A Chicago woman is suing two animal rescue agencies for adopting out her missing golden retriever despite her contact information being available on his collar.
Karly Moran-West is suing the Chicago Animal Care and Control and the Fetching Tails Foundation for allegedly violating Illinois animal agency law. She claimed that the animal control agency admitted her golden retriever Zeus into a dog pound before he was adopted out to another family. However, perhaps the most critical part of the lawsuit is the fact that she was never contacted by the city's animal control agency, although his collar had her phone number embroidered on it.
"I'm still blown away by the fact that there's a dog with a collar, with a phone number," said Moran-West's attorney Jonathan Rosen, "and nobody saw fit to call."
Moran-West argued that both Chicago Animal Care and Control and Fetching Tails violated an Illinois law that states that animal control agencies need to take all necessary measures to reunite lost animals with their owners. She told local news station CBS 2 that the animal control intake card had Zeus' name on it. Therefore, she argued, they had to have seen her phone number.
"She was lied to and told there was no phone number," said Rosen.
Once she had found out that her dog was still alive, she had tried reaching out to Zeus' new family in an attempt to get him back. Unfortunately, the family refused.
"I understand that you guys have had Zeus for a long time and you guys are probably very attached to him now, but I've had him longer and he was my child," she said. "And if your child was adopted out to somebody else, I feel like you would probably do the same thing. So I feel like you guys should have a heart and give me back my dog."
A spokeswoman for Chicago Animal Care and Control told local newspaper the Chicago Sun-Times that "the city will review the filed complaint and will have no further comment as the matter is now in litigation."
Moran-West was visiting her sister in Los Angeles in January 2020 when Zeus escaped from her father's yard.
Moran-West, who wants to become a veterinarian, has conducted her own search. She said a tipster told her that Zeus had been adopted under the same name.
"I'm blown away. I think everyone in Chicago should be scared of the situation," Rosen said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
