What to do when your pet is missing

So your pet has gone missing now what do you do?

Animals will hide if they are scared, hurt or sick so first things first look everywhere even in places you would not think he or she would go, also walk around the neighborhood and look for them, getting the whole family involved may help make it a little more widespread covering more ground. Maybe assign tasks (if there are others in your family available to help) such as someone call local law enforcement to report missing pet, local vet clinics, local rescues, and shelters reporting lost pet and to see if anyone found your pet. If you have pet micro-chipped contact microchip company and report lost pet too. Assign another person the task of making posters including pictures of face, full body of pet and a good description but make sure to leave one special detail out that only you would know about the pet so if someone finds it and gives that detail you know it's your pet then have a few people go out and put them out all over town in stores, gas stations on bulletin boards etc, also maybe have someone post on social media pages as well in groups like Lost Dogs MN, lost and found animals, craigslist, anywhere they allow you to post your lost pet. Have one person answering calls and messages that may come in response to your posters and posts and a couple others following leads making sure to keep a phone with them to keep in contact.

Never pay a fee to anyone claiming they have your pet but tell you that you need to pay a fee as this is a scam, except if the pet is with animal control then yes take it seriously and go get your pet as quickly as you can. Keep good notes if anyone states they have seen a pet looking like yours, making sure to document location, time, date, and with location making sure you have street names and city etc. And if the person had your pet what that person looked like, did they have a vehicle etc. If the animal found deceased ask for pictures and go see for yourself.

So so far no luck now you start visiting rescues, shelters, impounds, animal control etc and request to see all strays that came in during the time your pet came up missing and make sure to have a picture and identifying paperwork with you so you can claim your pet right away if he or she is there. Just calling sometimes just is not good enough as it has happened that someone's animal showed up there and the person taking the call said they did not have the animal for whatever reason be if they did not look, they did not see paperwork or did not get the description right and this then leaves your pet in the shelter, impound or wherever wondering why they are not going home and how they got there. And you are worried and still looking even when your pet is right there at the shelter or rescue. If you find your pet make sure to let everyone know that you contacted so they don't keep looking. And make sure to thank everyone for their help.