CA: Shelter Adopts Dog Out Because Family Couldn't Pay

Mar 3, 2010 11:29 pm US/Pacific
Shelter Adopts Dog Out Because Family Couldn't Pay

A family with nine kids was devastated after finding out that their family dog was adopted to someone else by an animal shelter because they could not immediately pay the money to get him out.

Sancho managed to escape the Pena family home and was picked up by Sacramento County Animal Control, but when Tina Pena tried to get him back the day after animal control picked him up, she was told it would take hundreds of dollars to get him back.

Animal control officials demanded $245 to release Sancho -- impound fees plus a fine for not being licensed.

Tina says she couldn't immediately pay the money, but five days later, she collected enough money and went back to the shelter, where Sancho was still being held.

When the family arrived, they were told to say their goodbyes: Sancho had been adopted.

"I cried, I couldn't go say goodbye," Tina said. "I let my kids go."

Several of Pena's nine children were in tears when CBS13 spoke to them about the loss of their dog.

The Sacramento County shelter allowed someone else to adopt him for $121, less than half of what Tina had been told she would have to pay.

"121 dollars, I could have paid that. Why would they not want me to pay what they sold him for, or adopted him for," Tina said, adding, "to me, it's selling."

Animal control officer Ruben Hernandez told CBS13 that animal owners are responsible for fees when their animals are picked up, saying, "If she really loved her dog she would have picked him up."

"People say they can't afford to pick them up but people redeem them all the time," Hernandez said.

Animal control officials told CBS13 they try to work with financially troubled families and sometimes even wave fees, but Tina instead workers at animal control told her it was the full price or nothing.

Shelter Adopts Dog Out Because Family Couldn't Pay - cbs13.com