Update: 21Jan04 The dog has been returned to its rightful owner. This story was frontpage news 2 days in a row and the local media was flooded with letters and emails on the subject.
A recent case in San Jose, CA, has me shaking my head. Seems that Niki Karanastasis’ dog Bella got away and was recovered by the Humane Society. Lacking tags, the dog was given up for adoption after 5 days. What comes next is hard to believe.
The owners had been at the pound a couple of times earlier in the week and for some reason hadn’t spotted their dog. They came back on the 6th day, and this time they spied their dog. The dog was happy and the owner was happy and then … then the Humane Society informed the owner that the dog had been adopted a few hours earlier, and further, the nominal new owner refused to cancel the adoption. The fact that the dog’s owner and the dog were together in the same room appeared not to sway the inHumane Society. They claim they were simply following the law. I think they should have given the dog back to its obvious owner and let the civil courts sort the rest. Niki had even taught Bella to obey commands in Greek, her native language; that’s kind of hard to fake.
Apparently, what happened is legal, and the new owner still refuses to return the dog to its rightful owner. Now if they already had posession of the dog then the rightful owner wouldn’t have seen it and I wouldn’t be making this entry. What freaks me out is that the new owner hadn’t even yet taken possession of the dog and still refused to rescind the adoption. Worse, the inHumane Society wouldn’t let the rightful owner take her dog home, and in fact, later turned it over to the adopter, a Los Gatos woman who is very much trying to remain unknown.
Yes, the dog was untagged. That’s a problem, but the punishment isn’t theft of the dog. Also, the dog is ostensibly for the new owner’s 10 year old daughter. What in the whole wide world is mom teaching the daughter in this case? “Go for the letter of the law, and just ignore any feelings of human compassion”!? The rightful owner even offered a new dog in exchange and the thieves refused to return Bella. All you dog owners know that dogs seriously bond with their families, and this is as painful for the dog as its owners. No serious bonding had yet occurred with this dog and the little girl.
Even the local newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News, urged the wrongful caretaker of the dog to return it to its owner, and a lawsuit against the selfish, thoughtless Los Gatos woman will be filed later this week.
May she come to her senses before she is completely ostracized, and worse, what about her kid? She sees newspapers, hears the news. How must she be feeling now? I can’t see the dog getting much love under those circumstances. A bad deal all the way around.
The Dog is Back with its owner, btw.
Mike,
I understand your stance due to the fact that the owners were right there and the new owners hadn’t even taken possession of the dog or had a chance to bond with it. What are your opinions on my story? We took in an 8 week old boxer pup that had been wandering the neighborhood for 2 days. It was sick and appeared malnurished. My husband and I took her to the vets and discovered she had conjunctivitis in both eyes, a respiratory infection and worms. We spent $115 to get her treated and then shelled out another $140 for a cage, so she could have somewhere to sleep, food, a couple of toys, some treats and a collar and leash. We considered the dog a stray partly because nobody had been out looking for her, there were no posters, no newspaper ad, etc. Long story short, she did have owners. Their negligence led to the pups adventure, as they left her unattended in their back yard when they were not even home and the gate was not closed. We offered them $200 to keep the pup because my husband, my daughter and myself had grown attached to “Brandi” The owners rejected our offer and also refused to pay us for the money we spent to keep their puppy safe and well. We were forced to give Brandi up and are now filing a suit in small claims to recover our expenses. We fell in love with the dog, they were not responsible owners, we did the right thing and they ended up with the pup. How fair or just is that?