This is something that came up recently and people in the rescue community was pretty divided about.

So there are these two large pure bred dogs that have repeatedly gotten loose and ended up at the shelter. Each time the owner has been contacted and picked them up from the shelter and presumably paid the fees - I don't know the circumstances or time lines of the previous incidences. But it's happened enough times that the shelter has a picture that they reuse every time the dogs come in and people actually recognize the duo from how frequently it's posted. This time, the owner was out of town and the dog sitter accidentally left a gate open. Also, the fees for getting your pet back start at $20 (+$6/day for room and board) and go up each incidence. This owner is up to $350 per dog for a total of $700 to get them back.

In this state, the law is that you have 72 hours to reclaim your pet. If you don't, it becomes the property of the shelter and they can choose to find an adopter or euthanize. It's been over 72 hours for these dogs.

Camp A: These people argue that these dogs have an owner and the shelter should NOT be listing them for adoption or putting them on the euthanize list. The owner has been contacted and has made a verbal claim on the dogs, but is out of town and has to wait until next paycheck to pay the $700. They feel the shelter should wait for the owner to come back in town or at least until the owner can make other arrangements to have someone else pick up his dogs. They feel that owner was responsible by having a dog sitter and the dogs getting loose was just a simple accident that the sitter made which could happen to anyone.

Camp B: These people argue that this owner is irresponsible and has not made efforts to secure the safety and well-being of his dogs, as evidenced by the frequency with which they get loose, and shouldn't get the dogs back. The dogs are not microchipped, not neutered, and don't wear collars. They have made no improvements to the enclosure to ensure sure they can't get loose. Additionally, they say that asking the shelter hold onto the dogs will mean that other dogs will need to be euthanized due to limited space.

***There is some speculation that the shelter is listing them for adoption so they can be neutered and microchipped with the expectation that the owner will adopt his pets back. I don't know that this is the case.