Locating a Lost Pet
Searching for a lost pet can be a very emotional experience.
Following the steps below will increase your chances of being reunited with your beloved companion.
1. Make sure you keep a good quality photograph of your pet – digital photos are ideal, as they will allow you to quickly make duplicates for distribution.
2. If you don’ have photos make a detailed description that you can distribute if your pet gets lost.
3. Make sure your pets wear their collar and ID tags at all times and have them micro chipped. For most animals in NSW a microchip is a legal requirement. Keep these details handy.
4. Always have a secondary contact number on the ID tag or microchip record. If you have lost your pet because you had to evacuate during a bush fire no one will be able to contact your home phone number.
5. If you are going away make sure the person looking after your pet knows how to contact you and what to do if your pet goes missing.
6. Begin searching for your pet IMMEDIATELY! Do not wait in the hope that they will find their own way home.
7. Contact all animal shelters and council pounds – even the ones outside of your area. Sometimes animals wander far from home or are found by people and taken to pounds in another area. Also contact the vets in your area and see if your animal is there or someone may have left details.
8. If your pet is micro chipped contact your council and ask them to note on the Companion Animals Registry that your pet is missing.
9. Do not rely on the fact that your pet is micro chipped or wearing an ID tag and that you will be contacted. Sometimes scanners will not pick up a micro chip and collars are lost or removed.
10. Do the rounds of pounds and animal shelters yourself – go at least once a week. Daily phone calls to these facilities can be made but there is nothing like checking for yourself. If your pet is taken into a pound or shelter it will be held for 7 days if found to be without any traceable identification and 14 days if micro chipped or having some sort of other traceable identification.
11. Check each cage carefully – sometimes you may not recognise your pet, particularly if it is frightened and huddled in the corner or under the bed. Ask at each facility where the injured strays are kept, as usually these will be housed in a separate area.
12. Contact pet finding organisations such as Pet Search who, for a fee, will help you search all of the pounds and shelters.
13. Make up leaflets with a description of your pet and drop them in letter boxes and put signs up around your area.
14. If you have recently moved, check your old home regularly. Leave food out in the place you used to feed your pet and ask neighbours to keep an eye out and contact you if they should see your pet. Put up signs and do a “letter box” drop in this area also.
15. Ask our staff for a list of pounds in your area to help you in your search
MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL...
Keep looking!! Even if it is weeks after your pet went missing. Sometimes people that find stray animals keep them for a while before handing them in or perhaps your pet was so frightened whilst lost that it took a while before anyone could catch it and take it to a pound or Shelter.
There are many cases where lost pets have been reunited with owners many months after they went missing!!
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