DS Should the breeder have legal rights to?

Unworkable, as there are too many dogs be they purebred or mix chasing too few homes, with a finite number of kennel places, foster homes and money has to be spent to do the greatest amount of good for the largest number of dogs. Fines would be a drain on an already slender purse for shelters.

The reality of a lost or stolen untraceable dog (no chip or tattoo to identify it) in a shelter that solves the problem of turnover by making end of life decisions on sound dogs if they stick to make room for new arrivals, is that if an owner tracks it down too late, it could be sold on or in this instance dead.

If hard decisions were not made, other dogs would be turned away or wait on a list and the owner may abandon, choose to have it euthanized or sell on to anyone who will take the dog off their hands. No easy choices.

Dogs can be moved around the country by rescues and shelters or handed in by someone who finds it out of the area, or picked up sold on and then abandoned, so not always easy to find a dog quickly.

While I can understand that the owner may be heartbroken at the outcome of their search and want to pin the blame on the shelter, it was not the fault of the shelter the dog was lost.

Without turnover of dogs sold or reducing numbers by euthanasia, kennel block would mean shelters could take fewer new dogs in, meaning abandoned and lost dogs would have nowhere to go. What then?

A breeder can choose to chip and/or tattoo before a puppy is sold and if that has not been done, the owner can do one or both. The owner is responsible for the safety of their dog, to keep it contained on their property or under their control off it and the dog is lost or stolen, it is the responsibility of the owner to find the dog, not shelter keep the dog for however long it takes for the owner to trace it - assuming anyone is searching.

Edit: I am required to inform the breeder of my b^tch is for any reason she is lost or stolen. As my b^tch is not co-owned the breeder would have no legal standing to sue in tort or contract only I as the owner would and that is how it should be once a dog is sold and legal ownership is transferred.

The breeder could insert a term in the contract of sale requiring a dog's chip details to be kept up to date, with damages payable if a dog was lost/stolen, traced and found to have out of date information held.

Neither should be able to sue the shelter

The shelter was just doing ts job. No one claimed the dog, there was no ID on the dog and the dog wasn't chipped. Is the shelter supposed to keep a mind reader or something on staff?

I think the real reason why the family is suing is becouse they never bothered to look for the dog and are mad that the shelter didn't magically know the dog was theirs so they are trying to avoid responsibly for it being their fault 100%

The breeder has no legal grounds to sue the shelter. Instead the breeder should be going after the fmaily, after all they failed to keep the dog properly contained or on a leash and they failed to have the dog micro-chipped as per the contract

Breeders have no right to sue shelters or rescues for putting a dog or cat down. Once the animal becomes property of the shelter then there nothing they can do

If the breeder put the dog out there on a good contract that requiored that the dog be returned to them if the buyer could no longer care for the dog and had resonable clauses regarding care and training then the breeder can liekly sue the owners that acted in such as way as to have the dog end oup in a shelter. Not having the anomal identified by either a tattoo or a nicro chip so that it can be returned to the owner 0or breeder depending on who the id was regested to is the fault of the owner and breeder.

No kill shelters have already put a great burdon the rescue system by keeping alive dogs that can not be resonablely placed in good homes - becomeing full passed they capalbilites and there for the shelters that will put down animals after a given periold are also over loaded and they therefore have to put down good anaimals that could be placed - because someone else is trying to keep alive any animals that comes to them.

It would never fly.

Every municipal entity has a holding area for animals because they must control animals running through the streets. It is after all, called animal control for a reason. They must have some mechanism for reducing the numbers of dogs, or the system will simply not function.

Many shelters have no one qualified to evaluate a dog properly for behavioral issues, nor do they take the dog through a vet exam to determine the overall health. That is where rescue groups come in, and why they have adoption fees. Rescue groups must also have the ability to euthanize a dog that cannot safely be placed, in order to avoid injury to the public, as well as lawsuits that would also cripple their activities- endangering any dog they would help in the future.

I wuld suggest that it should be made law that municipalities be required to allow registered (with the state Dept of Ag) approved rescues to 'pull' dogs that they will be able to foster and place, for no cost. This does not occur in many places, and yet could relieve the burden on some of these shelters. Kudos to the shelter managers who do work with rescue to save the dogs that should be saved.

In the meantime, some dogs will be put down that could have been placed - or could have been safer had the owners done a better job of keeping them under control. Not having the rest of the story, I can't make a judgement, but I would say it would do them more good to help some other dogs get to rescue, than spend time fighting against people who already have a hellish but necessary job.

To prevent this Many breeders microchip the puppies before they are even sold. That way if they end up lost they will be returned to the breeder who will then contact the owner and see what happened. Some times dogs get loose.

I'm planning to get a siberian husky. They can run for miles and miles. My dog could end up states away from me very quickly. If I didn't microchip my dog and animal control killed it then it would be my fault for not taking the steps to protect my dog.

I think it is the owners at fault. If they cared they would have microchipped the dog, failure to microchip the dog allowed the shelter the inability to contact them and get the dog home. So when the dog's time was up it was put to sleep. This should be lesson on the importance of containing your dog and microchipping your dog. I don't feel the shelter was a fault. I feel bad the dog was put to sleep but thousands of dogs are put to sleep daily and if you cared you would chip your dog so that it can find it's way home. Dogs can't talk the chip talks for them.

It would be a HUGE burden if shelters were banned from putting down dogs. Shelters or over flooded and rescues are over flooded. And with shelters and rescues being so picky about who gets to adopt the dogs, they will run out of room and funds.

I'm planning to chip my puppy, put a license and ID tag.

Remember a microchip is your dog's voice so that people know who they are and where they belong.

The reason that euth rates are so high is because we do not have the space, resources, or finances to keep every "good" dog alive.

Tattoos and microchips are good ways to relocate the original owners or breeders of the dog. Had the dog been properly identified either by the previously mentioned methods or even a traditional collar, the dog could have been reunited.

I feel the breeder could take action against the previous owners in the event there was a contract that specified against shelters and against negligent care of the dog (losing the dog?). But how is the shelter to know without proper identification, where this dog was from?

I have no idea what business this is of the breeders. They gave up all rights to the dog when they sold it. I know some breeders like to retain some control by forcing the buyer to sign silly contracts, but dogs are property and those contracts are not enforceable in a court of law.

And if the family valued this dog as much as they claim to have, why did it take them so long to find this animal at a shelter? And if the dog was valued so much why was it not chipped to prevent such a tragedy?

It is my contention that neither party here really has a case of any merit.

It would be impossible for every shelter to save every dog...

If this breeder wanted to take responsibility for her pups, which is fantastic, but she should of done what we do as a rescue and that is have the dog microchipped before leaving and make sure the breeders name stays on the records as we do in rescue. If one of our dogs gets picked up as a stray then it is the rescue that get the call and we contact the owner.

There is NO WAY anyone could make this stick... just no way.

In an ideal world euthansia of a healthy dog would never be necessary but unfortunately with all the irresponsible breeding that now goes on... (you only have to look on here daily) it is impossible to save all the dogs... literally impossible. I can't give you statistics but if every day 10 dogs come in and 1 dog goes out then it doesn't take much to realise that it will soon be impossible to keep going.

no

the dog sat at a shelter "for some time"

so why wasnt the family at the shelter every day looking for their pet when it got lost? Had they gone to the shelter and looked, they would have found their dog. The owners have no case here

unless the breeder was a co-owner.. I dont see why the breeder is involved at all.

I personally hate the idea that dogs are put done if they don't have any health or really bad behavioral issues. Society fails them when we let them get over-populated and stuff, and then we fail them again when we kill them. But I'm not sure the fine will hold though unless there is already a law in place that will give them a legal ground to charge the shelter a fine. So if it doesn't accomplish anything, it wouldn't be anything besides a burden.