The Glade 4.0

There are lots of reasons why a kid of indeterminate age might have to part with a dog that do not amount to dumping the dog because it's inconvenient.

The old lady, tragic though her story may be, is just a smokescreen for some holier-than-thou ****. Let's face it, the second party could not have had possession of the dog for more than a few weeks before they passed it off onto this old lady. They knew they had no intention of taking care of the animal when they accepted it. They bargained in bad faith and **** the first party. Boo hoo old lady with Alzheimer's. Look at the old lady with Alzheimer's.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Yeah, what Coro said. Hope you will be able to reclaim the dog when she can't take care of it anymore. It is just a temporary reprieve on the Alzheimer's Disease.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Ownership transferred when the dog changed hands with no financial provision for its upkeep. If the theoretical boy's mother was the one responsible for the pet deposit she was the one supporting the dog and it was hers, not the boys. The dog was dumped by its owner (the mother) when it became inconvenient. What's to say it won't happen again next time a pet deposit is involved?

It's sad for the boy, and the folks that gave the dog to the old lady are jerks for violating the spoken agreement, but when you give a dog to someone you give up the right to determine what happens to it. And the old lady is now the owner of the dog.

Yes but none of that is her fault. As far as we know she has no idea the dog was immorally obtained.

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

I never said it was her fault. I said she was a smokescreen. She is a red herring, and you just fell for it.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

A verbal contract (which is binding by law) was entered into by both parties. The verbal contract provided for no financial provision for the dog, but assumed only stewardship rather than ownership for the couple recieving the dog. The couple entered into the contract in bad faith, and the boy must have his dog returned to him. The couple in question should also be charged with providing a new dog for the elderly lady, as they defrauded her initially by giving her something of value which wasn't their to give. The fact that you feel that the boy should have provided financial support for the dog has zero bearing on the contract once it was entered into. The contract didn't call for any, and as such the boy never surrended ownership.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

I didn't say it did. Please don't put words in my mouth.

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

That depends on the 'contract'. There's a big difference between 'watch my dog for me' and 'here, take this dog, but I MAY want it back'. If the first I agree with you. If the second, ownership has been transferred.

If I buy a car from a guy who says 'but my wife may get pissed and want it back' I'm under no legal obligation to sell it back to him if she flips a biscuit. That's why quality breeders have specific written contracts regarding returning dogs to them if the new owner can't keep them.

I'm uncertain why we're answering the hypothetical from the point of an omniscient 3rd party. This would make more sense if it were presented as 3 points of view: the kid, the old lady, and the people the kid gave the dog to.

Treating all this as if it were the claims of each of the parties involved rather than a gods-eye view of the entire situation, the old lady should be allowed to keep the dog.

The fact is that this is probably not a verbal contract because it A) appears to be too informal and unspecific to be a contract and B) involves no consideration being put up by the people in exchange for the dog in the first place. On the other hand, if the agreement is really for them just to watch the dog for an unspecified time and then return it on demand, it still isn't a contract because now the kid is putting up no consideration; he's just getting a free dog-sitting favor.

As for what I'd do if I could simply decree a solution unbound by precedent, I'd confiscate the damn dog, auction it, and split the proceeds 3 ways between the kid, the old lady, and the people who gave her the dog.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

If the second party had retained possession of the animal then there would have been somewhat of an obligation to turn the animal back over.

However, since there wasn't any provision for how long they needed to keep the animal, by turning it over to another party, they transferred ownership without violating their agreement with the parents of the kid - there wasn't any agreement on how long they had to keep the dog nor any agreement that they maintain ownership and not give the dog to someone else.

So, the second party violated no agreement.

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In time, this too shall pass.