The Dallas City Council just passed an ordinance requiring the people who find stray dogs to make reasonable effort contact the dog's owners within 72 hours of finding the dog. If people are found in violation of the ordinance they can be fined up to $500. The citizen who was behind this ordinance had his dogs stolen from his yard two years ago, and police never forced the people in possession to return his dogs. His search for justice has created a law which punishes the good samaritans who take in lost animals, not the irresponsible dog owners who let their dog's run at large. The guy who backed this law should have tried to create a law that punishes dog-nappers, not people who try to help lost or stray animals.

Yesterday, I had just finished mowing my lawn when a rather small golden retriever walked into my yard. I reached down to pet him and look for identification. Sure enough he had a collar and a tag. As soon as I read the tag I realized that I knew this dog. In fact this is the fourth time I have seen him in my yard. (He is usually running around with a large chocolate lab.) So once again I get my phone and call his owner, who lives about a mile away. His owner informed me that she was on her way to an appointment and could not come and get the dog for an hour, but if this was a problem, I could always take the dog to her house for her. (This is what I did last time I found her two dogs.) Since this poor dog had fleas and was a mess, and since I had deep cleaned my car earlier that morning, I decided to wait for her to come and pick up her dog.

I let my dog, and the dogs I was watching out into the yard to play. For the most part, the dogs were happy and enjoyed playing. After an hour and forty-five minutes I called the dog owner again. She told me she was on her way back from her appointment, and was still pretty far away so she would call her husband to see if he could get over any sooner to pick up the dog. So I waited out in the hot sun for these people to come. More than an hour goes by and still no word. I am getting a little irritated because I have things to do, so I call them again. This time I get voice mail. Well I left this woman a message telling her I had to leave in 15 minutes, and if I didn't hear from her by that time, I would have to tie her dog to a tree in my front yard so I could go. Well once again, no contact and she didn't show up, so I did as I said I would and leashed the dog to my tree. I gave him some water and I left. When I returned 50 minutes later, the dog was gone.

What should I have done? The first time we found dogs belonging to this owner, they showed up in our yard after midnight. We only found them because they woke up my dog. The second time they were running through all of the yards on our street marking any vertical object they could find. The third time was around 930 at night, and the woman couldn't pick up her dogs because her children were asleep in bed. And now you know the story of the fourth time. Clearly her dogs are not properly secured and they are not a priority in her life. Did I do the right thing by alerting the owners to their dog, or should I have simply contacted the authorities? Part of me doesn't think that this family should be allowed to own dogs, because they are clearly not responsible. I would hate to be punished by a law like this one, but I am not sure I would give this woman her dog(s) back a fifth time.