Humane Society looks to prevent stolen pet adoptions 

BOWLING GREEN, Ky.-Taking home a new pet is very exciting and adopting that pet can be an added feel good experience. At the Humane Society in Bowling Green a common problem is making sure that people taking home adopted pets, aren’t taking home pets that already have owners.

At the Hildreth Adoption Center in Bowling Green, they’re working to prevent stolen pet adoptions.

“Anytime an animal is brought in whether it’s a stray, owner surrender, anything like that we always check for signs of ownership,” said Megan Young, adoption counselor at the Adoption Center in Bowling Green.

Those who steal pets face heavy fines, and up to five years in prison. That doesn’t stop people from taking stolen pets to adoption centers.

“It’s a super cute dog and then it turns out it could be a little too much, or more than they thought that they can handle. Then they bring it here either if they couldn’t get rid of it, sell it or that kind of thing,” said Young.

That means, you can take a pet home and later find out that it already has an owner who wants it back.

“We always just look for collars, tags, anything like that if it ever seems suspicious. We do have a stray hold, where we’ll hold them for five days just to see if anyone does step forward to reclaim,” said Young.

Once an adopted pet is in the hands of its new owners in most cases there’s no going back.

“After those five days legally, we are able to put them up for adoption. So sometimes it just happens where they end up going home and then a week later someone comes and says that was my dog,” said Young.