Finding Lost Pet Checklist Your Pet is Still Missing For Over a Month

Finding Lost Pet Checklist

If Your Pet is Still Missing For Over a Month

Keep:

Repeating previous steps

Shelters, ads, flyers

Extending search area out further and further like a spiral

Don’t give up

Your pet is counting on you to keep looking for them

Make sure microchip information is current if you move

Looking for a lost pet can be a very traumatic and frustrating situation, especially if initial efforts do not find your pet and your search extends into over one month.

Some common reasons why an animal may not be found after a month might be that the animal has been picked up and carried away or the animal may have traveled out of the area of the search, or the animal may be deceased and the body has not been found. 

When an animal gets loose, a common outcome is that somebody attempts to help the animal by trying to catch them. The person can be either in a car or on foot. If your pet has the type of personality where they may trust that person and go with them or hop not their car, this may allow the animal to be taken or transported away from the area. 

If the person is in a car, and that person is driving through the area, and does not live locally, they may wait until they get home or to their destination before attempting to contact the person if the pet is wearing a collar with ID. If the pet  does not have any visible ID like an ID tag, then that person won’t know who to contact, then that person may or may not know what to do or whee to look. 

From this point on, there are 100 or more scenarios that may occur. If your pet has a microchip, the finder may or many not check. Their decision depends on many things. If they really like this animal and have in the back of their mind that they may want to keep them, they can decide to not do an active search for the animal’s person. If your pet does not have a microchip, and no other ID, then they may decide that the animal is “abandoned,” “ a stray” or has an irresponsible person and that person doesn’t deserve the animal back. All of these things and more can go through this person’s mind if they find an animal without any visible ID tag. 

If your pet is still missing after one month, another common scenario would be that your pet has traveled out of the area where they are being searched for, and they are not willing to go up to a person for help. These types of animals typically will include cats without the super friendly personalities and the dogs who are shy and aloof and nervous of people. These animals can travel very long distances, sometime several miles in one day. They can be totally undetected, especially if they choose to travel at night. Even if these animals have collars with ID tags and microchips, if they choose to not approach someone and they don’t get injured or confined somewhere, they literally can travel to another county or even further. 

If your pet has not been found after one month, a third common scenario could be that they are deceased and their body has not been discovered yet. This would be more common in a rural or remote area where isolated areas and large predators exist. This could also happen in an urban or suburban area if you live near large parks with remote canyons and isolated hillsides, especially if these areas contain coyotes or bobcats or large raccoons. 

Typically in an urban area, dead bodies in the street are picked up within 24 hours by the city or animal control. However, I have also heard of small animals like cats and small dogs being disposed of by an individual in their own trash because they did not think to report it to animal control. In most cities, it is illegal to dispose of a domestic animal on your own. It is required to contact animal control for proper disposal. 

(Tell story of Sophia in San Francisco.)

Many jurisdictions also have a size requirement for all wildlife to be properly disposed of by animal control. For example, it is OK to toss a squirrel body into the trash, but anything larger must be removed by animal control. Also, since a lot of wildlife carry rabies, thee animals must be disposed of by animal control to ensure rabies is not transmitted. 

Even though your pet has been missing for more than one month, the chances of your pet’s recovery still remains very high, and the more you put the word that your pet is still missing, the better the chances that somebody will see the flyer or ad. 

Continue to search further and further away. The longer an animal is missing, the further away the search should continue. This means outside your neighborhood, outside your city, outside your county and even outside your state. See the section, “Creative Ways to Get the Word Out” for more ideas to spread the word. 

If you move during the search for your pet, make sure that your microchip information is changed. The reason why it is best to put a cell phone number on the flyer and on your pet’s information is that if you move, you can keep your existing phone number. 

The most important thing to do when searching for a lost pet is to not give up. Since we know that your pet did not get picked up and carried away by an alien ship, then we also know that your pet is still out there somewhere. As long as you maintain that your pet is missing, then when they are found, you should have little difficulty being able to redeem them at a shelter. This is especially pertinent if you pet has a microchip.