One out of three pets will get lost at some point in their lives. This statistic strikes fear in all pet owners, but there are services and strategies to boost your odds of finding your dog or cat. From simple to high tech, here are 10 things you can do to help bring a missing pet home safely.
1. Collar and ID Tags. Only 2 percent of cats and 15 percent of dogs without tags or microchips will be reunited with their owners, states the American Humane Association. So make sure your cat or dog is wearing a collar and identification tag that bears your current contact information, including phone number.
2. Microchips. Many different companies manufacture pet microchips, which are read with scanners provided to veterinarians, animal control agencies and shelters, etc. According to the American Microchip Advisory Council for Animals, it is best to pick a microchip that operates at the American standard of 125 kilohertz. Be sure to register your contact information and keep the information up to date. Many microchip companies will now accept registration information for another manufacturer's microchip, so consider cross-registering you and your pet with several different microchip databases.
3. Use GPS to locate your pet. Satellite technology can be used to track your pet's movements inside and outside your house -- provided your cat or dog is wearing a special GPS-enabled collar. If your pet should go missing, products such as the SpotLight GPS Locater can locate your pet with "pinpoint accuracy" anywhere in the U.S. The RoamEO Pet Location System is another device that uses GPS to track pets.
4. Distribute "Lost Pet" fliers and posters. Nothing beats good old-fashioned footwork when it comes to finding a lost pet. Get outside and scour the neighborhood; knock on neighbors' doors and call your pet's name. Time is of the essence, so don't wait to see if your pet will return on its own. Make fliers and posters bearing a color photograph of your pet and include a description of your pet, when and where it was last seen, and your phone number and email address. Don't include your name or home address for safety reasons. Post them at local businesses and veterinary offices and give them to your local letter carriers who travel extensively through the neighborhood. According to pet detective Kat Albrecht, dogs are more likely to roam farther from home and be picked up by a Good Samaritan, while cats usually stay within the immediate area. Consider offering a reward, but beware of getting scammed.
5. Visit local animal control agencies and shelters. File a lost pet report with all animal shelters and animal control agencies within a 60-mile radius of where your pet was lost, recommends the Humane Society of the United States. If your town has no animal control agency, contact the local police department. It's also important to personally visit all shelters and animal control agencies within a 20-mile radius at least every other day, states Albrecht on her Missing Pet Partnership website."
6. Send out an animal Amber Alert. Thanks to clever technology, companies such as Pet Amber Alert and FindToto can instantly broadcast a personalized telephone message to homes and businesses in the area where your pet went missing. You can choose to broadcast the message to hundreds or thousands of your neighbors, depending on the plan you purchase. (Plans range from $79.95 for 300 neighbors to $875 for 10,000 neighbors.)
7. Broadcast it on the internet. Sounding the alarm via Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites can work. Just ask Shane and Nicole Meide of Minnesota, who found their lost cat through Facebook.
8. Check "Found Pets" sites. Microchip maker, HomeAgain, has launched a free new iPhone/iPod/iPad application called "PetRescuers" that keeps a running database of lost pets that are reported by owners. Those who download the application are provided with alerts about lost pets that are geomapped to their local area within a 5, 10 or 25 mile-range. There are also numerous websites, such as FidoFinder.com, TabbyTracker.com and LostPetUSA, where people can post and search for lost pets by zip code. (Also check the "Found Pets" section of your local newspaper.)
9. Set out a humane trap. You can also try luring your lost pet home using a humane trap that is filled with your pet's favorite food, treats or an item of clothing that smells like you and can capture the animal without harm. That's how Rue the Chihuahua was finally caught after 19 nerve-wracking days of being missing in a Florida swamp.
10. Hire a professional pet detective. You can always enlist professional help by hiring a licensed and certified pet detective. Albrecht's Missing Pet Partnership organization provides a national directory of reputable pet detectives who have undergone Missing Animal Response (MAR) training.
Finally, do not give up! That's the message Florida resident Tracie Steger posted on Craigslist after her cat Giggle-Blizzard crawled home on two broken legs after nearly two weeks of being missing. Be persistent -- and visible. "Posters and fliers are the number-one way animals get recovered," animal tracker, Laura Totis, told Paw Nation.
1. Collar and ID Tags. Only 2 percent of cats and 15 percent of dogs without tags or microchips will be reunited with their owners, states the American Humane Association. So make sure your cat or dog is wearing a collar and identification tag that bears your current contact information, including phone number.
2. Microchips. Many different companies manufacture pet microchips, which are read with scanners provided to veterinarians, animal control agencies and shelters, etc. According to the American Microchip Advisory Council for Animals, it is best to pick a microchip that operates at the American standard of 125 kilohertz. Be sure to register your contact information and keep the information up to date. Many microchip companies will now accept registration information for another manufacturer's microchip, so consider cross-registering you and your pet with several different microchip databases.
3. Use GPS to locate your pet. Satellite technology can be used to track your pet's movements inside and outside your house -- provided your cat or dog is wearing a special GPS-enabled collar. If your pet should go missing, products such as the SpotLight GPS Locater can locate your pet with "pinpoint accuracy" anywhere in the U.S. The RoamEO Pet Location System is another device that uses GPS to track pets.
4. Distribute "Lost Pet" fliers and posters. Nothing beats good old-fashioned footwork when it comes to finding a lost pet. Get outside and scour the neighborhood; knock on neighbors' doors and call your pet's name. Time is of the essence, so don't wait to see if your pet will return on its own. Make fliers and posters bearing a color photograph of your pet and include a description of your pet, when and where it was last seen, and your phone number and email address. Don't include your name or home address for safety reasons. Post them at local businesses and veterinary offices and give them to your local letter carriers who travel extensively through the neighborhood. According to pet detective Kat Albrecht, dogs are more likely to roam farther from home and be picked up by a Good Samaritan, while cats usually stay within the immediate area. Consider offering a reward, but beware of getting scammed.
5. Visit local animal control agencies and shelters. File a lost pet report with all animal shelters and animal control agencies within a 60-mile radius of where your pet was lost, recommends the Humane Society of the United States. If your town has no animal control agency, contact the local police department. It's also important to personally visit all shelters and animal control agencies within a 20-mile radius at least every other day, states Albrecht on her Missing Pet Partnership website."
6. Send out an animal Amber Alert. Thanks to clever technology, companies such as Pet Amber Alert and FindToto can instantly broadcast a personalized telephone message to homes and businesses in the area where your pet went missing. You can choose to broadcast the message to hundreds or thousands of your neighbors, depending on the plan you purchase. (Plans range from $79.95 for 300 neighbors to $875 for 10,000 neighbors.)
7. Broadcast it on the internet. Sounding the alarm via Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites can work. Just ask Shane and Nicole Meide of Minnesota, who found their lost cat through Facebook.
8. Check "Found Pets" sites. Microchip maker, HomeAgain, has launched a free new iPhone/iPod/iPad application called "PetRescuers" that keeps a running database of lost pets that are reported by owners. Those who download the application are provided with alerts about lost pets that are geomapped to their local area within a 5, 10 or 25 mile-range. There are also numerous websites, such as FidoFinder.com, TabbyTracker.com and LostPetUSA, where people can post and search for lost pets by zip code. (Also check the "Found Pets" section of your local newspaper.)
9. Set out a humane trap. You can also try luring your lost pet home using a humane trap that is filled with your pet's favorite food, treats or an item of clothing that smells like you and can capture the animal without harm. That's how Rue the Chihuahua was finally caught after 19 nerve-wracking days of being missing in a Florida swamp.
10. Hire a professional pet detective. You can always enlist professional help by hiring a licensed and certified pet detective. Albrecht's Missing Pet Partnership organization provides a national directory of reputable pet detectives who have undergone Missing Animal Response (MAR) training.
Finally, do not give up! That's the message Florida resident Tracie Steger posted on Craigslist after her cat Giggle-Blizzard crawled home on two broken legs after nearly two weeks of being missing. Be persistent -- and visible. "Posters and fliers are the number-one way animals get recovered," animal tracker, Laura Totis, told Paw Nation.
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Why Vets Can't Always Smell What You Smell
........tell all the kids in the neighborhood with bikes that you'll give the one who finds your pet 50.00. It works
It seems I wrote the people who published this article months ago, with the story of my lost cat. I looked everywhere around my neighborhood, put up fliers, but nothing panned out. One day someone asked if I had found her, she kept seeing my ads on CraigsList. When I said no she said not to give up, so I posted again on CL. The next day at 12noon, I got a call, someone said they were sure they were looking at my cat. I asked them to stay there with her in case she moved, she said OK. I drove over and when I arrived, there she was looking just like the photo I had posted. She was in the middle of no where, and the gal saw her and thought why is that pretty little kitty out here all by herself, hmmm, maybe she is lost. So she takes out her IPhone and looks up CraigsList, lost cat..... and there was Spiffy's picture. Thank god for modern technology & CraigsList. Read more about Spiffy's big adventure on Facebook, search Spiffy the cat.
I have to wonder why they did not mention this. Are they selling something? Registration for something? Pet GPS'? Find Toto? Hmmmm.
Also tell your mailman and your garbage man
Do you really think that your comment was funny?
I hope for greed so I have reward on my dog's collar in huge print and I'll pay big to get my sweet Doberman back should anyone dare to capture her. She won't go easily but she is beautiful and there are some who would try to steal her. She goes nowhere without me or my dog walker. She is in a fenced yard always but when I'm at my beach house and then she is never on the sand alone. But I opt for greed so I'll pay into thousands if I had to, to get her back and if I found out someone stole her on purpose, I'd make sure there would be more they'd have to pay for with broken bones they'll need to heal. Our animals are our children and we love them .. most of us do. PUT REWARD ON THE COLLAR AND GREED WILL PREVAIL. I'll pay enough they can buy their own pup and more if she got out and got lost but she never leaves the house without me. She's trained not to
my cat must have been using my nehibors yards for its bath room and I guess someone caught fluffy and brought her down to the dog pound...I went down there on a whim and I found her with only a couple of hours to spare,they were getting to gas her! so if your pet cant be found try the pound maby some mean person dropped them of there!..sometimes people can be so mean
Call the veterinarians in your area, or stop in and post the LOST poster at their offices. We have reunited at least 5 pets with their owners from people bringing the animals to our office and us recognizing the animal from a poster. (We've had 15+ from microchips.)
Post on craigslist in the Lost and Found section. Also, check your local newspaper... they often let those who have found a pet post it in the classifieds for free. It also doesn't hurt to put a LOST one in the paper.
The best time to go out to find your lost cat is very late at night or in the wee hours of the morning when it is very quiet. That way it can hear you when you call out its name. We did this when our cat was let out during a BBQ by someone who didn't know it was a house cat. We walked around the neighborhood at night and it came running towards us meowing as we were calling out its name. Most cats will be frightened and hide during the day to sleep. They will come out at night when it is quiet.
Now thats a great idea, for dog in a yard or pen etc. Maybe in a building so they will bark.
LOST CAT, IDEA
This really happened..a relative was vacationing in a state that was over 2k miles from their home. The husband and wife and beloved cat were camping in their 25 ft. trailer and with one week remaining before they needed to leave for home and jobs their cat disappeared. After 3 days of frantic searching they were faced with the agonizing prospect of losing their pet family member. In desperation the husband had an idea; he placed the cats litter box outside of their trailer. 24 hours later the cat found his way home and the story ended happily. If you are a cat lover and in a similar desperate predicament, you might give this a try. We hope your story has an equally happy ending.
Pray to St. Anthony...works every time :)
I need prayers for my Chester he is lost and 17 years old, can not see or hear well.
Anthony, that is a very rude comment--you pray that another animal got a lost cat? This is incredibly insensitive. I have cats and they are ALL indoor pets, but indoor pets can sometimes get outdoors by accident. I had a cat get out and he was lot for 3 weeks before I found him myself. Here I was praying for his safety and some jerk like you is praying for pets to be harmed. Shame on you for calling yourself a pet lover.
Actually Linda is talking about "Saint Anthony".
The Prayer goes...
Saint anthony Saint Anthony come on down
So what was lost
Might be found.
It's a very common prayer that alot of believers say works.
Maybe I'm mistaken and do not see what you're replying to, but I do not see one rude or insensitive comment in any of the posts. Research things before you're own insecurities make themselves known or just "Lighten up". :-)
CHIP YOUR PETS!!! HELP A NEIGHBOR OR ELDERLY PERSON WHO HAS A PET IF THEY CANNOT AFFORD IT !!.
iF DOGS STAY IN THE YARD THEY DON'T GET LOST.Also..people who fight pit bulls use "bait" dogs for training their fighting dogs and guess what they don'tcare who's pet it is..when you give puppys away beware of those people who want all of them..found that out the hard way
also hawks will get your smaller pets they seem to like yorkie's around here and owls to.
Also, believe it or not, any people do eat dog and cat.
watch out for people who steal and then when you offer a reward "find " your dog..Had that happen once to..Found out later she got my Boston right out of my yard..then she came back trying again to get him...long story but some people just suck
I lost my Lily when a worker in my house left my door open....She was gone for one year. I never gave up. There was a box trap open on my porch every night with a camera (movie) I had hooked up to my tv so I could watch what came and went in that box trap full of food every night. I got skunks who layed down and slept, woodchucks, and one night a year later...Lily came home..Yes,,,amazing. Played the tape in the morning and she was eating. Came back the same time the next night and I pulled the door shut. Never give up on your pet until you know exactly what happened. If you hear nothing keep looking....Sandy
Post flyers up at the grocery store too. It's how I got mine back!