We lost our old girl back in June. Had some things pop up and weren't ready for a new one for a while. Long story short, we adopted this past weekend and picked her up yesterday evening after "getting fixed." Turned out she was already fixed. We thought she was 2-5 years old, vet estimated she was 7.

Turns out she is a great dog. Very well behaved, house trained, calm, came in the house, a little timid but like she lived there and was perfectly comfortable. She had 0 interest in my cat. The cat on the other had immediately ran up and started sniffing her. She could not of cared any less.

No chip...

Here is my delimma. To me, it is obvious she was someone's pet. I get it, could of been a good owner or a bad owner. I suspect good because, though a little timid shows no behaviour that she was abused. She seem like such a great turn key pup that probably someone is missing her. She was in the shelter so if anyone was missing her, they could of checked and picked her up. I feel guilty, though. What if this was some kid's pup?

The delimma is should I put forth the effort to see if a family is missing her or just count my blessings? She was fixed, but no chip. She was in the shelter, but no one came for her. If she was mine, I would appreciate someone trying to figure out who she belonged to.

FWIW, she is going to have a great life with us.

First off, good on you for taking her in!

Second, it sounds like you love the dog and pledge to take great care of it. That is all anyone can ask of you. If it is weighing on you, I'd throw some pictures up on some local facebook animal groups. That is about as much due diligence as anyone can ask of you if the previous owner didn't get their dog chipped.

Third, good on you for taking her in and enjoy your new pup!

The only thing I would add:

There are terrible people in this world who go adopt dogs or find other ways of acquiring dogs for cheap to use to train their fighting dogs. Those dogs just get mauled until they die.

When you're looking for the original owner, do it in a way that wouldn't allow one of those people to lie to you to get a free dog.

If it were me it would depend on how long she had been in the shelter. If it had been a week or so, run an ad in the local newspaper. That would be more than enough time for her family to find her there.

The dog I currently share my life sounds kind of like yours but wasn't that old. He had been in the shelter for 3 months and I never thought once about trying to figure out where he came from. I knew he would have a better life with me than where he came from.

You are good people. Here at the ranch we constantly have dogs dumped. We take them in. Feed them. Give them care and find good homes for them. We've been lucky to always find good homes for them and never have had to take one to the shelter.
All the folks we have put the dogs with have had very positive outcomes and the dogs have made a big difference in their lives. I believe God has something to do with that. There is a reason you have that dog now.
Don't feel guilty. Embrace it and enjoy her. Dog is God spelled backwards for a reason. You're good people and God knows that my friend.

Dog threads without pictures of said dog is against the rules!

Good for you, Op. That dog is lucky to have a home with someone that thinks about others.

Not a premium member so can't post. Looks like the shelter already took her profile down so can't link. Sorry, would love to post a pic of her.

Use imgbb.com to host your pictures. It's free and easy.

I've been on both side of this. My wife and I had to surrender our cat because when we moved, whatever treaty the dog and cat had was rendered null and void, and the cat was miserable. It was a hard decision, and we honestly didn't know if he would be adopted, but we had a feeling he might. A week later his profile was taken down, so we felt good knowing he went to a home where he could live in peace.

The flip side is this past summer we adopted a golden retriever from a rescue group. My wife had been posting pictures of him to other Golden Retriever groups, and a lady posted "I'm glad to see Shadow is doing well." My wife reached out to her, and we knew she was definitely the person that surrendered Shadow because she knew too many details about the circumstances of the surrender that weren't made public (my wife had even posted under his new name, so she couldn't have been searching for his old name). She even shared some pictures of when he was a puppy, and golden retriever puppies are just too damn adorable. She hasn't reached out anymore, and we're glad she hasn't, because little to no good can come of that.

Be happy you're able to give a dog a loving and happy home. They're repay you in spades.

2 weeks after Winter Storm Uri in February 2021, we were notified of a labradoodle in the Collin County shelter that they think had been on the run all through the ice week. At that point she had been in the shelter a full week with nobody inquiring about her. We took her home and she's just the best dog. She's straight 50/50 chocolate lab and standard poodle mix. She was about 3 years old and had had at least one litter. We think she was a breeders dog (she would have been bred with a poodle to make the expensive labradoodle). Weird that no one was looking for her, but their loss is our gain!

Reading the headline, I thought this post was going to be about the new dog snapping at your kids which would have started another 5-10 page debate on euthanizing or re-homing.

Congrats. It sounds like you found great dog.

No chip = finders keepers.

If we find a stray and it looks bad, we'll fix them up on our dime and rehome. We check local listings and posts for lists dogs, if it isn't there, it's like a wallet without an ID as far as we're concerned.