“Typically, when you're dealing with cash or jewelry or some other inanimate object, it doesn't matter if you wait until the end of the criminal case to deal with it,” Mary Hollingsworth, an attorney with the Wildlife and Marine Resources Section in the Department of Justice, said in the recent FBI news story. “Dogs may start to decline physically and psychologically after about six months, even in the best shelter setting. They are not meant to be in cages with limited human interaction and exercise for long periods of time.”