what do you think about pets ending up in a custody battle after hurricane Katrina?

Question

Keep in mind that a lot of the pets were brought to shelters and the owners weren't able to return asap, and they were already put up for adoption.
some of these animals were at home, with their owners, when the houses were blown away and were found later, and owners are having to fight new owners.
i've been seeing a few cases on the news about this and I was wandering your thought.
I think the animals should be returned to the former owner

one case the people couldn't get back until 5 weeks after the storm, this family put their dog in a shelter. When they got home the dog was adopted.

there is now a law that just passed that if the animal was put in a shelter then the shelters have to wait more than 120 days

a microchip can help. there is a flaw in the microchip. sometimes different places have different readers and are not able to detect the microchip.

A lot of people did leave their pets at home thinking they were going to get right back. MY dog did come with me I refused to leave her. My brother n law left about 12 dogs in my house(brand new house), with plenty of food and water. we filled bowls after bowl. we weren't able to get back to them untill about a week after katrina, we were only 15miles away. this is about 30 min north of the coast. once you go through so many storms you tend to underestimate the storms, and no human shelters will allow dogs. a lot of people think it is easy to just pick up with your animals and go, it's not. a lot of employers will not let you take off right before the storm a lot of them want you to stay till the last minute.

and even if the vet had the name adress and phone number, from a microchip they still wouldn't be able to get in touch. It took me 7 weeks to get electricity. my mom 6 weeks to get a phone. and about 6 families I know still don't know where there house is. after all this it is going to take a little bit of time consuming effort to find some people. and all the vet's that were destroyed it takes people a lot of effort to find their pets as well

Answer 1

I would think that anyone who adopted a pet from one of those shelters should have been told that it was a temporary adoption because the original owners could still come forward. There should also be a time limit like 1 year to try to get your pet back, so people 5-10 years from now can't be like "hey that's my dog." hearing that there were people who put their dogs in a kennel, to be watched cared for and taken care of during the hurricane but were then adoped out is just outragous to me. Adopting an animal after a tragety should be treated as a foster home, then after 1 year they can offically adopt the animal.

Answer 2

I think if there was no microchip or tattoo to make a positive identity, the former owner should be happy the animal was rescued and placed in a good home.

Answer 3

Every one should have their dog or cat implanted with a micro-chip . That way when the pet is found and the micro-chip scanned the vet will have the name and address of the pet owner and there would not be any need for custody battles .

Answer 4

It depends. I was watching the news and it said a lot of people just left their animals to fend for themselves after Katrina. Those people shouldn't get their animals back, they don't deserve them back. But the people who lost their animals for some reason should be able to get them back.

Answer 5

There needs to be a internet site and newspaper articles and get the media in contact--with photos and outlines of the animals and in step with probability which shelter they have been taken to. yet i'm in order that happy that those animals survived in any respect and that i'd nevertheless be happy to nicely known that somebody accompanied them. i became so aggravating with reference to the animals throughout the time of that hurricane b/c they have been helpless and that i hated that.