In addition, I recommend keeping all bills associated with the care of the animal, as this may have the potential that you can put a lien, a form of security granted on a property to guarantee the payment of the debt, on the animal. The owner may be asked to pay within a certain period of time or lose his rights to the animal. In addition to contacting local wildlife agencies and veterinarians, you should post a notification about your lost pet in your neighborhood and community. This way, someone who finds your pet can reach you. If someone decides to keep the animal, your efforts to find it can give you a greater legal advantage in court. This problem is further obscured by the fact that twenty states have passed property laws that establish a procedure when lost property has been found. These regulations set out a series of steps that a researcher must follow when confronted with lost objects. Q. I found out that my lost pet was adopted by another family from a shelter and I want it back.
What can I do? Overall, according to state laws, there is very little reference to the title for lost dogs. The exception is when the party that finds is the State itself. If the person who finds the dog reports it to animal control, the dog will be kept for a period of time set by state law. Almost all states require the seizure of dogs at large by state officials. These laws essentially empower local animal control authorities to accept pets found at large. (Click here to learn more about government seizure laws.) Unfortunately, many of these laws often allow for quick action when the dog is perceived as a threat to public safety. That is, many of these laws provide for the killing of all dogs found at large. While this is clearly not a reassuring thought, owners need to understand that dogs at large are susceptible to seizure and seizure if found by animal control or other law enforcement agencies. These animals are then kept in an animal control facility for a period of time prescribed by law (usually about seven days, according to state law).
The Virginia Statute is an example of such a seizure law. The law states that all dogs that run freely without tags are subject to captivity. It then describes the registration procedure for confiscated dogs, the effort the pound must make to find the owners of the dogs, and how a legitimate owner can restore their dog. Va. Code Ann. § 3.1-796.96. No matter how long an animal is legally kept, owners need to understand that they will lose title to a pet much faster if the researcher is the state. Secondly, you can be guilty of theft or be held responsible for damage to the animal if you take it. Some court decisions have actually allowed people to take their neighbors` stray animals to shelters, but there is no guarantee that all states would allow this type of behavior. In fact, some states explicitly criminalize keeping lost property in the knowledge of its owner. If you are not interested in adopting the animal but want to help it, you have the legal right to welcome and care for it or do nothing. If you decide to help the pet, you acquire an obligation to the pet owner to exercise reasonable care and make reasonable efforts to reunite it with the owner.
They also acquire a duty to the rest of the world to protect them from the animal. In other words, you can be sued if you cause unreasonable harm to the animal or someone else because of the animal. In general, these laws determine the procedure that an investigator must use when searching for lost property, which is usually based on the monetary value of the property found. In other words, a state will require an additional effort on the part of the seeker of valuable goods compared to ordinary objects of low value. Most lost mestizo pets are subject to legal requirements with a low market value. These laws require Indians to report and/or hand over the property to local authorities, announce the discovery in a local newspaper, or attempt to find the true owner. After some time (between three and six months), the intermediary can claim ownership of the property. However, you may be able to sue the shelter if it does not comply with the law. If he disposed of the animal illegally, acquired it illegally, made no effort to find the owner, let the animal fall asleep for no reason or did not keep the animal for the entire period of detention, he may be held liable to you for the damage it causes. The problem with these laws is that they can explicitly exclude “pets” from their regulations. However, the term “pets” could be interpreted by these jurisdictions as referring only to commercial or farm animals and not to pets.
This then leaves a gap in the law for the legal status of lost and found animals. D Despite the fact that dogs are considered personal property and that no other law concerns pets as lost property, these provisions may not apply to pets. Of the twenty or so states and the District of Columbia that have lost property, two explicitly exclude pets from their use (New York and South Dakota). States that do not explicitly exclude animals from their lost and found laws have a legal procedure for investigators. Here`s how pet ownership works in the state of California: Pets that can be legally owned are considered personal property. Your TV, car, clothes, wallet and anything else you own that is mobile are personal belongings. This includes your pet. Record it and contain it carefully.
If you see a stray cat or dog, try to capture the animal and contain it if circumstances permit. Always approach stray animals slowly and carefully while speaking in a calm and gentle voice. You can also use food for a frightened animal to approach you. Do not try to scare or chase the animal when you are in traffic, as this will sometimes lead to traffic and injury. Ideally, dogs should be tied up with a leash or placed in a fenced garden. A belt or piece of rope can be used as a sliding line in an emergency, but keep in mind that these items are not suitable as a routine way to control a dog. Most cats don`t like to be held for long periods of time, so it`s best to lock stray kittens in a cat carrier, a secure box (with air holes), a small room in your home, or temporarily in your car (as long as the car is well ventilated and not too hot). Q. I found a stray animal and I don`t know what to do. In some cases, you can keep a stray dog you`ve found, but not before you report it to animal control and give their family time to find it. This dog might have a family that he misses, and the first place many owners look for their lost dog is animal control. Follow these steps before adding a stray dog to your family.
Bring pets to a shelter without ID. If the pet does not have an identification mark or microchip, the best chance is to be reunited with its owner, usually in a shelter. The shelter is the only obvious place where owners are likely to look for lost animals. Although most shelters maintain a database of “found” reports, these reports are often inaccurate due to the subjectivity of the person describing the animal. Many people are not familiar with the breeds and colors of the coat and may not be able to give an accurate description of the animal they have found. An acceptable alternative would be to publish an image of the animal found in the shelter`s computer database if the shelter has software with this capability. This would allow you to keep the animal lost while the owner can still find it via a photo at the shelter. It should be noted that most states have laws relating to the consumption of “Estays” or Estray animals.
These laws, which generally date back to the 1800s, were generally kept by the courts to cover only livestock that escaped from their stables or pastures. Illinois` provisions under the Estrays and Lost and FoundRy Act illustrate this distinction. The provisions of the law state: “Horses, mules, donkeys, cattle, pigs, sheep or goats found as stray animals whose owner is unknown may be considered stray in the same way as those intended for lost property.” IL 765 I.L.C.S.