CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) – A local woman is desperately trying to get her dog back.
Taylor Hunnel claims Chesterfield County Animal Services adopted out her missing dog, despite filing a lost pet report with the county government office.
Hunnel said her 6-year-old black lab mix named Jax disappeared in early October. She said she’s been looking for him since. She said she’s driven around, posted on social media, called local shelters and filed a report online with Chesterfield County Animal Services.
“I went in to go check [Chesterfield County Animal Services] and see if he was there and he was not,” Hunnel said. “I kept [trying to] get in touch with them, kept calling them and they just kind of kept leading me astray.”
After seeing a post of a dog that she said looked just like Jax on the county’s animal services Facebook page, she now believes the shelter adopted him out to another family. She felt the shelter should’ve posted before this happened.
“They had posted a singular time. Not asking if anybody knew him, not asking if anybody had found him, if anybody could possibly have owned him, they just immediately straight went into adoption,” Hunnel said.
A spokesperson with Chesterfield County Animal Services did send 8News their timeline of events that lead to the dog’s adoption. It reads in part:
“On December 31, we became aware of a post on Chester Issues regarding a dog that had been in our facility and adopted out, which someone was now claiming ownership. As pet reunions are one of Chesterfield County Animal Service’s ultimate goals, we immediately started looking into the situation. On January 2, 2024 as a unit within the police department, Animal Services Supervision met with the Chesterfield County Police, Special Operations Division Captain to discuss what occurred.
On October 26, 2023, we received an online lost report from a community member who was missing their male black pit and lab mix. It stated that the dog went missing on October 23. While reviewing the report on October 26, our staff determined that we had a potential match- a male black Lab mix who came in to the shelter on October 25, 2023. This dog did not have a collar, identification tag or microchip. An hour after receiving the lost report online, our staff attempted to call the community member whose phone stated it was not receiving calls and was unable to leave a voicemail as the voicemail box was not set up. Our staff then immediately emailed the community member advising them that we had a potential match to the lost report. The email stated that we attempted to call and recommended that the community member visit the animal shelter. Instructions on how to reclaim a pet from the shelter was provided along with the shelter hours. During the 5 weeks that the dog was in our care, no owner ever came forward to claim the dog and we did not receive an email back. After 5 weeks, the dog was placed for adoption on November 30th and is no longer in our care. The state-mandated stray hold time for a dog that comes in without a collar or ID tag is 5 days. In Chesterfield County, we hold dogs an additional 2 days after which time the dog becomes the custody of the county.
We received another lost report for the dog this past weekend that stated the dog went missing on October 11th. We met with the community member this morning at the animal shelter to discuss the situation. The community member advised that they had received the email we had sent on October 26, 2023 about the possible match and recommending they visit the shelter. When asked if they came to the shelter, they stated that they had not.”
Carrie Jones, Animal Services Manager for Chesterfield County Animal Services
Hunnel said she did contact animal services after receiving the email. She said a staff member told her the pictures of Jax weren’t a match for the dog they had so she didn’t go back again to check in person.
“I love my dog dearly and I’m sure whoever has him loves him as much. And then we just miss him as all my kids would love to have their little fur baby back,” Hunnel said.
