Q: My dog was put to death at Dallas animal shelter. Even though I sent them 3 emails that they replied to. To let them
That it was my dog and that I was coming to get her
A:
If you notified the animal shelter of your ownership, the shelter is required to continue to hold the dog for five days from the date it was impounded (not from the date you notified the shelter) for you to come and pick up your dog. As long as you appeared at the shelter with the proper funds to redeem your dog within those five days, the animal shelter should not have euthanized your dog.
If you did not physically show up within those five days during the shelter's normal business hours to redeem your dog, the shelter had the legal right to adopt it out or euthanize it. Dallas Animal Services is open seven days a week to redeem impounded animals.
Interestingly, in the big picture, reducing the holding period on impounded animals increases a shelter's live release rate. Requiring an owner to promptly redeem an impounded animal insures that there is space available for another animal which then reduces the total number of animals a shelter has to euthanize. It is shocking how many pet owners will leave an impounded animal in a shelter--sometimes overnight--sometimes even longer--because it is inconvenient to retrieve their pet from the shelter.
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