Emergency! Fluffy has gone missing. Whether it’s through an open door, loose screen, or she just got away from you and got lost, sometimes cats can get lost. If Fluffy is on the loose, here are some suggestions for helping her find her way home again.
Contact local shelters and animal control.
Call your local animal control offices and local pet shelters to let them know your pet is missing. Give them your pet’s name, a description, and microchip identification information.
Look into a “cat trap.”
You can ask local animal shelters about renting a “cat trap” to put outside your house, which isn’t as terrible as it sounds. Live traps for pets have room inside to leave your cat’s favorite, smelliest food to help lure your furry friend back home. Check the trap often for unwanted visitors, such as skunks, raccoons, and other wandering cats. If you get a surprise visitor, release them a safe distance from your home and start the trap again. If the animal shelter doesn’t have traps for rent, you can easily find them for purchase online or at big box stores.
Call local vet clinics and animal hospitals.
Oftentimes, people who find lost pets will take them to pet clinics. If the lost animal doesn’t have a collar with an ID tag listing owner contact information, animal surgeons or vet techs can search for a microchip to look up information on who an animal is and where they belong. If your pet doesn’t have a microchip yet, call us at LazyPaw Animal Hospitals. Microchips are fast, easy, and smaller than a grain of sand. Because we believe microchips are essential for every animal’s safety and well being, we do them at a very low cost at LazyPaw Animal Hospitals.
Make a flyer to post in your area.
Use a clear, recent photo of your cat to make a flyer for your neighborhood. List your name, the cat’s name, the animal breed and size, and the best way to contact you. Put the flyers up in your neighborhood on stop signs and light posts, and consider putting some in neighbor’s mailboxes so they’ll know your animal is lost if they happen to see her walking around the neighborhood.
Use social media.
Social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter can be a great way to alert your local area of a lost pet. You can post photos and information from your flyer and use hashtags such as #lostpet or #lostcat to draw attention to your posts. You can also post free ads on public forums such as Craigslist to try to reach as many people as possible.