Found a dog

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Took him around to all of my neighbours to see if they know him or where he comes from. No one knows.

Have been to the mairie to let them know.

What else can I do? I have no interest in keeping a 3rd dog, so someone, somewhere must be missing him even though they couldn't be bothered to tag or tatoo him.

Am guessing he is a working dog as he is on a long chain that must have come unattached. Any ideas to reunite him with his owners or get him to a place where lost dogs go gratefully appreciated.

Many thanks.

R.

[Judie]

When I found one locally, I told the Maire of my commune who put an ad in the most read local paper and the owner came forward within the week.

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Excellent.

Just called the vets and they told me to take him in tomorrow and see if he has a chip anywhere.

Been around the village asking people if they know the owner, into the bars etc, but no luck so far.

Hopefully the vet will be able to provide the solution.

[Judie]

That's what I did with mine first, but they were only able to confirm he had nothing, no chip, no tattoo, and they couldn't offer any further help which was why I contacted our Maire.

Good Luck

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Yep, vets found no trace of a chip either. So the owners are either not bothered about him (which is strange as he's a lovely fellow), or he is some sort of working dog and they don't bother with stuff like that. Don't know. Spent the previous afternoon talking to people who "know everyone on the village" if they knew him, the bars, even put a big sign up outside my house to try an trace the owners.

Anyway, went back to the maires as the vet told me it's their problem to find the solution, so I asked them to come and collect him, as my dogs were becoming unsettled by his boystrousness. Plus he woke me up at 5am demanding to be fed [:D]

Hope he has een reunited with his owners now though.

[Dog]

We found a beautiful golden collie under our car one day. Poor thing had hundreds of ticks including eight on her lip alone. She was near collapse and very shy.

We managed to entice her out with some food. I photographed the dog and took it to the Marie, the Marie said it was their responsibility and they collected the dog that afternoon to take her to the vets and see if she had a chip.

By chance my neighbour works at the Marie and he collected the dog and said if she wasn't chipped she would be taken to the SPA. I said I would look after her until she was claimed and he said that would be OK.

It turned out she wasn't chipped - seems daft with a pedigree dog or any for that matter. While we were doing our weekly shop that afternoon a woman arrived and took the dog. I asked my stepson if he was sure she was the owner he said it was obvious by her response the dog was very pleased to see the owner.

Apparently the dog had escaped before? This time she had be gone for 6 days and travelled nearly twenty kilometers from home. Going by the rawness of her pads she didn't go in a straight line.

The woman came back the next day and thanked us and gave us some wine and twenty new laid eggs.

I just wished she'd chipped the dog - if she cannot be bothered to do that does she get the poor animal vaccinated and wormed?

[Christine Animal]

[quote user="LyndaandRichard"]
Anyway, went back to the maires as the vet told me it's their problem to find the solution, so I asked them to come and collect him, as my dogs were becoming unsettled by his boystrousness. Plus he woke me up at 5am demanding to be fed [:D]

[/quote]

 

It may be the maire's problem to find a solution.  But the only solution maires often find is euthanasia.  Never if you can avoid it hand over a found dog to the mairie.

This is exactly what happened to Terry/Henry Schnauzer now adopted by the lovely Pushkins.  I had a call from an English couple saying they had found a black dog and what should they do.  They could see no tattoo so I said the best thing to do first was to take him to the vet to see if he had a chip and then we would see afterwards what could be done.

Oh, they came back to me so pleased.  The dog had no chip, but the kind vet had told them to take him to the mairie, what a relief, problem solved!

I called the mairie to see if they had found the owner, which they hadn't, and asked what they would do with him.  They said that after a certain delay if noone had claimed or adopted him he would be put down.  As I did not want this to happen, I asked them to contact me before doing so, which they did, and that is how he ended up with us.

If you find a dog and are able to keep it for a while, you should inform the mairie that you have found it.  It's also a good idea to inform the gendarmes to see if anyone has reported losing their dog.  An ad in the local paper is free for "les trouvés".  The dog may have travelled miles in a short time, have run away from someone who was keeping him while his owners were on holiday and cannot therefore find his way home (this happens frequently) or he may have been stolen and not be from that area (this is on the rise lately).  Never leave your own dog alone in the garden if you are out, nor in the car.

Try at all costs to avoid leaving the dog at the mairie or local fourrière (pound).  There may be a local animal shelter who can advise and help you if you cannot keep it for a while.

 

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Ooh didn't realise the maire would do something like that.

I'll check in the morning to see if he's been returned.

I would hope they would have informed the gendarmes. I didn't think of that despite doing everything else.

[Judie]

The reason I contacted my Maire was that, as a village councillor, I know him and trusted him to come back to me if he was unable to find the owner.

Not all Maires are perhaps as quick, as Christine Animal implies, to euthanase animals.

[Christine Animal]

I hope not and I'm not implying anything, just speaking from experience over many years.  I don't know what Lynda and Richard's mairie is like or where they are.

Trudy on our site is another recent example, so were Peach, Amy and Annie.  There is no animal shelter in our département, so the mairies have to have a little kennel somewhere, usually where they have all their building type of material.  If they find noone for a dog, what solution to they have?  They are not going to keep them forever.

Here's a typical example:

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/1569790/ShowPost.aspx

In the département where we were before there were three SPA shelters, plus a fourrière départemental which meant that any found dogs could be taken there.  They were putting down several a week.

I just wanted people to be aware of that.

 

[WJT]

There was a lost dog in our commune and the place they keep them in is the tin outbuilding where the machine for cutting verges are kept with no windows. Absolutely boiling in the summer! The man that is in charge of cutting the verges also keeps the lost dog and he completely man handled the poor thing. he was dragging him along the floor by the scruff of his neck. The dog was shaking like a leaf.

We were going back to the UK two days later and don't have a fenced garden so didn't know what to do. In the end, I called the SPA and thats where he ended up. I felt he was better off in that horrible place instead of the Marie.[:'(] Luckily in this case he was a lovely Golden Retriever so the owners very strangely did take a long time but did get him in the end. I would never be happy with the Marie keeping a dog.

[suein56]

[quote user="LyndaandRichard"]Ooh didn't realise the maire would do something like that.

I'll check in the morning to see if he's been returned. [/quote]

As I understand it Maires are legally obliged to sort out the situation re a lost dog; but how they do that and what provision they have locally - if any at all - varies totally from the sublime to the non-existent.

Sue