Asked in Animal / Dog Law for Colorado

Q: I found a small dog on a busy street, it has a chip, owners haven't claimed her, can I keep her?

Let the chip company know I have her, haven't heard anything back yet.

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2 Lawyer Answers
Juliet Piccone
Juliet Piccone
Answered
  • Animal & Dog Law Lawyer
  • Greenwood Village, CO
  • Licensed in Colorado

A: Private people cannot extinguish ownership, only animal shelters and pounds have the statutory safe haven to do so. They must keep the animal for five business days before ownership is extinguished by statute. So you need to report the dog as found to your local animal shelter (or where she was found) and state you are going to hold her at your home for the 5 day period. They have to list the animal in their system with enough specificity that the owner could identify it if they were to call or go to the shelter. This is a different process than the microchip company. They have their own internal rules for when they will switch over a microchip to a new party.

Kristina M. Bergsten
PREMIUM
Kristina M. Bergsten
Answered
  • Animal & Dog Law Lawyer
  • Denver, CO
  • Licensed in Colorado

A: Because animals are considered property under Colorado law, this dog could be considered abandoned property, so it would also be advisable to advertise in the local paper and/or craigslist to announce that you have found the dog and your contact info. Abandoned property laws give the true owner 5 years to retrieve the property. That being said, 5 years is a long time in the life of a dog and if you have the dog the whole time, you would certainly have a strong claim to ownership if the owner ever tried to sue to get the dog back. The more you can do on the front end to show you tried to return the dog, but no one claimed it, the better your position will be that the dog was truly abandoned and you assumed ownership based on that information.

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