Amy Lozano just wants her dog, Fred, back home. “He is my dog and should be returned to his rightful owner and family,” she said.

Lozano has been fighting an online and apparent uphill battle with One Dog At a Time Rescue based in Kosciusko County ever since she said she found her beloved dog on the ODTR Facebook page. At this point, the only thing Lozano and ODTR agree on, is that Lozano is not getting her dog back.

Lozano, a resident of Akron, told StaceyPageOnline.com that at the end of September she and her boys moved in with her parents, also in Akron. About two weeks later, she said, “… my mom let (Fred) out to potty and went back inside for a few minutes. When she came back out, he was gone.”

Lozano said they drove around several times in the next few days and up until about the end of October. “We have asked neighbors old and new if anyone has seen him or to keep their eyes out when they said they hadn’t seen him. I was losing all hope of him coming back home and had resorted to even looking in ditches for him,” she explained.

But on the night of Oct. 28, Lozano felt a rush of excitement when she was on Facebook and came across ODTR’s posted picture of a dog. “It was my dog!” she explained. “I immediately contacted them that it was my dog and we greatly missed him and wanted him home ASAP.”

This photo was shared on the One Dog At A Time Rescue Facebook page the day Fred was found wandering in Silver Lake. ODTR representative Julie Smith said the dog was in “poor condition.”

She said she corresponded with someone from ODTR and even provided them photos of her family with the dog. She added, “… it was made to sound to me that I could still get my dog back from them. I had to provide paperwork for his rabies shot, which he hadn’t had I found out by his previous owners. I asked them if they needed proof of an appointment or what to be able to get him back.”

Lozano said ODTR took all of that day to respond to her, at which time they informed her the dog had been “legally adopted.”

“This group is supposed to be for the dog, yet I feel like they took a personal strike against me because, according to them, I didn’t post to my Facebook page that he was missing,” Lozano added. “They even went as far as to tell me what his medical costs would be that I would apparently be responsible for. They also told me they were willing to pay me a small fee to keep him. I refused and said no, we wanted him home!”

Lozano said the dog they named Fred was with them for two years, but because she has no veterinarian record, and state law requires dogs to have the rabies vaccination, ODTR refused to give the dog back.

Julie Smith of ODTR confirmed that the dog, renamed Jimi, was adopted through ODTR on Oct. 26, 18 days after he came into their possession as a stray. Smith said the dog was found near Silver Lake and was in “poor condition … He had gum stuck in two places to his hair that had to be shaved, and a very sore open wound on his back paw that was causing him terrible pain.  However, we originally thought he may have been hit by a car.”

Not only did ODTR get the dog veterinary care immediately, they also had him microchipped, but Smith insisted, “Our intentions were always good. Amy ‘found’ him when we posted an adopted update on our Facebook page. She commented and I immediately replied to her. I felt horrible, but we had a signed adoption contract from the new owners.”

While Lozano claimed ODTR offered to pay her for the animal, Smith said that is not true. “I told her the fees associated with his vetting, when she implied she didn’t have the money immediately, I told her they had already been paid. I told her we would absorb the fees and would pay a finder’s fee in hopes that there would be a mutually happy ending for the dog. That is not an ODTR policy and I realize it was wrong of me. I told her I would get back with her the following day. After talking with the ODTR board, it was decided that we had to adhere to our signed adoption contract. As promised, I responded to her the following day.”

Smith added that it is the pet owner’s responsibility to do everything they can to locate their missing pet. “Call the shelter, call the vets, work with social media, put up flyers, contact the local rescue that you know and have worked with in the past. Contact police. The more people that know he’s missing, the better your chances are of finding him. I don’t believe that was done by the owners, but it was most definitely done by ODTR.”

Smith explained, “Our Facebook alone was viewed over 6,000 times and shared 135 times. Maybe if a picture of a missing dog was somewhere, he may have been recognized.”

As this point ODTR is standing behind its adoption, while Lozano has enlisted the help of another dog rescuer to find an attorney willing to look further into the case.