Every person wants to have their own pet. But because either they do not have enough money or they are worried of the responsibilities of the job, either they put off getting the animal or else the parents refuse to buy one, if it's a child character.
But one day, the character wanders outside their home and sees a stray animal. Thinking that this is their chance to get their own pet, they take it as theirs and learn to care for it. But just as they develop a close bond with the animal, a stranger shows up and claims the animal that they took in was their missing pet. The person who grew attached to the animal then gives it back to the rightful owner, sometimes feeling remorseful about the whole situation.
Usually overlaps with Unsuccessful Pet Adoption. Can overlap with Accidental Misnaming if the would-be owner gives the animal a different name. Compare Mistaken for Destitute.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The Kiratto Pri☆Chan episode "We Tried Making A Cat Video!" inverts this trope since the girls all have their own reasons for not keeping Mike, the stray kitten they found. Instead, the girls make a video so that the owner who lost him can possibly be reunited. It works, as the owner turns out to be a foreigner who lost him on vacation.
- The Love Live! Sunshine!! episode "Taking in a Dog" focuses on Yoshiko bringing a stray dog into her house, asking her friend Riko to take care of it despite having a fear of dogs. Just as she begins getting used to the dog, her mom points out that she saw a flyer posted around town with the same dog on it.
- Near the end of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Arisa takes in an injured Arf (having mistaken her wolf form for a dog) and nurses her back to health. It's mentioned in the In-Character Commentary for the movie adaptation that a member of the Arthra's crew posed as her owner in order to return her to Fate.
- Defied in Pokémon, in both the games and anime. Trainers can, through normal means, not capture a Pokemon that already has a trainer—the technology of the Pokeballs used to capture Pokemon also invisibly 'tags' a Pokemon whenever it is caught, causing any subsequent attempts at capture using legal Pokeballs to fail—this prevents Pokemon separated from their trainers from being accidentally stolen.
- Pokemon in the anime are seemingly capable of 'accepting' a new Pokeball and subsequent trainer if they feel like their current trainer is undeserving of their loyalty.
- Numerous cases exist of Pokeballs with this tag-recognition illegally disabled, usually used by criminal gangs.
Fan Works
- Lost Latte: After Latte gets separated from the Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure girls, she falls down an Inevitable Waterfall and lands in a lake. Laura from Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure saves her from drowning and brings her to Manatsu. Manatsu does not notice her collar and asks Laura if they can keep her, only for Laura to point out that she must have an owner since she has a collar. Manatsu's slightly disappointed by this, but she agrees to keep Latte until they can find her owners.
Literature
- In Book #25 of The Baby-Sitters Club, Mary Anne and the Search for Tigger, her kitten Tigger goes missing and is found near the end, having been mistaken for a stray. By Logan's younger sister Kerry. Hunter, who is allergic to pet dander, has been sneezing the whole book because of Tigger being hidden in Kerry's closet.
- In one of the Henry Huggins books, Henry adopts a dog and names him Ribsy. However, another boy arrives, claiming that "Ribsy" is actually named Dizzy and is his dog. The dog, though, prefers living with Henry and being named Ribsy.
- In the children's book Little Miss Sneezems, a girl named Tina adopts a parrot named Peter, who turns out to belong to a woman.
Live-Action TV
- One episode of The Drew Carey Show sees Mr. Wick leaving Mrs. Louder's purebred Puli dog at Drew's house, without bothering to warn Drew in advance. When Drew finds the seemingly mangy dog in his backyard, he naturally assumes it's a stray and takes it to be cleaned up and spayed. The rest of the episode sees Drew, Wick, Oswald, and Lewis putting on a strip act in order to raise enough money to acquire a new Puli before Mrs. Louder finds out.
- In Everybody Loves Raymond, this is how Robert got his dog Shamsky; a dog follows Ray home, but when he can't keep it he gives Robert the dog. Robert takes the dog in, and eventually has it neutered, which results in Robert keeping the dog even after the previous owner contacts him because the previous owner was only interested in using the dog for breeding.
- Friends: In "The One With The Cat", Phoebe takes in a stray cat she's convinced is her reincarnated mother, which makes her get extremely attached. Unfortunately, the cat actually belongs to a little girl, and when the others chicken out, Ross is forced to confront her so that the girl can have her cat back.
- Good Luck Charlie: In the B-Plot of "Driving Mrs. Dabney", Gabe brings home a stray dog that his mother, though resistant at first, eventually grows attached to. As such, she becomes heartbroken when the dog's real owner comes back for him.
- The Season 1 Christmas Episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch has Sabrina leave Salem in a dumpster after an argument because he sneaked into her backpack. He's then run over by a kid on a bike who takes him home and won't give him up. She breaks into his house disguised as Santa Claus to take Salem back and leaves the kid with a spatula as compensation.
- That's So Raven: In "Mismatch Maker", Cory grows attached to a dog that followed him home and gets caught disposing the "LOST DOG" posters his father put up. Later, the dog's owner shows up and it's revealed that he looks almost exactly like Cory (and is also played by Kyle Massey).
- Wizards of Waverly Place: Invoked in "Curb Your Dragon", where the kids get a pet dragon in disguise as an ordinary beagle. However, the salesman was a scam artist- knowing the parents would want to find the "real owner" first, he came and picked up the dragon, making money and continuing the scheme elsewhere. However, after a Zany Scheme, the kids got their "dog" back.
Puppet Shows
- The Charlie Horse Music Pizza episode "My Dog Has Fleas" has Lamb Chop and Hush Puppy find a stray dog on the beach, who they plead Shari to keep until its owner shows up.
- The Noddy Shop: In "A Dog's Best Friend", the children find a stray dog near the shop and take care of it, which unfortunately causes Planet Pup to think he's rejected. In the end, they find out that the dog actually has an owner.
- In Sesame Street, Maria and her family find a dog. They, want to keep the dog—especially Gabi—but then it turns out he belongs to a little girl.
Video Games
- Twice in Story of Seasons (2014), with two different bachelors:
- Fritz in his white flower event will come across a dog in town. Fritz instantly assumes the dog has no owner and that he'll take it in, and tries to rename it. The dog attacks Fritz in irritation, and then his owner calls for him.
- Kamil's yellow flower event has him find a stray cat which he may ask the player for name options for. Selecting Margaret reveals that this is actually the cat's name—and that it does have an owner.
Western Animation
- In the Arthur episode "D.W.'s Furry Freak-Out", D.W. finds a cat and wants to keep her. The cat turns out to be a bit of a handful and then turns out to belong to a pianist.
- The Magic Adventures of Mumfie episode "Reigning Cats And Dogs" has Mumfie and Scarecrow find a stray dog, who they have to keep away from causing trouble with the Black Cat's niece. In the end, they learn it was owned by someone else.
- In the Milly, Molly episode "Sooty", the girls find an injured cat and name her Sooty. Molly wants to keep her, but it turns out she already has an owner and her real name is Gertrude.
- In Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas, Pluto runs away from home after Mickey yells at him, and he winds up at the North Pole, adopted by Santa's reindeer, who assume he's a stray dog and names him "Murray", as in, "Murray Christmas".
- Phineas and Ferb: In "Spa Day," Dr. Doofenshmirtz finds a cat outside his building who he names "Mr. Fluffypants"note and takes care of it. At the end of the episode, the owner finds Dr. Doofenshmirtz with the cat, whose real name is simply "Mr. Cat." He reluctantly returns the cat to its true owner.
- The Real Ghostbusters: In "It's a Jungle Out There", the Ghostbusters find a dog outside, think it is a stray, and decide to keep it. After the events of the episode, which involved a demon mind-controlling the dog and many other animals, the dog turns out to be named Sydney and already has an owner—a little girl.
- Rocky Kwaterner: In episode 45, the Tikka kids come across a dog in the park, and since the dog is not wearing a collar they assume it's a stray and take him home. They try to convince their parents to let them keep the dog, and they eventually agree, though the dog causes quite some trouble at the Tikka house. Especially when it sets its eyes on a fossilized bone Mary found recently. Eventually, the dog even helps Mary and her kids find a complete dinosaur fossil in the park, and they make the headlines of the newspaper with their find. But at the end of the episode, it turns out the dog had an owner after all, who recognized him in the photo in the newspaper and comes to the Tikka's house to get him back.
- Rugrats (1991): In "Spike Runs Away", Spike runs away from the Pickles' house one evening to chase a cricket and doesn't return. After Stu and Didi spread posters all over the neighborhood and try unsuccessfully to get Tommy a new pet, Tommy comes to accept that Spike is happy where he is now, while Stu and Didi are worried about Spike being on his own. In the end, it is revealed that Spike was found by a rich man named Winston St. George, who wanted to keep him for the purpose of breeding (as Spike is a rare (but fictional) Siberian Tiger Hound worth thousands) but returned him to Stu and Didi upon seeing their poster.
- The Simpsons had an episode where Snowball II is inexplicably gaining weight; it turns out he's being fed by a second family who call him "Smokey".
Real Life
- Happened to James Herriot and his wife; Herriot takes a badly injured stray cat, with no apparent owner, into his veterinarian surgery and operates extensively on it, not out of any expectation of payment but because it's the right thing to do. He takes the post-operative cat into his home to allow it to recuperate, where his wife falls in love with it and it becomes a family pet. Meanwhile, in search of the owner, Herriot has put out a description, and sometime later, the actual owners show up. Mrs Herriot is inconsolable to lose the cat...
