What would you do? - Page 1

We board and train dogs and so far we haven´t had a problem with the owners until now.On the 20th of October we had a rottweiler brought to our dog hotel,she was supposed to stay with us till the end of November.It´s the end of January and Daisy is still in our hotel.I tried contacting the owner and nothing happens - her phone number doesn´t work,I managed to find her on Facebook and left her messages but she simply ignores me.What would you do?Would you sell the dog?

 Did you sign a sort of written contract with the owners with specific terms? Did they pay the lodging charging till date?

Ibrahim

Well obviously she does not want it.....sell it to get your $ back..if not find a better home for her where she is actually wanted...
I would also create a hall of shame and place photos of animals left behind and photo of the owner and say..."UNWANTED" left behind by this person for 30 days.... blah blah...I bet that would discourage those who are planning on doing the same thing...

We didn´t sign a contract,it is not common in my country.I am getting inspired by you guys in States and will sign contracts from now.We didn´t take a deposit,the customers pay us when they come to pick their dogs up.So far,there was no problem.

There are probably laws where you live that cover this situation; I'm sorry this happened to you (sorry for the poor dog, too!) but it has probably happened before.  Check your local laws to make certain you do what you need to do legally to sell the dog, so that if the previous owner shows up some day with a wad of cash, you're protected.

 I would do this this:
You put an ad in the official or most read newspaper in your country addressed to the owners that within a week time if they do not collect their dog then you will either sell or re home the dog without any responsibility on your behalf, then if they don't show up do sell or re home the dog. This way they can not make legal charges against you.

We own a boarding kennel too, we always have clients fill out a contract and get lots of emergency contact phone numbers. In our state if this happened to us, thankfully has not been a problem so far, we would have to send a registered letter to the address listed on the contract then wait 2 weeks then we would be free to sell/adopt out the dog.  Problem is you're not going to make your boarding fees back in the sale of this dog, you don't have its papers I assume and might not even have any of the health info on the dog.  Its a hard situation but you will definately learn from it and make up a good contract from here on in.  Good luck!
Amy

The owner is probably in Germany as she is German,she has been living in Slovakia since 2007.The dog does not have papers.We don´t have her pet passport with health info but I saw it when she was brought to us as I always check the vaccination info and deworming when people bring their dogs.She is microchipped and I know when and where she was vaccinated so getting a pet passport won´t be a problem.
I don´t care about the money but I feel sorry for Daisy.She is a very good dog with a great character despite the fact that she wanted to "eat us" for the first two days .I would keep her myself but we have our 3 GSDs and 2 malis.
Our law system is much different from yours,much worse,they solve the cases for years and in this case we would pay much much more to the lawyer than we would get.

By the wat Cage, baby pictures are welcome and will be much appreciated.
Ibrahim 

This is what you do: You contact authorities and tell them what is going on. Then you send cerified letter (zasielka na podpis) a make sure that it gets delivered. Also I would not put the kennel name anywhere on the envelope to make sure they cant deny the letter. The letter is going to have information such as, the dog will be placed in a new environment unless the owner claims her and so on so on! You have back up in the letter if it gets deliveder. Then police or whoever gets informed about this and woalla..after the date the dog is technically there to be available. The thing is.. you have to have a back up and papertrail.

This is done here and I would do it the same way home. I know the cops dont care but maybe they will work with you in this instance.

I would ask them if this is a good aproach so you cant get into trouble.

I highly doubt the person wants the dog back but here in US it would be theft if you did not do it the legal way. In Slovakia, we take the dog.. but just in case..