The Glade 4.0

Hypothetical Scenario:

A kid moves out of state and has to leave his companion of 5 years, a dog who has been with him through everything. The new owners are told that it's a long shot, but if the boy ever returns he will want his dog back. They agree. Two months later, the kid moves back and wants his dog back. The new owners have given the dog to an old lady who has no family and has alzheimers....stories are told of how, miraculously, the doctors say this dog has saved her life and given her a reason to live and the dog is all she talks about at church on sunday, and she treats the dog as if it were her baby. They refuse to take the dog away from her to give back to the kid, who happens to be brokenhearted over the loss of his pet, and angry that he can't get the dog back.

Who gets to keep the dog?

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

He gave the dog away. It's not his dog anymore.

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Does the kid have anything in writing? Possession is nine tenths of the law.


Use it as a character-building life lesson in generosity - your dog went to a little old lady and saved her life, it's good to do good things for other people, yadda yadda all that stuff. Besides, maybe the old lady would enjoy regular visits from the kid.

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This scenario isn't hypothetical, is it?

So here's the thing... the "new owners" agreed to give the dog back if the kid ever returned. Within two months, this dog has been given away yet again. Not only that, but the dog has been with this old woman long enough to have miraculously saved her life by providing companionship. So how long did the "new owners" actually keep the dog?

The "new owners" agreed to return the dog if the kid returned, an agreement they clearly did not intend to honor given how quickly they dispensed with the dog. Two **** months. How lucky that there's some poor old woman with Alzheimer's to deflect attention. Perhaps the entire church should start shunning the "new owners."

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Ding ding! I believe we have a winner.

Yeah, the kid's just learned not to trust anyone to keep a bargain.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

That was an incredibly stupid agreement by all parties.

Anyway, they're dicks, and the kid should explain that to them, but what do they have to do with it now?

If kid wants his dog back, kid can go ask grandma.

Basically, yeah. The people who accepted the dog shouldn't have accepted it if they were going to jettison it as soon as possible. But where the dog is now, I can't see taking the dog away. And the child should recognize the good that this inadvertent generosity did. Bittersweet, but that's life.

I agree.


In this scenario, the new owners had the dog for less than a month, gave the dog to the old lady, and the parents called asking for the dog back two weeks after the old lady had gotten the dog...the miracle of this dog and the old lady was apparently instantaneous, but the parents were waiting to see if anything could be worked out with giving the old lady another dog, etc.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Dog needs to go back to the kid as per the initial agreement.

The new owners are **** for putting the kid and the alzheimers lady in this position. They need to get the dog back to the kid, and deal with the repercussions of their actions.

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Holy shitsnacks!

The kid should live with the alzheimers lady, and get the house when she dies.

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If this old lady is really in such a bad way with no family and no one to check in on her, then the best way to resolve this would be to have her keep the dog while the kid checks up on her every day under the pretense of visiting his dog. (WTF? Does nobody at church care enough to see how she's doing? What kind of church is this?) She needs the kid more than she needs the dog. The dog is just the impetus for human contact.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

You don't give away something with strings attached, especially something that requires attention the way a pet does.

If the kid and his parents wanted the option to have the pet back, they should have paid to board the animal for a few months.

They abandoned the animal, made it someone else's responsibility. There's no take backs for something that requires this level of commitment. The folks that gave the animal away did the right thing, if you can't give a pet the necessary amount of attention it deserves, find it another home where it can.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Coro, the lady and her church and the dog are 2 hours away from the kid in this scenario.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

I'd say chalk it up to a life lesson learned the hard way.

Kid needs to realize the dog is out of his reach now, let go and move on.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

If she really has alzheimers then go find her take the dog and she won't remember it. Or go take the dog and replace it with another dog, again she won't remember. Barring that take them to small claims court and avoid the legal expenses and get the dog back, she had plenty of time over the years to get a dog if she had wanted one.

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I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil

The kid - immature agreement or not the original group made the agreement.

The old lady has no claim on the dog whatsoever.

The dog goes to the kid.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

This.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Miracle or not, it is the height of irresponsibility to give an animal that requires any sort of care to someone who will inevetibly not be able to care for it eventually. In all likelihood, the dog will outlive the old lady in the first place, but the dog will need to be rehomed well before that happens because the old lady won't be able to properly care for it. Of course, a lot of this rides on how advanced her particular case of Alzheimer's is, but still the point remains.

The people who gave the kid's dog away are responsible for the situation, and need to make it right. Basically, the dog has a lien on it, with the kid being the lien holder. Give the kid his dog back.

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Women are from Hoboken, men are from Trenton. ~ Jimmy Kimmel

There is no "right answer" to this one.
According to the original agreement, however poorly thought out and regardless of whether or not it was documented, the kid has a claim.
Assuming the old lady wasn't informed of the original agreement, and in light of the apparent benefit she has derived from the gifting of the dog to her, she also has a claim.
Best-case scenario: one of them cedes their claim to the other.

As an alternative solution would be for the family who served as "middle-men" in this situation might take it upon themselves to obtain a replacement dog for one party or the other.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

How does need invalidate ownership Shelgeyr?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Ownership obligates someone to care for an animal. 2 months @ $20 a day, which is really cheap for boarding a dog...well, if it's not their dog, they should be compensated, right, muppet?

Unless you think that because there's nothing in writing ...

"There's a slim chance that the boy might be back, if so, he'll want the dog back" doesn't constitute a contract, even when agreed to. Ok, so he will want the dog back. That's fine. So what? There's no terms there.

People have to find a home for their animals all the time. You hope it works out, but you have to take your chances when you give the animal up, and if you're not paying someone to care for the animal, you're giving it up.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Legally
With nothing in writing, dog goes to whoever has it or whoevers name is on the dog's license.

Morally
That's a bit tougher. the second owner shouldn't have given the dog up without consulting the first owner. The third owner is probably as much a victim in this as the first, provided she was unaware of the "backsies" clause of the oral contract. Perhaps more so, because any self honest first party has to realize the difficulties and possibility of the second party getting attached.

Just throwing this out there: How long should the second party be on the hook for this "have to give the dog back" clause of their oral contract. A year? two? ad inifinatum? What if the dog had passed away in their care? should the first party be entitled to replacement? Seems like a mucky situation to me. I wouldn't have accepted the oral contact with the backsies clause.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Old lady gets the dog, which goes back to the boy when she dies. The boy already dumped the dog once when it became inconvenient. The boy gave up ownership when he gave the dog to someone else with no provision to pay for its care.

Actually, the boy didn't...the mother of the boy in question did when she refused to pay a pet deposit. The boy had no say in the matter whatsoever.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth