A woman has demanded her unchipped dog to be returned to her after the pet ran away and got adopted by another family.
According to Symara Moses, her 10-year-old pooch Kobe ran away after getting startled by fireworks on July 5.
Ever since then, the family had been looking for the pooch with little success. After weeks of searching, Kobe was taken in by the Fetching Tails shelter where he got microchipped and treated for a minor infection before he was sent off to live with his new family.
After finally finding out what happened to her dog, Moses pleaded with the shelter to give her Kobe back. However, her request was denied because the dog wasn’t microchipped when it ran away.
“I have never experienced this in my life. This is so hard,” the woman said in an interview with CBS Chicago.
“I think we have a very big, but simple issue here, but if dialogue is not even open, then we can’t even get started. Get your dog chipped, and then you wouldn’t be going through this. So, that is the biggest lesson.”
Following the incident, a local councilor expressed his sympathy for the heartbroken dog owner and pledged to help her get Kobe back.
“This is an unintended consequence of decreasing the stray hold to a shorter time frame thereby giving owners a smaller window to find their lost pet. Sadly this happens more often than we know about,” Alderman Raymond Lopez wrote on Facebook.
“I tried to address this previously but was told by our Department of Law that legally, once an animal passes the three-day stray hold threshold, they are now legally considered city property and can be adopted, transferred to rescue or euthanized regardless if the owner discovers them after that time frame.
“It is unfortunate that the rescue has refused to do the right thing and return the animal to its rightful owner. An animal advocate friend of mine has a saying, ‘Pets don’t always need a new home, sometimes they just need to go home.’”
Unfortunately for Moses, however, she likely won’t be allowed to see Kobe again.
“The new owners are aware of what’s been going on. But none of that matters. There is a legal contract,” the shelter’s lawyer, Andre Wrighte, said.
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