Escaped In Care Animal Returned to Shelter Custody Procedure

Please Note: if the animal was part of an active Court Case prior to its escape and the case is still open, please DO NOT complete this procedure. For legal reasons, the animal may need to maintain the Humane Officer source and status, so this process would not be appropriate. 

This process pertains to when an animal has escaped from Shelter care and subsequently located by any means including:

• The animal has been located within the shelter 
• The animal has been located through the pound or an agency
• The animal has been found privately through vets, notices, door-knocking etc.
• The animal has been recaptured via the shelter itself

 An exception would be when the animal has been found deceased.  This would then be considered Deceased (see below). 

1. Navigate to the Welcome/Search page and Search for the surrendering person (i.e. the person or organisation who “found” this animal and returned it to us.)
   • If not found, click on the Create a New Entry
   • Fill in the relevant blanks on the Add New Person Mandatory fields: first name, last name, residential address, mailing address if different than residential, telephone number, and gender. Depending on your organization you may be required to confirm identification.
   • Click Update Details.
2. If the animal was recaptured via staff/volunteers, then from the Welcome/Search page find the drop-down list Go to Council and select your organisation. Click to View to select.
3. Click on the Scroll To Bottom link and click on the Stray Person Category. If the animal was taken to a different shelter, you may need to use Agency Incoming instead, but the steps are the same, just replace the labels accordingly. 
   • Because we know the animal is already in the system you can click on the Stray - Existing Animal link.
   • On the Animal Search page enter the Animal ID in the Go To Animal ID field. Click View.
   • Click Add Stray on the row with the animal's details.
4. Complete the following:
   • Status: click on the down arrow and select whatever the status was before the animal’s escape. There is no need to issue new tags unless the animal has lost them during its absence. 
   • Lost / Found Address: Update as required, or click (H) for the address history if you need to reinstate the original address. 
   • Shelter Location: Enter the area of the shelter the animal is now occupying, including the kennel number if known.
   • Any other mandatory fields. 
5. General Animal Notes: Use this link to record information such as the circumstances of the animal’s return to care and anything else of note, such as any injuries sustained or the general condition of the pet on re-entry.
6. Click Update Details. A Stray Receipt should be created but needs only to be printed if someone other than staff or volunteers recovered the animal. 
7. THERE IS NO NEED FOR THESE ANIMALS TO DO OR REDO STRAY TIME IF THIS WAS COMPLETED BEFORE IT ESCAPED. They simply pick up exactly where they left off in their journey through the shelter process. The only reason they are entered as strays is to return them to an In Care status while preserving their history.

Deceased

If the animal was found deceased, access the animal record and change the status to Deceased.

1. Navigate to the Edit Animal Details page of the animal record in question.

• Status: in the Animal Menu on the right-hand side of the page, find the link entitled Animal Deceased. Click this link and the status will automatically update to
• General Animal Notes: Use this link to document what occurred, the date and the initials of the user that updated the record.
• Click Update Details.