Remember that stray dog from Take Me Home…Maybe?
What if that wa
s YOUR dog?
What if your dog somehow escaped your yard (its been known to happen…A LOT) and some kind soul found her and took her home.
Now that you’ve gasped, sank down into your chair, taken your hand off your pounding chest, and sobbed into your spouse’s shoulder, think about where you would start to look for your one-and-only precious dog.
That’s where you, as the finder of the stray, begins.
1.Write down where you found the dog, the breed you think it is, gender, and any identifying marks (like: one white paw, a scar on his ear, a collar but no tags, etc). Check the skin of the dog’s inner thigh and stomach, just in case there is a number tattoo there.
2. Call your local animal shelter (click HERE for the Capital Region shelters) and file a Found Dog report.
3. Ask them to check it against any Lost Dog reports they have pending.
4. If you are able to, bring the dog to the shelter and have it scanned for a microchip. At this point, you can leave the dog there if you don’t want to keep it. Â
5. If you decide to keep looking on your own, most newspapers offer free Found Pets ads.
6. Put posters with a photo of the dog and your contact information around the neighborhood where you found the dog.
7. Register the dog with FidoFinder.com.  Â
7. Check with local veterinarians to see if they recognize the dog as a patient, and therefore know the owner.
8. Just because the owner doesn’t show up, doesn’t mean the dog is automatically yours. Depending upon your municipality, you may have to wait up to 2 weeks from the time you found the dog , before you are considered its legal owner.
9. If you brought the dog to a shelter, and then changed your mind about keeping it, you will have to go through the shelter’s regular adoption procedure.
10. And of course, once the dog is officially yours, do all the things that good owners do: give her permanent identification (microchip and tags), a complete health check and vaccinations at the vet’s, and a fence, so she doesn’t become someone else’s stray dog.