Animal Welfare Professionals

Just a quick question about classifying an intake!  If a dog was abandoned at a vet and we take the dog from the vet, do we count that as a stray intake, a transfer, or an owner surrender?

@ShellyThompson, can you answer this?

I would first ask "why" you are taking the dog from the vet, and that will help you to determine how to classify the intake.  If you are a municipal shelter, or you are contracted to take in stray animals, then you are accepting the dog as a "stray", similar to the way you would classify a dog that was abandoned outside your front door.  

If, however, you are a rescue or a limited admission shelter, and you are taking the dog in as a favor to the vet clinic, I would categorize that as a "transfer".   It doesn't really fit as an owner surrender, because the owner did not specifically transfer ownership of the dog to your facility.  Hope that helps!

Thank you!  That does help!  We're a rescue, so I'll count it as a transfer.  Our executive director was thinking maybe an OS because she thought the vet was the owner by virtue of the abandonment, but transfer makes sense.

Lisa comment below makes sense to me. 

Lisa put it perfectly - ownership of the dog was transferred from practice to rescue so it should be logged as a transfer in.

Thanks!