CNN - Pet Flipping
 

Wow, I have never heard of this! There are so many evil people in this world. How sad that this is happening to someones loved and cherished pet as we speak! :(

I guess this has been going on forever. In the long ago past, it wasn't given a term, just done. There used to be very little effort to try to find a lost pet's owner. It was finders-keepers and a lot of times the finder just up and sold the dog.

If you watch many old movies about a found dog, the subject of finding its owner was RARELY ever even mentioned. The finder just took over the dog, end of story. The finder kid(usually it was a kid) named the dog, began talking his parents into letting him keep it and the story went forward. That's the way it used to be. If you lost a pet, you had to beat the bushes to try to find it yourself because usually whoever found it was treating it as their pet now or selling it - not looking for you. And if you did find it and the new owner fought back, it was a tough go to get your dog back ever.

I see this on CL quite a bit. A dog will be listed "free to good home" and a few weeks later what appears to be that same dog (based on photos) is listed for sale.

Maybe a few decades ago it was not so easy to try to find a pet's owner. But now with free ads available on radio and the newspapers, plus the ability to make posters and use social networking there is really no excuse for not making an attempt to find where an animal came from.

I know when my kids found anything of any value, including a pet, they were never allowed to claim it as their own until a concerted effort was made to find the original owner.

It was much harder and the family finding the dog had to pay to place an ad in the newspaper and post flyers and call around using old rotary phones telling AC and the few vets in the area of the dog they found, leaving a phone #! Some vets would let you post a notice in their clinic. It was hard so many just never even got started.

I read or hear about things like this and I wonder if I should just lock us all up in the house and never leave. But then if a crook wants something bad enough they will find a way to get it. My granny used to tell me that. *sigh* It is so discouraging sometimes.:(

Thanks for the information!

OK, just locked the doggie door and may never open it again.
Supervised backyard play time only.

That is terrible! Is there no humanity left in the world?!:mad:
I feel so bad for the poor families who go through this, to have their pet taken away like that is awful. Those poor families and pets!:( This needs to be stopped.

Sometimes it's not even enough to be there with them. I have a small cement front yard that has wrought iron fencing. I ran chicken wire around the inside of the fence because all of my guys can slip through.

Morning routine used to be take dogs for a walk, put them in the front yard, go up the stairs and grab folding chair to sit in the front yard with them.
Mind you, the door is RIGHT THERE.
One morning I put the pups in the yard, open the front door, grab the chair which is right by the door, turn around, some guy is lifting Pixie OUT of my yard, and I was RIGHT THERE!
I didn't even think, I just LAUNCHED the chair at his head and I actually got him. He dropped Pixie and ran, and if it wasn't for the fact that mah bebes were right there and I couldn't leave them, I swear I would have went after him.

When I say my back was turned for less than 10 seconds, I really mean my back was turned less than 10 seconds. This guy had to have been watching me and had I not had the chair right there, if I had to step into the house I would have never known what happened, she would have just been gone.

My rottie breeder friend tells me I need to get a "real dog" to protect my "toy dogs"
I have to admit, sometimes, I think she's right. I have seriously started thinking about a rottie or dobie, or even a cane corso...

Also, didn't a member have a dog almost get snatched while she was walking her baby on leash???

OHMYGosh....That is so scary!! He thought you weren't coming right back out and was gonna hit the road running. Hmmph...don't mess with yorkie's skin momma!!! Did you call the police and report the guy?

Sadly, in my neighborhood, there wasn't even any point. I didn't even get a good look at him. Heck, it could have been a masculine woman, for all I saw.

The scarey thing is that someone has been breaking into houses.. Not in my neighborhood, but the one woman was robbed and she was fostering a powder puff chinese crested terrier thing, and they stole the dog!!!
She got the dog back due to the publicity, and the dog is distinctive looking, and I guess maybe they realized they couldn't sell her and couldn't breed her so they let her loose... The woman who found her claims she found her in the park. I am cynical to wonder if she is related in any way to the people that stole her in the first place.

There is almost always someone home. But there are times when we all leave out, and like I said, the more and more I think about it, the more and more I think about getting me a big protective breed. If something happened to my babies, I would have to kill someone.