Because it stated on the shelter's web-site that the facility was only open Monday - Friday 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Terry Young said he called and left a message that the dog was his, and he'd be by to pick up the dog on Monday.

Target was wearing her pink camo collar - the one she's wearing in the pics taken of her. There, however, was no tag on it. That was ill thought by Mr. Young. All dogs should have I.D. attached to their collar.

The story is that there were two dogs in the same run - the other dog was the one that was scheduled to be put down, but the shelter worker took Target instead. When Terry Young showed up Monday morning, they brought out the dog that was supposed to be put down. Only then did the shelter realize what it had horribly done.

Mr. Young states that he filled out paperwork for a city license and sent it in but hadn't heard anything back.

My warning point is if you lose a dog, and you want dog back, you need to not trust shelters, or the 'shelter system' to work - you need to aggressively go find your dog. Physically go to the shelters immediately (with your appropriate posters/pictures) You have to be politely dead-set that they pay attention to you (like when you fly with a dog)

That type of employee - well intentioned, undertrained, mistake-prone - is the rule in many shelters, unfortunately, not the exception.

I work with two awesome major national breed rescues, and they try to have a shelter employee meet a designate that night, if necessary, to release the dog - not wait until morning. Because the above happens.

In my experienced, 60-75% of pups and dogs coming out of shelters are misidentified anyway by shelter employees as to color and breed types - collie mixes called shepherds, AmStaffs called pits, etc. Dogs have been put down because, "Oh, we knew you lost a yellow lab mix, but we thought that was a Golden mix we euthanized. Sorry."

Believe me, there are tons of people out there, too, that just keep stray dogs, and never even bother to look for an owner. A microchip proves ownership definitively - even years later.

There was recently a Weim stolen out of it's owners' yard as a 9-month-old (Michigan I think), found here in KY this year - and returned to the original owners, and the dog is like 6 or 7 now! Pretty awesome :tro: