Quote Originally Posted by topspeed
Didn't know anything about it until now but I doubt it's going to have as big an effect you propose, Wooch. We got our dog from the shelter too (big advocate of this btw) and everyone that works there is a devoted animal lover that doesn't need a law telling them to try everything possible to return the pet to their owner. Our dog is 'chipped and I doubt seriously that the folks at the shelter wouldn't try to scan her regardless of whether or not some law says they have to. Thankfully, she's a homebody so I'm too worried. I had a dog like yours once, he's on a ranch now and can run 'till his heart's content.
I think it really depends on the locality. The Bay Area where I live is very much in the low-kill category when it comes to pets. We've had our dog scanned by the local shelter, and don't think the staff there would neglect to contact us if he ever winds up there. So long as our dog doesn't wander too far off, we're not worried that he'd get put to sleep when the clock strikes on the sixth day. Dogs though can wander quite a ways if given a chance, and I don't know anything about how other jurisdictions operate.

Unfortunately, shelters in other areas have very high kill rates. For example, L.A. City and Sacramento are notorious for keeping animals only so long as they're obligated to, and putting them to sleep at the first opportunity. With the L.A. City shelters, most of them have no evening or weekend hours. Under the old rules (which we would revert back to if the Guv has his way), the mandatory holding period was 72 hours, and if a dog was taken in Friday afternoon, the shelter was only obligated to keep them until Monday afternoon, regardless of operating hours. If the shelter is closed over the weekend, that means that the owner only had Monday morning and early-afternoon to find their pet at the shelter before they could get put to sleep. It's all too easy for an owner and a pet to miss one another at the larger shelters the first time the owner comes looking for their pet. At least a six day holding period allows owners to get a second chance to locate their stray pet.

Also, a few years ago, a couple of rural county shelters (I don't remember if they were in California) got caught selling dogs to research labs right after the mandatory holding periods ran out, even though they still had room for more dogs. I think those types of incidents were one of the reasons why the requirement to notify owners of microchipped dogs was put into law, because I think some of the dogs that wound up at a lab had been microchipped and the owners not notified.

Our dog's also a homebody for the most part, but he has his hyper/curious moments, and if he picks up a cat or squirrel scent, it's off to the races! Fortunately, our dog run fencing is buried two feet under with the top part of the fencing angled inward. Our dog was fostered by a rescue group that bailed him out of a Ventura County shelter not too long before his put to sleep date came up. He's great company, and we still scratch our heads that someone actually turned him in at a shelter where he would have been the first to take the needle once space ran out (owner relinquished dogs still have a shorter mandatory hold than strays).