Finding Lost Animals
Losing a family pet can be heartbreaking and stressful. If you’ve lost a pet, PAHS has assembled some very good guidelines to help you.
To prevent delays and confusion, we recommend that your family pets are identified with a collar, ID tag, and a microchip. This greatly increases the chance that your pet will be returned home safely. Collars on cats and dogs need to fit comfortably and not be too tight (they should fit so that two fingers can slip easily underneath). The collars need to be outfitted with an ID tag showing the pet’s name and your current contact information. Microchips can be implanted at any clinic and are scanned for efficient identification when lost pets are found by animal control agencies.
Finding any lost pet:
- Immediately call the appropriate shelter for your local animal control agency.
For Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Los Altos: Contact Animal Services at (650) 496-5971
For Stanford, Gilroy, Morgan Hill: Contact Santa Clara County Animal Shelter at (408) 686-3900
For San Mateo County: Contact Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA at (650) 340-8200
For Sunnyvale: Contact Humane Society of Silicon Valley at (408) 262-2133
For San Jose, Milpitas, Cupertino, Saratoga, Los Gatos: Contact San Jose Animal Services at (408) 578-7297 - Post signs: post at grocery stores, community centers, veterinary offices, traffic intersections, pet supply stores, etcetera. Also, place advertisements in newspapers and with radio stations. When describing your pet, leave out one identifying characteristic and ask the person who finds your pet to describe it.
Finding a Lost Cat:
- Immediately call the appropriate shelter for your local animal control agency.
- Post signs: post at grocery stores, community centers, veterinary offices, traffic intersections, pet supply stores, etcetera. Also, place advertisements in newspapers and with radio stations. When describing your pet, leave out one identifying characteristic and ask the person who finds your pet to describe it.
- Go looking around your neighborhood.
- Cats refer to location identifiers to find their way back. If not picked up by animal control, your cat will likely return several times to the same spot s/he escaped from. Keep items out at that same area to entice your cat to return (food, water, familiar toys, familiar bedding).
- Call to your cat LOUDLY from the spot s/he escaped from. Do this early in the morning and late in the evening when it is quiet. This may need to be done every day for several weeks.
- DO NOT call to your cat loudly from any other area – this is very important.
- Cats sometimes get stuck in places and cannot get out (for example, garages of nearby neighbors who have gone away for vacation). Keep this in mind when you are searching for your loved one.
- Check back with your animal shelter often as few are “no kill” and have time restrictions on how often they euthanize un-adopted animals.
Finding a Lost Dog:
- Immediately call the appropriate shelter for your local animal control agency.
- Post signs: post at grocery stores, community centers, veterinary offices, traffic intersections, pet supply stores, etcetera. Also, place advertisements in newspapers and with radio stations. When describing your pet, leave out one identifying characteristic and ask the person who finds your pet to describe it.
- Go looking around your neighborhood and beyond.
- You can report to “Pet Amber Alert”, “Lost My Doggie.com” or other online help groups.
- Be wary of pet-recovery scams: when talking to a stranger who claims to have found your pet, ask him/her to describe the pet thoroughly before you offer any information. Be particularly wary of people who insist that you give or wire them money for the return of your pet.
- Check back with your animal shelter often as few are “no kill” and have time restrictions on how often they euthanize un-adopted animals.