The confusion over ownership of the dog arose because as I’ve now learnt it is illegal to take in a stray dog, he should have been reported to the authorities and then officially adopted. The previous owners also said they took him in as stray so the pound needed to clarify who the actual owner was because they couldn’t consider either of us as his owners. All of the legal advice we received stated that if we’ve had the dog for a year and a day he is ours but this was then disputed when we went there. After 3 visits to the pound and I’ll admit some impassioned debates with them we were told that we would not be able to adopt him nor would they let him be rehomed in the area where he was taken from. I did apologise for anything I said on my visit there last Saturday because it was my Dad’s first birthday since his death and I did become too emotional but I found it totally unreasonable that we couldn’t be considered to adopt him.  

Our friends put his story up on Facebook and it went viral within a few hours and then they set up his own page. It was never our intention to harm the pound’s reputation but story was shared and shared and shared and we pleaded with people not to contact them and I didn’t know that they were sent abusive messages until they said they may have to shut down their page. All we wanted was to get them to enter into some form of discussions with us, to come to some compromise and to give us a second chance. I didn’t want to take any chances on leaving an old dog there to be rehomed elsewhere, I know old dogs do get rehomed but surely the odds are less and I couldn’t see why if we promised to jump through hoops to meet all of their demands why we couldn’t be the people to adopt him.

I think everyone knows what happened after that as it’s all there to read on the Facebook pages but he’s now back where he belongs after spending 9 nights there and our fifth trip out there.

I hope this story will make people think of the pound and the other rescue centres first the next time they are thinking of getting a pet, I always have and will do again.

Thanks again Tony and we are a lucky town to have a site like yours.

Forever grateful,
Deirdre