Why would anybody who is stealing a dog take the time leave the tags on the front lawn and take the collar? Makes no sense. More reasonable scenario is that the original owner did not put the tags on or took them off (maybe they jingled).
Why would somebody steal a nice dog then abandon it on a military base to be picked up? Unless it is an irate neighbor who is tired of the barking (made it up).
Once the base picked up the dog, how do they tell if it is stolen or abandoned? Looks abandoned to me, hard to tell.
I agree regarding stolen property, no act can perfect title on a stolen item. If it is decided that the dog was indeed stolen then the new owners would have to return it.
Regarding statute of limitations, it might be as short as 5 days on a dog. Don't know.
Regarding military base not being cooperative, I think they may know that they have some liability here and hoped the people would just go away.
Any dog with a collar should be presumed lost. The base didn’t even attempt to find an owner. The dog should be returned immediately.
A thieff would leave the tags because they identify the dog, that’s obvious. They kept the collar to clip a leash to. Stolen dogs often run away, trying to get home and then end up lost and without ID, which may be how it ended up on the base. It’s also possible it was stolen by a soldier.
Statute of limitations on recovering stolen property is unlikely to be less than one year. A custom built show saddle stolen her in Oregon in the mid 60’s was recovered after being offered for sale on ebay 35 years later. There is no statute of limitations on some categories of property like art, historical or cultural artifacts.
The behavior of the military officials in this story is disgraceful and dishonorable. They are duty bound to provide the names of the adopting family so the property can be reclaimed by the legal owner, period.
They appear to be shielding or protecting somebody on the base and that is douibly dispicable and unacceptable.
My take is that someone wanted this dog; stole it; dropped it off at the base, knowing that it would be picked up; and, then went to the base pound and “adopted” it. This would give the thief cover if the dog was ever identified.
This is based on the assertion that the owner told the truth about the tags. It is bolstered by the refusal to return the dog by the adopter. If the article misstated the facts, the all bets are off, but the original owner had little incentive to ditch the tags.
The base pound is a government run entity. The 5th Amendment provides that the government cannot deprive me of my life, liberty or property without due process of law. a super short statute of limitations would do just that.