What To Do When You Find A Wandering Dog.

[tdierikx]

I had a lovely Husy turn up on my doorstep at 4am one morning... no chance of finding the pound or a vet open near me at that hour.

I ended up calling the local police, who were more than happy to collect the dog and take him to the night pens at the RSPCA.

I rang the RSPCA the next day, and the dog had gone home to his owners... yay!!

T.

[persephone]

My animals have always had a home/work ph: number , PLUS the VET ph: number ..which saved my cats life when he was run over :)

[juice]

I always take them to the 24 hour vet hospital behind me, that way thay get to go to the nicer pound :)

They did turn me away once, said they were too busy to hold the ancient doddery old Cav who i found wandering and panting on a really hot day.

They eventually gave me the address of the owner and i dropped him off.

[dancinbcs]

My wonderful vets opened up after hours on a Sat evening a few weeks ago to take in a Pointer puppy I found. He wasn't chipped so they dropped him at the pound the next day. Thankfully English Pointer Rescue took him and found him a lovely new home.

[duckle]

I work at a 24hour hospital. We are a small hospital and sometimes don't have enough cages to hold all of the stray dogs that are bought to us over say a long weekend. We cater for a large area of a major city, and get dozens of calls over a weekend regarding stray dogs. We only have around 15 cages, which are reserved for hospitalised paitents. We also close during business hours, and the rangers can't/won't pick up from us outside of business hours, so unfortunately we turn stray dogs away. We will scan the dog, and try to find it's owner if we have time, but when we are busy with emergecies, phone calls and in-patients. finding the owner of a stray dog who is not injured is unfortunatly not a priority.

During firework season/new years etc, I will often spend half of my shift dealing with found dogs, lost dogs etc, and this means my patients recieve less care because of this. It would be great if we could put an extra staff member on during these times to look after this, but because dealing with stray dogs does not make any money for the clinic, management cannot justify the extra expense.

We are also not legally obliged to take in a stray dog under the companion animals act. Most GP vets will do it as a good will gesture however.

[_PL_]

Vets should take them if they can but aren't obliged to unless they've applied to be a legal holding point (can't remember what the name is exactly).

NSW Rule is the animal must get to a ranger or pound in 24 hrs and if the vet won't help then it's the finder's responsibility. So the advice you got, to take it back to where you found it is simply idiotic and dangerous.

After hours some pounds have holding pens, if they are locked, the police have a key and can put a stray in to keep it safe until opening hours.

p.s. TD, my area borders on two pounds. If they run one way it's City of Sydney who send them to the Shire, if they run the other way it's SDCH. So you have to check both.

x

[coogie]

I am in Qld and have had a receptionist at the vet refuse to hold a dog that had it's leg in plaster, he had a chip but the owners were not answering the phone. The family were local and the dog had been treated at the surgery I first took the dog to but they still wouldn't hold him. The pound was closed and don't have after hours cages anyway, luckily by the time I drove to another vet and explained, the owners had returned home from work and came to collect the dog. Really not sure what I would have done otherwise,it was a very large dog and whilst it was very people friendly I wasn't confident to take it home in case it was not dog friendly. The guy who came to collect him was beside himself as they did not know how the dog had got out, and he was not supposed to be walking,he was also furious with "their" vet for refusing to hold the dog. The vet's explanation was that they did not have any staff in the surgery overnight and it was not safe to leave the dog locked in unattended overnight.

[Rebanne]

How could a tag change anything? When my dogs wore tags it only gad a phone number.

Because the person who finds the dog can ring up the owner straight away without needing to go to a vet first to get it scanned. It's more for convenience than anything. I found a BC in my front garden the other day, she had a tag and could call up her owner straight away, other wise it would of been a drive into town to the vet to be scanned.

Excactly. Returned many dogs with a simple phone call.

But the owners in this case did not answer the phone immediately so there still would have been a delay

[disintegratus]

Standard procedure here is to ring the owner straight away if it has a tag. If not, we go to the vet to get scanned, and leave my details with the vet, but generally speaking the vets I take them to have never had an issue with me taking the dog with me. I leave my details to be passed onto the owner, and puppy comes home with me. Dog is kept in a crate until owner contacts me, I've never had to wait more than an hour or so to be contacted. When the owner comes to collect the dog, I advise them to get a tag :)

If it's not microchipped, it still comes home with me, put ads on gumtree etc, ring all surrounding vets/shelters and leave my details. Dog stays at home for up to 48 hours, if no one claims it then it goes to the pound. (actually that hasn't happened yet and truth be known it would probably end up living with me because I'm a sucker.) In this time it is kept crated or separated from my own dogs at all times.

Once I picked up a dog that I knew lived in the area but I didn't know which house. I had to go to work, but the dog had a council tag on. I left the dog in my front yard, left details with the council and by the time I got home from work the elderly owner had picked up his dog and left me a box of chocolates :)

I'm not too concerned about diseases etc, mine are all vaccinated and wormed, and I figure they could pick up the same things just walking around the neighbourhood.

The main reason I take the dog home with me is to save the owner a potentially large pickup fee.

[Daisys Mum]

I am in SA and one day I found a stray dog on the road (not a main road thankfully) , it was riddled with fleas and it stunk of urine : / it didnt have a tag so I took it to my vet , when I rang them the next day it had been collected and taken to the pound.

[fainty_girl]

My brother found a sweet old staffy that was lost a few weeks ago. It was shaking and had a slight limp and it wasn't wearing a collar, so I walked over to check on the dog and put her on a lead and took her to the nearest vet. They scanned her for a microchip and checked her details, so I hope she was picked up by her owner. She was a lovely dog and looked well taken care of, so I think she was just lost and was scared.

If the vet had tried to turn me away, I would have rung around to find a different vet to take her to, I was certainly in no position to take her home with 3 dogs living here.

[redwallylegs]

My brother found a sweet old staffy that was lost a few weeks ago. It was shaking and had a slight limp and it wasn't wearing a collar, so I walked over to check on the dog and put her on a lead and took her to the nearest vet. They scanned her for a microchip and checked her details, so I hope she was picked up by her owner. She was a lovely dog and looked well taken care of, so I think she was just lost and was scared.

If the vet had tried to turn me away, I would have rung around to find a different vet to take her to, I was certainly in no position to take her home with 3 dogs living here.

Unfortunately I regularly have strays here people dump them in the cemetery.

I used to go to the local refuge, but not now, the out of hours cages have been removed, now they go to the RSPCA>

Its not just dogs, cats as well.

I have never been good at handing back strays that are neglected, starving, sick, dehydrated, flea riddled and stinky, if it will fit into my house then it can stay, providing it has no microchip and I cannot find its owner, I would NEVER send an animal back to live in those conditions.

[WeimMe]

I've found a few strays. I used to work on reception at a school and for some reason we'd often have stray dogs wander in - maybe they were attracted to the kids?

In all cases I was able to either call the owners direct from the dog's tag or the council would contact them from the registration details and the owner would call me & collect them.

I've also rescued a terrified maltese cross who nearly got run over by a rubbish truck. Her owner was at work so I just looked after her for the day until she could come and get her. She'd been missing for 5 days, poor little thing. She's the reason why I ended up getting a second dog :)

I'd only take them to the pound once I had exhausted all the other avenues I think.