A day doesn’t pass we don’t hear about a lost pet, found pet or the growing numbers of pets in shelters and rescues. Let’s look at some tips to help you find a lost pet.
Lost Pet Tips to begin immediately:
- Search your property thoroughly inside and out. Look behind, under and over everything!
- Search inside washing machines, clothes dryers, refrigerators, behind water heaters, under furniture, under beds, in closets, cabinets, in shelves, bookcases,and boxes.
- Search areas around your property
- Search drain pipes, sewer drains, in culvert pipes, under vehicles, inside vehicles, in crawl spaces, under the house if there is an opening, and inside sheds. Search among the landscaping looking behind shrubs and flowers.
- Walk the neighborhood and talk to everybody you see and your neighbors.
- Go to each house in the area and talk to your neighbors
- Give them a description of your lost pet and your phone number (having a flier with a picture of your pet, characteristics and your phone number to hand out would be a bonus)
- Talk to the postman, paperboy, garbage pick up crew, neighborhood watch group etc
- Talk to the children and get them involved in the search. Children are great at finding lost pets!
- Take a friend or family member with you as you do the search
- Go to each house in the area and talk to your neighbors
- Have your family out looking and calling your pet’s name
- If you pet has a favorite squeaky toy use it
- If your pet is food motivated have on hand biscuits, people food such as chicken, hot dogs, tuna, liver or lunch meat
- It is important to stop on a regular basis to be quiet and listen for your pet to make a noise in reply
- Have a powerful flashlight even during the day to look behind bushes and in dark places
- If a pet is frightened or injured they hide in dark spaces
- Place some of your dirty clothes outdoors
- Place a cat’s litter box, bedding and favorite toy outside
More tips for a lost pet–these you do after you have exhaustive the above tips:
- Call the local veterinarian offices during the day and after they close call the emergency clinics.
- Visit your local Animal Shelter–don’t call–GO IN PERSON
- Post on Facebook under a lost pet group that serves your area
- There are many online sources for you to list such as Nextdoor etc.
- Make fliers and post around your neighborhood up to one mile from where you pet went missing
- Offer a reward but don’t put the dollar amount
- Check with your local and state department of transportation to find out if your pet has been killed on the road
- This is sad but a necessary task–not knowing what happened to your pet is harder than knowing and not having closure
- If your pet is micro-chipped contact the company that registered your pet’s chip
- Put an ad in your local newspaper, “Penny Saver” type of publications or any other sources that allow “Lost Pet” ads
- Check the newspaper or other publications (paper or online) for found pets
Don’t give up! Pets have been found weeks, months or even years after they are lost!
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