Tips for finding a missing cat?

[ghost of miles]

Hey all--our much-beloved, nearly-one-year-old black kitten Lilly apparently got out last night, probably while we were entering our pitch-dark house. She's never been outside before, and we spent all day looking for her in our neighborhood after we realized she was missing. We've put up some fliers and will put up more tomorrow, but it's a bad day & night to lose a cat; the shelters were closed today, and tonight the local idiots are acting like it's Vietnam with their fireworks... meaning either that she's probably hunkered down somewhere, or that she's gotten farther away. She has no tags, but she does have an embedded microchip from the shelter where we adopted her.

I've been looking at pet-finding strategies on the web and wanted to ask for helpful hints and advice from other board members regarding looking for a lost pet. Much thanks in advance... she's a really sweet, loving little cat, and my wife & I are pretty torn up over this.

[sheldonm]

Hey all--our much-beloved, nearly-one-year-old black kitten Lilly apparently got out last night, probably while we were entering our pitch-dark house. She's never been outside before, and we spent all day looking for her in our neighborhood after we realized she was missing. We've put up some fliers and will put up more tomorrow, but it's a bad day & night to lose a cat; the shelters were closed today, and tonight the local idiots are acting like it's Vietnam with their fireworks... meaning either that she's probably hunkered down somewhere, or that she's gotten farther away. She has no tags, but she does have an embedded microchip from the shelter where we adopted her.

I've been looking at pet-finding strategies on the web and wanted to ask for helpful hints and advice from other board members regarding looking for a lost pet. Much thanks in advance... she's a really sweet, loving little cat, and my wife & I are pretty torn up over this.

David,

When our cat was lost, we put up probably 300 flyers around the neighborhood offering a reward. I think the reward makes a big difference between people seeing the cat/doing nothing and actually taking the time to call. Had many calls (false alarms) but one good one (3 days later)....there he was, sleeping on someone's front porch through the coldest period of the year....good luck!

[Soulstation1]

if you have bushes and such around your house check them.......

[BERIGAN]

David, sorry to hear about this. When I was a kid,we lost a cat even though we lived on the second floor of an apartment complex(the dumb super thought he let the cat out thinking our cat was an outdoor cat) we looked everywhere and no luck. Well, a week past, and coming thru the garage one night, I heard a faint meow. Looked around and found him in the furnace room! Don't know if he somehow was down there for a week without anyone knowing he was in there,(doesn't seem likely) or if he found his way back into the complex. So, you might look for heat sources, even though I am sure you are hot as well. Put some cat food outside as well. Other cats might get it, but it's a thought. Sheldon's idea of a reward sounds pretty good.

We had a poodle run after a squirrel in our steep back yard, and my Mom's back and feet wouldn't let her go very far looking for her. When I got home, she thought the dog was gone for sure. I went straight thru the densest part of the neighborhood, and finally found her....walking away from our house.

Good luck!

[ghost of miles]

Many thanks, guys--it's good to hear stories with happy endings. My wife & I are both out right now at 2 in the morning, calling her (supposedly there's a better chance a lost cat will come out between 1 & 5 in the morning, plus they can hear you better). Any more suggestions or advice more than welcome.

[king ubu]

David, I'm so sorry to hear that! No tips from me, as I have so far never had to experience this, but it would be terrible if one of the two cats vanished! (They're both not ours, actually, but one eating at our place etc - both are outside much more than inside, however, so they're used to that, but then we still see them daily.)

[Jazzmoose]

I assume the fireworks are over, or you're wasting your time. Moose got out tonight, and I couldn't get him to stick his head out from under the storage shed until the fireworks stopped...

The only time I've gone through this, the flyer bit worked for me.

[jazzbo]

SS1's advice is good. You can scream for your cat but if she's ten feet away in a bush she MIGHT give off a little "Peep" that you won't hear, she might not. Get down and physically inspect all the bushes around your place. That's a likely hiding place and one where she's likely to STAY for a while.

Hope you find your cat, I know how much a part of the family they are.

[sheldonm]

...also make sure to leave food outside and don't forget to call the humane society with a description of your cat.

m~

[kinuta]

Your cat is young so the chances are she won't have gone far from the place she knows.

I'd search round your place and keep searching especially at night when you might have a better chance of hearing a response. Are there any other cats living nearby ? If she ran into one she might have hidden somewhere to avoid a fight. Check under all cars and especially gardens, ledges, tops of sheds etc.

I understand how you feel, our late cat once went missing for over two weeks. She needed hospitalizing for multiple injuries but she did come back, to our immense joy.

[DatDere]

Usually cats don't stray far from their home when they're outside for the first time, but the fireworks might have scared her. My own cats don't like fireworks at all and look for hiding places when they hear it.

I can only echo what other people have said here: keep spreading flyers, call animal shelters with a description and maybe pet hospitals (do these exist in the US?) too. One of my cats (no name tag or address) was hit by a car last year and we couldn't find him for a week. Turned out he was picked up by a pet ambulance and luckily it survived and is in good health now.

Good luck, I know how attached you can be to your pets.

[Quincy]

I live near a veterinarian and a couple of months ago someone's cat got out of their car and ran towards our backyard. Or so the people thought. Ended up it ran under a '57 Cadillac that has a tarp over that stays put. The cat apparently stayed put under it - for a week! (Food was replenished in that location during that time.) The owners called for it while it was under the car, but as they heard no response they wrongly assumed it had run off.

They put up notices for a reward, and a woman of limited means who loves cats and makes it her business to collect rewards found it for them. Apparently it stayed under the car for the whole time.

So yes - 1) Post a reward. 2) Look VERY closely in places where a cat could hide around your place with a good flashlight. 3) More difficult, but look around for pawprints in the dirt around flowers and the like. It might provide a tip that someone's cat, maybe even your own is in the area.

Best of luck!

[ghost of miles]

We are listing a reward on the flyer, though not a specific amount. So far we've contacted the Animal Shelter where we adopted her, the vet where we take her, and a number of other area vets with her microchip barcode #. I'll keep searching and calling around the house; we're just afraid that during her first 12 hours out a neighbor cat may have chased her off, and that she's lost. We've started hitting the whole neighborhood with a photo flyer; my wife's gone out to buy more industrial staples. It's just hard to eat & sleep, and to maintain hope while preparing for the worst at the same time. Thanks again; the comments and stories here are really helpful.

Edited July 5, 2006 by ghost of miles

[(BB)]

We had a neighbors cat stuck in our basement for a week, un-friendly neighbors and an un-friendly cat. I ended up renting a racoon trap from the local rental place. We had our cat the next morning.

Used outside with a little cat food you might catch every cat in the neighborhood, but you just open the door, let'em out, no harm no foul.

Bill

[7/4]

I hope you find kitty.

[Claude]

Make sure the cat is not locked in somewhere in the house, in an unused room. Once my parents' cat had dissappeared for three days. It had climbed up the ladder to the attic while that rarely used ladder was down for a couple of minutes. The cat didn't make a single sound during those three days, although it was completely dehydrated and hungry. I discovered it by chance.

Good luck!

Edited July 5, 2006 by Claude

[ghost of miles]

We just placed a "lost cat" ad in the Bloomington Herald-Times classified column for the next four days... and in about an hour I'm going to finish flyering our neighborhood with the photo & info sheet, covering an area about 10 blocks long and four blocks wide, hitting every telephone pole and all of those in the alley as well (a fair amount of student traffic through there). We're going to check at the Shelter as often as possible; went down there this afternoon and saw all the intake cats for today. In our first stroke of luck, the woman in charge of receiving the animals lives only one block away from us, and supposedly has quite a knack for recognizing cats. After the downtown-Baghdad theatrics of last night and the street paving this a.m., it's a nice break. So we're keeping our fingers crossed, and will stay up again tonight. It's just that this kitten was an extraordinary little bloom of love... we have some pretty spectacular cats to begin with, but she really just seemed superlative in her ability to give and receive affection.

I think I'm going to put on some piano jazz--Bill Evans or Frank Kimbrough, maybe. I've been reluctant to play music since she got out, which makes the house seem even more quiet--I usually have jazz going about 6-8 hours a day. However, some quieter, lyrical jazz might make the house seem more homey if she's approaching it... she's certainly been raised as a jazz cat.

[connoisseur series500]

Maintain hope, David.

We've lost cats for longer than a day; some came back (healthy or injured,) others never returned.

I bet the fireworks scared her bigtime.

I know the suffering you both are undergoing, as I stress out if any of my cats stay out too late at night.

Also be sure to check if any of your neighbors have sheds with room underneath for cats. Those places seem popular with my pets, especially when scared.

Keep us posted....

[Jazzmoose]

Make sure the cat is not locked in somewhere in the house, in an unused room. Once my parents' cat had dissappeared for three days. It had climbed up the ladder to the attic while that rarely used ladder was down for a couple of minutes. The cat didn't make a single sound during those three days, although it was completely dehydrated and hungry. I discovered it by chance.

Good luck!

We lost a cat inside one of those old cabinet stereo things once. The repairman didn't even notice her crawl in. She made a lot of noise, but it took us a while to figure it out...

Damn, I hope your cat shows up soon, David; this is rough, I'm know.

[doubleM]

Good luck finding her David. Must be unsettling. F@&*ing fireworks!!!

[ghost of miles]

WE FOUND HER!!! WE FOUND HER!!!

I had just finished posting flyers all over the neighborhood and calling for her, sweeping the alleys with this humongous flashlight I'd purchased (looks like a regular cop-beater special) and had searched the bamboo that's spilling out of our neighbor's yard... decided to have one last look for the night in our basement with the new flashlight. We'd been leaving food and water down there--it had gone untouched, and we'd nearly given up the notion that she was down there--but I kept checking, in part because of this thread. And tonight, about 45 minutes ago, I went down there and called for her, and heard her distinct "uuuu" from the back of the earthen area of the cellar. I called my wife through the floorboards; she came down and shut the cellar door behind her, and we managed to coax Lilly down from the steep wall on which she was sitting. When we got her back in the house, we both felt like we'd won our personal Super Bowl or something (Super Bowl?? What am I saying, Conn500? Personal World Series, I mean!) )

Yet more proof that this is the best Internet community I've ever spent time in. MANY THANKS TO YOU ALL!!!

[Free For All]

Congrats David! So glad this adventure had a happy ending. Y'all can sleep soundly tonight.

[rachel]

What great news! I'm so relieved that you found Lilly and thankful that she wasn't out alone in the night in the midst of all of those fireworks! I bet she will sleep like a baby tonight (as will you guys!)

[ep1str0phy]

Congrats. Lord knows we've had our share of animal disappearances (and happy returns)...

[Dmitry]

WE FOUND HER!!! WE FOUND HER!!!

Excellent. Now that you've found her, save yourself some tsores, have a name tag made for the little rascal.

PS - How about a pic?

Edited July 6, 2006 by Dmitry