[eek04_]

I've lived in Norway (>30 years), Ireland (>10 years) and in California (3.5 years). There's extreme differences in culture around dog ownership in different areas. In the time I lived in Norway, nobody I knew had abandoned a dog. Getting a dog is a commitment for the lifetime of the dog; the only cases I've heard of relocation of dogs from anybody I knew has been for medical reasons (e.g. discovering somebody in the family has an allergy). In Ireland, it is similar, though people don't seem to take quite the same commitment (based on known several people that got dogs from shelters). In my relatively small social circle in California there were two families that got and handed off dogs in the 3.5 years I was there. It was just not seen as a big deal.