005. Finding A Lost Cat
Description
This article is from the Cats and the Outside World FAQ, posted to rec.pets.cats newsgroup. Maintained by Cindy Tittle Moore with numerous contributions by others.
005. Finding A Lost Cat
Things to try when the cat is lost outside.
* Make up flyers with picture(s) and description. Rubberband them to the doors of the houses in the immediate area. Use a radius that it twice as far as your cat has wandered before.
* Take the flyers to local vets, feed stores, and animal shelters, and any other likely place, like the laundromat or the local Y.
* If there are other cities close, don't forget their shelters. Check with the shelters that you know about to see if there are others that you don't know about.
* Flier copies on trees/telephone poles within an extended radius ( 2-3 miles ).
* Check the local streets every day and and ask the garbage men and mailmen for the neighborhood if they've seen anything.
* Ad in the paper
* Regular checks of the animal shelters near you.
* Register with Pet-Track
* Check out any "closed" spaces : were you in the attic ? the shed ? could she have gotten into the neighbor's garage ?
* Long walks through the neighborhood, calling the cat. Look carefully, as the cat may be hiding, lost, and unwilling or too scared to move.
* Leave used articles of the cat's favorite person's laundry outside to let the cat know that this is "home" : if the previous step above didn't convince your neighbors that you were weird, nailing your dirty socks and teeshirts to the fence definately will. A pile of the kitty's used litter might also let the cat know this is *it*.
* As soon as you're sure that the cat is lost, go for a long barefoot walk : out and back, out and back, out and back, to leave scent trails leading to home.
* Contact relevant breed organizations, if applicable.
* Visualize the cat returning. Light candles to the deit(y,ies} of choice.
* Rent a humane trap and bait it with the cat's favorite foodstuff. You may wind up trapping other peoples' pets or stray wild animals, but one poster caught their own lost and terrified cat.
* Don't give up right away: one person had success running an ad for 4 weeks.
* Collar and tag the rest of the wanna-be escape artists, even if you don't think it could ever happen to them. Your cats may be indoor only, but what would happen if the screen came out on a sunny day?
* Under the heading of "be prepared," have multiple copies of a good color photo of your cat on hand. You will be able to make -- and distribute -- posters that much more quickly.
* If your neighborhood has a population of elementary school children, place posters at their school. Kids seem to be acutely aware of the animals they encounter, and they tend to be out and about in the neighborhood. Offering a reward might even mobilize a small army of searchers.
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