My husband (30M) and I (30F) found a dog today. As I pulled into my driveway a small black dog ran up to me and greeted me as I got out. We live in a rural neighborhood where sometimes people’s pets get out, not a big deal. I pet her for a moment and then walked away thinking she’d move on to the next yard. Instead, she followed me all the way to my porch, jumped on me, and when I sat down, she immediately jumped in my lap. She is not in good shape— she is thin with ribs showing, and has mange on her back end that is obviously spreading. I had my husband bring some food and water out to us on the porch, and she ate the food so fast and drank an entire bowl of water. We had no idea where she came from, and it was about to start severely storming, so we brought her into our basement to wait it out.

We started discussing what we should do— and decided tomorrow morning we should take her to the vet, get her checked out, and see if she has a chip (she had a collar but no tag). I posted her picture on our local Facebook page asking if anyone was missing a dog— and a man responded saying he thinks it belongs to our next door neighbor (45M). However, my husband and I have never seen this dog before at all— all we’ve seen is his goat (which is a story of another day).

Here’s the thing: in the past three years that we’ve been his neighbor, he’s had two different dogs which would wander around into the road, that never wore tags, and would be in poor health (they would come to our yard and we would often feed and water them). Then, eventually they both disappeared without a trace. This dog is very sweet and smart, and I really want to make sure she is taken care of (especially with her current case of mange).

She is still in our basement, and my husband and I are waiting for our neighbor to come home. WIBTA if I didn’t give the dog back, took her to the vet, and found her a new home where she would be safe?