I Have Lost My Pet!
The most important thing to remember is that your pet is physically somewhere. There’s never been a documented case of a dog or cat actually being taken by space aliens. There are a limited number of possibilities of what has actually happened to your pet:
Intentionally or unintentionally removed. (Taken to a shelter, taken to someone’s home, climbed into a moving van or work-truck.)
Run away from the area.
Loose and wandering, still in the area.
Trapped. (In a garage, shed, tree, under a house.)
Hiding. (From fear, illness, or injury.)
Deceased. (Accident, illness, or predator.)
By covering all the bases or eliminating possibilities, you will stand a much better chance of getting your family member back home.
ADVERTISE
Put up at least 10 large, neon posterboard missing-pet posters in the key areas of traffic going in and out of your neighborhood. Using a black marker, write the words “LOST DOG” or “LOST CAT” in thick letters at the top. Use only two or three other words. Put a large picture of your pet in the middle of the poster. Check local laws on posting signs. Remember to take them down after you find your pet.
Put up flyers at your local grocery store, gas station, movie rental, etc. Distribute flyers door-to-door in your local neighborhood (on the doors, not in the mailboxes--putting things in mailboxes is illegal). Give a flyer to your mailman, UPS driver, Fed Ex driver, and garbage man. Get flyers to the local schools and churches. Post flyers at local apartments. Fax flyers to all vets nearby, including the nearest emergency vet.
Put a Lost ad in the newspaper and on craigslist.
Put a sign on your car and become a driving advertisement.
Call your local shelters daily. Visit in person every three days. Check shelters in the surrounding areas as well—a well intentioned neighbor might decide to take your pet to a more distant shelter because they have heard it’s “better” than the local one.
Think about what you see when you’re driving along your local street at 35, 30, or even 25 mph. You see the bright, yellow traffic signs. You see and manage to read some of the big real-estate signs. You spot some signs that say “Yard Sale,” and once or twice you manage to read an address. And then there are the little, white pieces of paper that might say “Lost Dog” or “Lost Cat” and might have a small picture and phone number.
What do you want your Lost Pet poster to look like?
It needs to be BIG and BRIGHT. Go to your local office supply store and get at least 10 sheets of neon posterboard (22” x 28”).
The writing needs to be THICK. Use a thick, black marker. Make the letters wide and filled in.
Use only a few, key words. You have about five seconds to read about five words on a large sign, so make those few words count. "Reward." "Lost Dog/Cat." "Small/Large." "Black/White/Brown." "Long Hair/Short Hair." Put your phone number in smaller, but still prominent print. If someone has found your pet, they'll stop to get a better look at the phone number.
Print up a large picture of your pet and put it on the poster. You want someone to be able to see the picture and recognize the pet from their car. Put the picture into a plastic sheet protector, to prevent it from wrinkling up in the rain, dew, or any other moisture.
5 yards, 25 yards. Even at 5 yards, you can't tell what the 8-1/2 x 11 sheet says.
50 yards, 100 yards. Even at 100 yards, you can still see the words CAT and REWARD.
5. Tape a hard piece of cardboard to the back of the poster, to keep it from curling in the wind. Use duct tape. 6. Secure it well to the post. Use duct tape, wrapping a couple of times around the post.
Check your local ordinances regarding placing posters and flyers. Some areas consider it littering. Please remember to remove your posters once you find your lost pet.
FLYERS
For the flyers you post at the grocery store, etc or hand out door-to-door, you can use the traditional white, 8-1/2 x 11 paper with the pet’s picture, description, name, and phone number. Always hold out one key piece of information, so that when people call with sightings, you can use that to determine more accurately if it's your pet. ("One white paw." "Red collar." "Right ear folds down.")
Lost Cat Behavior Cats become lost for several different reasons:
An indoor cat gets outside.
It gets injured or scared and hides.
It gets trapped.
An outdoor cat gets into a fight, scared by a dog, etc, and runs out of its territory.
It gets displaced outside of its area by a human, intentionally or unintentionally.
MOST OF THE TIME A LOST CAT WILL BE FOUND WITHIN A FEW HUNDRED YARDS OF ITS HOUSE.
When a cat becomes scared, injured, or ill, it will find the first safe place to hide and stay there. This might be a bush, debris pile, crawl-space, pipe, tree, or the back of someone’s trailer. The cat will stay absolutely silent and motionless—nature’s way of protecting it against the very predator or competitor it just became scared of. The cat might stay put for hours…up to weeks! The amount of time the cat will stay put depends on the personality of the cat—a gregarious, outgoing cat will reach the “I’m more thirsty and lonely than I am scared” threshold much sooner than a timid, solitary cat will. The “normal” threshold point for a cat is 7 – 14 days. What this means is that YOU CAN’T GIVE UP HOPE just because your cat doesn’t come back right away! Many owners will search and call out in the same area for days and days, and it’s only after a week or two that the cat calls back.
A cat can easily go a week without food or water and without urinating or defecating. Many cats have been found after being trapped for several weeks without food or water and survived to old age with minor kidney or liver damage. Far too many owners give up way too soon, and their cats end up in shelters well after they have stopped looking.
There are cats who will, on their own, go out of their territory by quite a bit—a mile or more—but these cats aren’t too common. The more likely scenario for a cat which has ended up far out of its territory is if it is accidentally displaced—if it crawls into someone’s truck or van and is driven away.
So, how do I search for my cat?
If it is an indoor-only cat, try to figure out how it got out. If you’re sure that there was no way it could have gotten out, search every nook and cranny of your house—chimney, crawlspace, check the backs of the cupboards to see if any of the boards are loose. Check up under and inside the bed and box-springs. Pull out the drawers in your dresser. Move the furniture.
If there was a way it could have gotten out, go directly to the first hiding spot from that exit—the first set of bushes outside of the open window, or the shed right outside the back door. Get down on your hands and knees and move the bushes aside. Pull out all of the stuff from the shed. Cats are small and can be in very tiny spaces. Widen your search in circles from the exit spot. If you don’t have any luck, put up posters, hand out flyers, contact the shelters and rescue groups, and call FINDING PAWS for help.
An outdoor-access cat who has gone missing is going to be harder to find. Start by thinking about what was going on when you noticed it gone. Was there construction in the area? Was anyone moving? Was there a party somewhere on the street? Were there any strange cars or trucks of any sort? If so, try to track them down and ask them to physically look inside their vehicles. Remind them that cats are small, and that they stay silent—they can easily be missed for days or weeks, even inside of a vehicle.
Were there any loose dogs in the neighborhood? Any strange cats? Any sightings of coyotes, owls, bobcats, or foxes? Do you remember hearing any cat-fights? A scared or injured outdoor-access cat will also find the first safe spot, but this is more likely to be one or two houses away. You will need to search your own yard and your neighbors’ yards (get permission!). Again, you will have to get down on your hands and knees and look through bushes, move equipment in sheds and garages, look under crawlspaces. And, if you don’t have any luck, your next step is to put up posters, hand out flyers, contact the shelters and rescue groups, and call FINDING PAWS for help.
Lost Dog Behavior Dogs become lost for several different reasons:
They find an open gate or door and take advantage of the chance!
They break out of the house or yard to go after another animal, a car, a female dog in heat, etc.
They become scared (by another dog, fireworks, thunder, car accident)
They are accidentally or intentionally displaced (get lost while camping or at a rest-stop, stolen)
Dogs have different temperaments, depending on breed, age, how they were raised, and just plain genetics. Some dogs would hop into any car or enter any open door, while others would prefer to avoid all people and be on their own. Some don’t even like to leave their own front porch, and others will take off and be in the next county before the owner even knows that they’re gone.
People also have different behaviors towards different types of dogs. Small dogs and purebreds are usually assumed to be “someone’s lost pet.” Mixes are often assumed to be “just a stray.” Larger dogs, especially the breeds usually thought of as “dangerous” are often outright avoided by people.
The answer to the question “What does a dog do when it gets lost” isn’t a straightforward one. It’s a mixture of 1) Why the dog became lost; 2) The dog’s temperament; and 3) What the dog looks like. A small, friendly Toy Poodle who happened to find an open door is likely going to sniff around in the front yard, maybe go to the neighbor’s yard, and get taken in by that neighbor. A shy Doberman who got scared by a thunderstorm might be half a neighborhood away, hiding behind a building. An energetic Husky who has jumped the fence to go after a deer might be miles away, completely avoiding all human contact.
So, how do I search for my dog?
DON’T WAIT. Don’t assume that your dog will come home on its own.
VISIBILITY AND ADVERTISING are the key. Everyone in your neighborhood should know that your dog is missing.
When a dog goes missing, the first question should be “Who has it.” While some loose dogs can stay out on their own for days or weeks, the much more common scenario is that someone has picked it up and taken it to a shelter, brought it into their home, or brought it to a rescue group. Fact is, you just don’t see all that many dogs wandering the street. Eventually, they get picked up.
If your dog has just gone missing, knock on all of your neighbors’ doors. Someone might have picked it up right away, or seen it walking. At the very least, you might be able to get a direction of travel. Stop everyone on the street to ask if they’ve seen your dog. You can’t be shy about this! Do you live near a school? Grocery store? Anywhere that there are a lot of people who might have see it?
If your dog has been missing for a couple of hours, think back to what was going on when it went missing. Was there a ball-game at the local park, where someone might have seen your dog and picked it up? Was there a thunderstorm? Do you remember seeing a deer or maybe a strange dog?
Call your local shelter(s) and leave a Lost report. Call Caltrans Maintenance at 510-286-6444 (for Northern California) to ask about dogs found on the freeway.
This is when you go to the office-supply store to get the stuff to make up the big, neon posters. If someone has picked up your dog, chances are that they still have it in their house and are trying to figure out who it belongs to. Put up the posters at the corners of your street and at the key spots for traffic in- and out-flow for your neighborhood.
Make up flyers and recruit some friends to start going door-to-door. (Don’t put the flyers in mailboxes—put them on the actual doors.) Even if you don’t find the dog, you might get sightings and a direction of travel. The earlier you can figure out which direction your dog went, the less distance it’s gone!
Drive around the neighborhood slowly, calling your dog’s name. Hang one or two of the posters off of your car. Your dog might recognize your engine or your voice and come out. Even if you don’t find your dog, you’ll make a spectacle of yourself, and everyone who sees you will know that there’s a missing dog!
If your dog has been missing for more than a day, you should check the shelter(s) daily. Physically go out to the shelters and look. The volunteers are a great resource and absolute angels for what they do, but sometimes they’re just way too overworked to take the kind of care you want, to make sure that your dog really isn’t there. Start checking the Internet and Rescue Groups immediately. Some dogs don’t go through the shelter system before they make it onto the Adoptable list at a rescue group.
DON’T GIVE UP! Even if you live in a high-predator area, or near a freeway, don’t assume that if your dog is gone for more than a day, that it must have been injured or killed. It probably hasn’t! Even if it has been gone for days or weeks, don’t assume that you won’t get it back. Many dogs have been recovered WEEKS after they have gone missing!
If you still can’t find your dog, call FINDING PAWS for help!
5 yards, 25 yards. Even at 5 yards, you can't tell what the 8-1/2 x 11 sheet says.
50 yards, 100 yards. Even at 100 yards, you can still see the words CAT and REWARD.
510-333-9321 