5 Steps to Take When You've Lost or Found a Pet

Realizing your pet is missing is one of the most frightening things ever. They become a part of our family, support system, daily lives, and identity.

Seeing the door jar, the gate unlatched, or window popped out. Not hearing the usual patter of footsteps, not being greeted by a bark, or opening the door without a face popping up over the couch.

The heart drops into the stomach. Like a bad dream you’re jolted into the scariest moment.

And if that happens to you, then you also feel distraught finding a lost pet. Wondering if it’s okay, what to do, if it needs something, and all the emotions its people must be feeling as you look at it in the road or wherever.

While I’m blessed to not have lost a dog, in December 2020, I experienced finding a lost dog and all the steps of trying to get him home.

I thought I would share the below ways I learned to tackle these difficult moments. These came from some other internet sources, our vet, our local shelter, and our dogs’ daycare team. All in one place now and I hope they help you.

1: Have a plan

This is and isn’t the event planner in me talking. You need to assess and think out next steps carefully.

You’ve lost your pet: Go through this checklist to get started.

• Who is immediately available to help - then contact them

• How can they help, get people on foot or calling vets/shelters, or checking social apps for postings - whatever they can do

• How should you sweep your immediate address/neighborhood the pet first became lost in - on foot, by bike, in the car what works best for your location?

• Tell a neighbor(s) or other at the park, restaurant, etc where the pet went missing

You’ve found a pet: You need to realize you know nothing about this animal, and must plan to act accordingly.

• Get a picture - approaching the animal feels instinctual but first snap a picture. If you feel you must approach them, get your other pets, children, etc out of harm’s way.

2: Make phone calls

You should contact the following places, via phone for fastest communications, if you’ve lost/found a pet.

• Your vet’s office and daycare (if applicable)

• Vet offices and shelters within a 50 miles radius of where you it happened - This may seem extreme if you found a pet but should be considered

3: Make a PetFBI listing

I was unaware of PetFBI before we found a lost dog, and it’s an amazing resources that matches lost/found reports from anywhere.

Make a listing and be as detailed as possible and they will email you corresponding matches.

4: Visit dog shelters within a 50 mile radius of where it happened

Between the volume of animals, calls, and duties do not expect shelters or animal control offices to answer and talk through lost/found cases over the phone. Especially if you’ve lost your dog I would visit as many places as makes sense for your location, daily or often as possible to check if your pet is there.

5: Social media posts and groups

Facebook and the Nextdoor app have a plethora of groups and pages (including those for vets, shelters, etc) that offer ways to get the word out about your lost or found pet.

Nextdoor should have groups and pages to navigate to based on your address. On Facebook search for “lost and found pets” with your city, county, state and join them - and post and scroll to see if there’s a match already posted!

The distress of losing a pet, or finding a lost and upset one, is unfathomable until it happens. After going through this with phone calls and possible matches that didn’t pan out - seeing the hurt and angst of these pet owners was awful.

If you ever have the time to read posts and help connect people through social media groups or otherwise to find their pet, know that your time won’t be wasted. You’ll be saving hearts and healing homes.

Stay tuned for a story about our sad, lost, little pup we found - He has an awesome success story, if I do say so myself.