from Vegas and wanted her back. I returned her with the caveat that she give the cat back to me rather then send her to the kitty kiln as a matter of convenience.
I’m pretty appalled by her attitude and had trouble reading the note she left with the cat which included, “Misty Boo-Boo loves to have her tummy scratched.”
It’s difficult to understand how people can treat their animals with such cavalier disregard. And yes, I did dognap that bassett in Nashville.
Miller, I do think an explanation is in order.
Did you steal this dog and turn it over to the shelter?
If so, did the dog show any signs of abuse or neglect? Was it well-fed, or skinny? As it had tags, presumably the owners appreciated it being returned to them.
If not, why didn’t you make it clearer that the deed was someone else’s?
Just because the letter describes the dog as a run-away doesn’t mean he wasn’t abused or neglected on other ways…none of us here knows the situation well enough.
So you’re right, in this case I may be wrong. And you are wrong as well. In my experience, a negligent owner generally does more than just ignores his animal. But for all intents and purposes, I’ll concede here.
Sam
Isabelle: I certainly hope you’ve reconsidered your idea of stealing the animal. What you can, and should do, in such a situation is to contact the appropriate authorities regarding a stray animal. That the dog has an owner is irrelevant if they owner’s allowing the animal to wander stray.
Count me in with Beadalin, Scarlett, and alice.
My family’s beautiful gold lab, Tosh (RIP, buddy), was completely enamoured of my stepdad. When Vic would go to work, Tosh would be despondent. When we let him out to pee in the big cow field next to our house, 90% of the time he would pee, wander and sniff things, then obediently come to the back door and bark to be let back in. This was our routine. He was happy. We were happy.
But the other 10% of the time, he would decide to go looking for Vic. We would go looking for him in 15-minute intervals, going back and checking the machine every 15 minutes in case someone found him and called us.
We would have been despondent if a day had come when some self-righteous a-hole had palmed him off to a shelter because they thought we didn’t deserve him. Especially since shelters in Ontario are obligated by law to provide dogs used for lab research. Royal’s sad story
From what the letter says about the dog’s behaviour, it doesn’t even sound as though he was a danger to strangers, so it can’t even be justified by saying that the dog could have attacked someone.
Oh poop-this brought back another recollection of how absolutely awful people can be.
An older dog should up at my door in Austin during a terrible thunder storm.
She was scared to death and soaked to the bone.
I called the number on her tags and got in contact with her people.
The woman that answered the phone said “Oh just kick her out-she’ll find her way back.”
Admittedly, they only lived three blocks aways but the dog would have had to cross a busy street.
I hauled her home .
A teenager was sitting on the front steps putting on rollerblades.
Her comment when I unloaded the dog “Oh yeah, she’s real afraid of storms and gets through the fence but we’re not going to fix it 'cause we’re have her put to sleep soon. She’s old.”
That makes me think that Miller is the one who brought the dog in. I’d like it if he came in to clarify since I know I’m not the only one concerned.
My brother has a husky-malamute mix, and a retriever/husky/malamute mix that he and his wife adore. They are wonderfully well-treated, well-cared-for and very well-loved, but not only them but the rest of the family - the dogs are considered my parents’ grandchildren and my niece and nephew. His older dog is a master at getting out, though. My brother installed a new fence in their backyard to prevent her from doing so. It didn’t prevent the nice cop from finding her on the highway near his house and bringing her home, and it didn’t prevent her from wandering the neighborhood two other times. She is the master at getting out under these fences. My brother has done whatever he needed to keep her in and he’s finally got it settled, we think. But she’s a friendly, happy dog and if someone took her to a shelter when she HAS tags showing where she lives, I would be beyond angry. My brother adores his dog and has made changes to keep her from getting out - is that a bad pet owner? Hardly.
I’d be pissed if this happened to him. And whoever did it not only broke the law by removing the tags, but they’re an asshole, too. Had the dog shown previous signs of neglect other than getting out, then it MIGHT have been warranted, but there’s nothing about that in the OP.
Ava
I agree with the posters who say that, unless the animal showed signs of abuse or neglect, the people who removed the tags and dropped him at the shelter were totaly out of line (whether it was Miller or not). Our neighbors down the street had a dog that was always escaping, and I would find her all over the neighborhood and haul her back. I knew they were conscientious pet owners who happened to have an escape artist dog. My brother’s dog used to get out, too, even after we fixed and made additions to the fence.
Re: the OP–I got one of my cats this way. Some asshole left a box of kittens on my vet’s doorstep with a note attached that said, “Please euthanize these animals.” Apparently, they got a box of kittens every six months or so with the same note attached. I would have no problem stealing this jackass’s cat, since he (1) can’t be bothered to spay her, and (2) pawns the unwanted kittens off on the vet (who of course feels obligated to find homes for them instead of just offing them. I’m so glad, too–I absolutely adore my cat).
I think the letter-writer – and I take no position on whether he or she is also the OP’er – has a different definition of the word “stray” than I do. A “stray” is an animal that has no known owner or home. A dog wearing a collar with tags is by definition not a stray.
I think it takes balls of solid brass to do something like this. To take it upon yourself to remove an animal from his home and deprive a person or family of his/her/their pet just because they are not meeting the standards of pet care that you see fit to set – it’s unbelievable. And inexcusable.
There is no indication in the OP that the dog was abused. There is no indication it was neglected. The letter-writer just apparently got sick of seeing it loose and of returning it to the owners. Well, guess what? Don’t return it to the owner. Call the dog catcher and report a loose dog, and tell them you’ve seen the dog loose on several occasions. Call the pound and have the animal picked up. In most places, the owners will have to pay a fine to get the dog back because, unless you’re in a rural area, it’s not legal to just let your dog run loose. It is the payment of the fine (repeatedly) that is the incentive to keep the animal confined – not the fear that one of your under-handed, passive-aggressive, evil little neighbors is going to steal your dog. And if it was in a rural area with no loose dog law – then it’s none of your business anyway.
If I ever found out someone did this to my dog, there would be no limit on the revenge I’d inflict upon them. I would not rest until I made them pay, in spades. And that’s saying a lot from me, because I’m the most law-abiding person you’re ever going to meet.
Uhh…Jodi, in rural areas, ranchers and famers have a tendency to shoot stray dogs.
:: Patiently :: Yes, I am aware of this, coming from a fairly rural area myself. True stray dogs form packs and can be an enormous menace. But the ranchers I know do not shoot dogs with collars – which, again, are obviously not strays – unless the dogs are making total nuisances of themselves, like killing the chickens, and have done so repeatedly. Farmers and ranchers are no more likely than anyone else to just callously off someone’s pet.
What does that have to do with taking the dog to the pound after you’ve removed its collar in an intentional attempt to prevent it from being returned to its owners? I’m not fan of dogs running loose, collared or not, but as I already said, there’s no reason you can’t call the dog in or take the dog in without the heartless step of stealing its i.d.
And I’m being equally ::patient:: in my reply.
I’m not sure how you define a fairly rural area. I live in ranch country and our cow population is far greater than our human population.
That said, my neighbors are highly intolerant of stray dogs-not packs of stray dogs, mind you-but any stray dogs crossing their fields while their cows are calfing.
Period.
They see a dog that looks like it’s chasing cattle and that dog is history.
They’re not bad men or bad neighbors-they’re cattlemen and they have a completely different attitude. It’s not callousness at all.
I’m not certainly not using that as a justification for removing a dog’s collar and taking it to the pound but I did think your statement about loose dogs in a rural area was more than a little cavalier.
I grew up in an area where rabies was common. The health department had a residents-please-shoot-on-sight order out for strays.
OTOH, I currently live in an area without rabies and have some dogs who get out sometimes to go visiting. If somebody did to them what Miller describes I’d kick his ass. You don’t go fucking with somebody’s dog just because you’re feeling self-righteous.
Hmm. Clearly, my OP left a lot to be desired. It was late when I posted it, I was frustrated by the whole situation, and should have spent more time on it. Sorry for not being as clear a I should have been.
So. I do not work at an animal shelter. I wrote the letter, which included my name and phone number and was personally addressed to the woman in charge of the shelter, who is a friend of a friend. Again, this is a no-kill shelter. The dog is perfectly safe there, which is more than I can say for his previous situation.
I found this dog running stray on three seperate occasions over the course of two months. The first time, I brought him home (not easy, considering I had two other dogs with me and no spare leash) and called the owner, who took about an hour to get around to picking up his precious pet. The second time, I took him home myself. This was the third time I found this dog running stray.
I do not live in a rural area. I live in the suburbs, right near the freeway. The first time I found Sabbath, he was next to a high-traffic, four lane road. Did I mention that it was a night, and he’s an all-black dog? The second time I found him, he was less than a block from my house. When I returned him this time, I found that his home is a good five miles from where I had found him.
Did I mention I found him three times in two months, each time in a different place? See, strikes me that it’s rather unlikely that the three times this dog happened to get out, I was the guy who happened to find him. This is a dog that gets out a lot. I’m thinking nightly, and I’m thinking deliberately. Did I mention he was unneutered? This was an unneutered, jet black rottweiler mix regularly wandering a busy suburb at night.
Was the dog abused? He was certainly underfed, if not actually malnourished. He was visibily skinnier each time I found him. The owners didn’t seem to have been beating him: he certainly wasn’t afraid of people, and liked being handled.
Did I do wrong taking the tags? I don’t think so. It’s a minor miracle the dog hasn’t been killed already. I’m not inclined to let the owners have him back to give him another shot at being creamed by a passing semi, or to pick a fight with another dog, or to father a litter of puppies that’ll end up dying in the streets or being destroyed by animal control. I feel secure in my actions. If the Humane Society wants, they have my phone number and I still have the tags: they can call me if they think the owners should get a fourth shot at endangering their pet. I’m pretty sure I won’t be hearing from them.