Shelter frustration

I had a stressful weekend. Friday afternoon I got a call from a
shelter in another state, that they had picked up a dog with one
of my microchips. They figured right off the bat that I was the
breeder (incorrect) and not the current owner (correct). They let
me know, emphatically, that they would not release her to me.
They would give her owner a week to show up, after which they
would decide whether to euthanize her or put her up for adoption.
I would be free to apply to adopt her if they chose not to
euthanize.

I had to look in my records to find what dog it was. The person
I sold her to was gone for the weekend and didn't call back until
Sunday. I learned from him that she had passed through the hands
of at least two other people. He gave me the name of the first one,
and I called Sunday night and left a message. I called Monday
morning and left another message.

In the end the dog was collected by her owner, or someone in the
chain, anyway. I spent three anxious days, however, not knowing
whether I would succeed in getting to the current owner in time,
and not knowing if they would care enough to go get her--and if
I failed or they didn't, would the shelter choose to kill her rather
than release her to me.

They couldn't tell me of any proof of ownership they would require,

Amy Dahl...

This definitely sounds like something to try in future.

With my luck, I'd get police like the ones I called one morning when
my car was gone from my driveway. They told me it had been towed,
and the towing company said it was illegally parked. It had
snowed the night before, and the place my car had been was
obvious--but the police refused to come and look at it. Just take
a taxi to the impound lot, pay the fine and the towing fee, they said.

I figured out that the towing company had been engaged by the
apartment complex next door. Their manager called and told them
to bring my car back. I was PO'ed at the police, about like I am at
this shelter, though. They just presumed I was the bad guy.

Amy Dahl

just that I wouldn't qualify.

I would like to try to work out a way to prevent this from happening
with future dogs. I would like to hear from anyone who is involved
with shelters, especially in policy making. If I wrote a sales contract

that included explicit authorization for me to act as agent for the
buyer
in recovering a dog from a shelter or, in a more extreme form, that
said ownership would revert to me if the dog's chip were not
registered to the new owner and the dog wound up in a shelter, would
shelters be inclined to respect that and release the dog to me?

Is it unusual to consider euthanizing a dog when someone acquainted
with the dog expresses a desire to "adopt" it? Or only when the
person is believed to be the breeder?

Would it be a mistake to tell the shelter staff that the dog is a
valuable, trained and titled hunting dog?

Paula...

In our local shelters, they put the dogs with training, even just
basic obedience training, on a delayed euthanization list because they
figure they are more likely to be adopted and kept by the adopting
family. I would think it would help to keep the dog from being killed
instead of adopted out to tell them the above, but I don't know if it
would help as far as them allowing you to pick the dog up if they
didn't find someone they accepted as owner.

TIA,

Amy Dahl