update; Staffordshires going to court - rescue still refusing to return

[karen15]

I agree with you there RuralPug. If the rescue got the dogs from a pound and scanned and found owners details, the only ethical thing to do is to call the owner. Unless council advised the owner was contacted and said they didn't want the dogs.

 

Unethical practices just make you wonder what other unethical things are done as part of normal business.

[Jed]

The lesson I received from that is not to trust rescue, and particularly do not support or donate to rescue. 

 

What a crock of.............   The dogs were correctly identified, they should have been returned to the owner.  All along the chain, the system failed the owner.

How appalling.  And I will particularly note the name of the rescue who posted here, for not only never supporting, but encouraging friends not to support.

[_PL_]

edit    

 

Edited July 1, 2018 by Powerlegs

[westiemum]

Yep - it appears to me that the owner ran out of money and discontinued.  No precedent set.  

 

Something similar happened to dear friends of mine here a couple of years back.  In her 'less informed days', she bought a westie from Gumtree which was for sale as the story was that the owner had gone into a home and couldn't take it with her.  They were a bit suspicious, but not overly so, had the vet look for a chip but none found so had her chipped in their name.  They had the dog for 9 years and she was adored. 

 

One day many years later, a vet looking for something else found another chip - it was in a strange place and had clearly moved.  So after tears and the dawning realisation about what that meant, the vet called the original owner and the westie went home to its original home.  Turns out the dog was stolen nine years before.  While my friends were devastated, they said there was no way they would keep her as she was never their's in the first place (despite them being very out of pocket). So as far as I know this westie is now living a happy life at home with her original owners - as it should be.   And as for my friend, when her current old dog goes to doggie heaven she'll have another westie - but not off Gumtree! 

Edited July 9, 2018 by westiemum

[Loving my Oldies]

On 7/1/2018 at 12:37 PM, Jed said:

The lesson I received from that is not to trust rescue, and particularly do not support or donate to rescue. 

 

What a crock of.............   The dogs were correctly identified, they should have been returned to the owner.  All along the chain, the system failed the owner.

How appalling.  And I will particularly note the name of the rescue who posted here, for not only never supporting, but encouraging friends not to support.

I can understand how people could feel as you do, Jed, but there are many rescue groups who would walk over hot coals to do the right and ethical thing by any dog who comes into their care. And sadly, from the things I've read over the years, I have to accept that there are many who don’t give a rat’s arse and just want to be seen as “you are an angel”.  We don’t see much on DOL any more as FB and websites have taken over.   

 

I have been the patsy on quite a few occasions over the years because I didn’t know that there was the other side of rescue.  The latest was a few months ago when a fairly well known, but small, organisation was doing a fund raising for a foster dog’s surgery.  I donated because I saw that another person I knew had donated a sizeable sum.  When I next saw that person, I mentioned this to them and it turned out that her donation was actually money she owed them and they asked her to put it towards their fund raising for the dog’s treatment.

 

I mentioned that I was also on the verge of offering to take on this little dog but decided against it as I am not physically or financially able to take on any more dogs.  My acquaintance laughed and said that the dog wasn’t going anywhere because XYZ adored him and he was not going to be adopted.  I consider this unethical as the dog is now, to all intents and purposes, owned by that person.  Of course anyone can set up a funding site for anything providing they are upfront that you are helping out an owner and not a rescue group.  They have in the past few weeks put up another “please donate” message still calling the dog a foster.  Not good.