Q: How long does an owner have to claim lost dog until dog belongs to new owner. After original has been contacted?

A: When the owners' failure to come get the dog meets the legal definition of abandonment. Abandonment requires the intentional giving up of ownership. Intent can be express ("I no longer want the dog, you can have it"), or implied through conduct (e.g., refusal to respond to entreaties and notices delivered to the owner to come claim the dog). Your situation is in a gray area, where the owner has clearly expressed a desire to retain ownership, but lacks the financial resources to travel so many miles to retrieve the dog from you. Keep in mind, your friend is responsble for transporting their dog several states away from where it was found, and giving it to you. They could and should have delivered the dog to a local animal rescue in North Carolina, or simply stopped by any animal shelter or vet to have the dog scanned, and they would have found the local owner and could have left the dog locally to be swiftly picked up. Instead they took a dog that did not belong to them hundreds of miles away from where it was lost. Now you have it. Seem to me that you and/or your friend now bear some responsibility to get the dog back down to the rightful owner. Offer to meet them half way, perhaps. Or there may be an animal rescue organization willing to cover the transportation costs to reunite the dog with its owner. You don't acquire ownership over somebody's property by finding it unattended and carrying it away so far that it is impractical for the owner to come get it. You provide no facts as to why they can't come, but perhaps they lack a car, money to rent a car, or it's a single parent with small children who can't travel that distance, their work schedule does not permit it, they are the sole caretaker for an elderly disabled parent, or any number of reasons.