Lost, Stray, or Abandoned Animals

If you encounter an animal in your neighborhood or at your workplace who you think is lost or abandoned, there are steps you can take to help that animal get back home or into a new home.

(In the case of a dog that you are confident is being allowed to run loose, a dog that you have seen off of the owner’s premises multiple times, please see How to Report an At-Large Dog.)

Legal Issues

A loose pet is not necessarily an abandoned pet. Pets who get loose often look like they have been abandoned or dumped when in fact they are just lost due to no fault of the people who care for them. Dogs get out. Accidents happen. If your dog got loose and someone found your dog, you would want the opportunity to get him or her back.

Pets are property under the law. If you find a lost animal, even if that animal comes onto your property, you are not entitled to keep that animal any more than you are entitled to keep a car parked near your house with the keys in the ignition, the wallet you find when walking through a parking lot, or the bicycle you see leaning against a wall outside of a business. If you keep someone’s pet without going through the proper procedure, that is theft. If you keep the animal and then give it away, that is conversion of property. There is nothing wrong with seeking a new home or contacting a rescue group, but you cannot re-home animals yourself.

How to Help a Lost, Stray, or Abandoned Animal

If you find an animal that is clearly homeless or lost, was abandoned, or is vulnerable (e.g., sick or injured, elderly, kittens or puppies, or near a busy road):

1. Check for tags or other identification on a collar. Many people use tags that include a phone number and some microchipped pets wear tags with the microchip number so you can contact the company and report you found the animal.

If the animal keeps his distance and/or if are not able to take further steps, you can at this point ask to have the animal impounded. If you can do more:

2. Take the animal to your vet or a shelter to be scanned for a microchip, provided you can do so safely. Most veterinary offices will scan for free to help a lost pet get back home.
3. Canvass the neighborhood. The pet you found may belong to someone who lives very close to you. Check with your neighbors and businesses near you to ask if they know who owns the pet.
4. Use social media to seek the owner. Sites like Facebook and NextDoor are great tools to try to help pets get back home. Ask the shelter or animal control to share your post.
5. If you are unable to find the owner, report the found pet to local animal control authorities so the pet is put “in the system” to make sure the owner can find the pet. This is called a virtual intake. If your area has no shelter or animal control, see this information.

You may then have the option of fostering the animal. Fostering keeps pets out of the stressful shelter environment. Keep the foster animal separate from your own pets. The animal may be sick or injured, disoriented in this unfamiliar location, or worried about being apart from his or her family. Offer a calm and comfortable environment. Once the animal control officer or shelter staff informs you that the property hold period has ended, you can arrange to adopt, if you choose.

6. Bring the animal to the shelter or coordinate with animal control to have the animal impounded.

The animal will be kept in the shelter for the required hold period. You can still use social media to seek the owner, and you can also network with rescue groups to help keep the animal from being destroyed. If not reclaimed, the shelter may:

• Adopt the animal to you, if you have communicated that as your wish;
• Make the animal available for adoption to the public;
• Release the animal to a nonprofit rescue organization; or
• Put the animal to death. Some shelters will, at your request, inform you first so that you have the opportunity to adopt.

Some animal control officers will tell you if you feed an animal for three days, you own that animal. This is an urban myth created by an ACO in the Shoals area years ago. It has no basis in law. Just because you try to help an animal does not mean you own that animal.

A Note About Cats

It is easy to tell the difference between a Yorkie and a coyote. It is not possible to visually discern a difference between a pet cat and a cat who is not social to people. They look the same. Some cats are actually part of the ecosystem and have never been pets at all. Pet cats will typically seek attention and may vocalize. Cats who are not social to people do not speak and usually won’t let you get near them. Having said that, even a pet cat may run from an unfamiliar person.

If you encounter a cat outside who has a healthy body weight and is not injured, he or she likely belongs to a neighbor or is part of the ecosystem. Ask around in your neighborhood to see if the cat belongs to someone before you do anything. If you can’t find who owns the cat, you can follow the steps above — while keeping in mind that cats taken to shelters have a slim chance of being reclaimed and a high chance of being destroyed.

If there is a rescue group in your area that helps free-roaming cats, you can seek their assistance for something called TNR: trap, neuter, return. This is a process in which cats are trapped, sterilized, vaccinated, and ear-tipped (for easy identification) and then released to the area where the cat was found. Some shelters also provide TNR services to the community or have “barn cat” or “working cat” program to place cats.

Kittens, elderly cats, and sick or injured cats have a right to shelter. Follow the process for lost or abandoned animals to help them. The only exception to this is very young kittens. If you find a nest of neonatal kittens outside, it is possible the mother cat is nearby. If the kittens look healthy (clean, warm with round bellies), do not touch them. Leave them for 6–8 hours to see if the mother cat returns to care for them. Their survival is much more likely with her care. If the mother does not return, seek help from a local rescue group or animal shelter (provided the shelter does not destroy neonatal animals).

Intentional Abandonment of Animals

Abandonment can take different forms:

• A dog pushed out of a truck, running after the truck as it speeds off.
• Pets left behind when a family moves.
• A litter of kittens or puppies set out in a cardboard box.

Abandonment is a crime. You can help by assisting the animals, and if you have first-hand information, by reporting animal cruelty. Perhaps your dashcam caught a few seconds of the truck in front of you and its license plate. Perhaps you knew the residents who moved without their cats. Perhaps your employer can save surveillance footage showing the origin of dumped puppies. Such evidence can lead to cruelty charges.