What To Do If  You’ve Found A Cat

If you have found a cat, you have some decisions to make. Does the cat really need help? How can you help find his/her family? Is the cat an outdoor-access pet who lives in your neighborhood? Could this be a lost cat? A stray or barn cat? A feral cat? How do you know?

Short version: If cat is not in danger, leave it alone. Try to find out if someone is searching for the cat. Take a photo of the cat and post on Cat Finders: Lost/Found Cats in NH | Facebook
Fill out a FOUND CAT report with your nearest shelter and notify Animal Control or police. If possible, get the cat scanned for a chip. Ask neighbors if they know the cat, and if possible, use a Communication Collar. See details and discussion below.

First, try to determine if the cat is in distress. 
Is the cat injured, emaciated, ill, or in a very dangerous spot (such as on a highway)? If so, do what you can to rescue the cat, or if it is not safe to do so, call the police, animal control, or the nearest animal shelter or rescue for help with trapping and rescue. Do not chase a cat, particularly if the cat is in a dangerous area, as the cat might run into oncoming traffic or other dangers. Rather, try coaxing the cat to you, or stopping traffic (if safe) so that the cat can get across.

If it is bitter cold outside, or there is a storm, and the cat appears to be seeking refuge, and if you are able to take the cat inside temporarily, you might be saving the cat from a fearful and possibly dangerous situation. If you do take a cat inside, then you want to let him or her out again once the storm is over, and make every effort to find out where the cat belongs. Remember, if this is an outdoor-access cat, his/her family will be especially worried if the cat is missing during a storm.

If the cat is NOT in obvious distress, leave the cat alone. If the cat is wearing a collar, check the inside and outside of the collar for a phone number or other contact information. The cat may be an outdoor-access cat who belongs to one of your neighbors. Allow the cat to go home. If you feed the cat, the cat will keep coming back, but that does NOT necessarily mean the cat is homeless or even hungry. (Always offer the cat some water though; a cat outside can quickly become dehydrated.) So before feeding an unknown cat, it’s a good idea to try and find out from your neighbors if they know where the cat belongs. Please do not take somebody’s outdoor-access cat! Please do not create a lost cat by keeping or re-homing somebody’s pet!

Check Cat Finders: Lost/Found Cats in NH | Facebook   and other missing pet sites and community Facebook pages to see if someone is searching for this cat. If this cat DOES appear to be a missing one, and you can lure the cat into your home for safekeeping, then please try to do so, and then contact the owner.

(Never let a stranger come to your home while you are by yourself, though. Be sure to have a friend or family member with you if the owner is coming to pick up the cat.)

If you are unable to lure the cat with food or treats, do not chase or try to grab the cat. This could result in a bad bite or scratch, and then the cat may run off again. Instead, simply contact the owner, who can then come and verify that this is their cat. If you can keep the cat busy eating some dry cat food or drinking some water, that may keep the cat close until the owner shows up.

If you do not see any posts on Facebook or other social media, and you don’t see lost cat posters for the cat along the roads, then you can post the cat as FOUND on Cat Finders’s Facebook group, and on community Facebook pages/groups, and NH Lost& Found Pets on Facebook. Maybe the family just doesn’t realize their cat is really missing, and are waiting for him or her to come home as usual. Also, the cat might not actually be missing, but might simply be visiting you, then going home. Some outdoor-access cats may occasionally stay out for a night or two without their family becoming concerned or reporting them as missing.

What if someone claims you have their missing cat, but you are not sure it really is their cat? If someone notifies you that the cat you’ve posted as “found” is their lost cat, remember, Safety First! You are well within your rights to ask them to send you an email or PM with photos of them with the cat or a copy of their adoption papers/rabies certificate. Some unscrupulous people may want to get a free cat rather than paying an adoption fee, and may not have good motives; in other words, they might not want the cat as a pet, but for some other, unkind purpose.

Again, don’t allow strangers to come to your home if you are by yourself, but instead, plan to have a spouse or other adult at home with you. If you feel uncomfortable having the possible owner come to your home, and if you are able to transport the cat, you can arrange to meet the possible owners at the nearest animal shelter or police station. The true owner would be happy to meet you there. A scammer or pet trafficker, on the other hand, would be less likely to want to pursue the matter.

If you can’t find the cat listed as missing, and nobody responds to your FOUND cat post after a few days, you have some decisions to make. Is the cat homeless, stray, feral, or has the cat been missing for so long that the family has reluctantly given up actively searching? If only the cat could tell us!

Try to determine if the cat is coming and going, or if the cat appears to be living on your property. You may be able to notice if the cat is spending the night in your barn or under your shed, or if you only see the cat at certain times of the day. If the cat is living on your property, he or she might be a lost cat, a stray, or a community cat (feral or barn cat) and may need some help. If the cat is coming and going, he or she may have a perfectly good home and is just coming to visit.

Is the cat tame, or feral? If the cat is tame, that is, if the cat will come to you, meow for food, and possibly even allow you to pet him or her, chances are this is a family pet. If not, the cat might be a pet, but might be shy or afraid of strangers. Usually, even a shy pet can be coaxed to come for food while you are nearby. A feral cat will usually not come to eat until you are at a safe distance, at least until the cat begins to trust you.

Make a communication collar

If the cat is tame, and you think the cat may be coming and going (as opposed to living on your property 24 hours a day) this may simply be an outdoor-access cat who comes to visit you. To help determine if this is the case, you can try making a paper communication collar.

A communication collar is just a thin strip of paper that you write a message on, (such as, Is this your cat? Please call me (and write your phone number). Then put it around the cat’s neck, and tape the ends together. Make sure that the collar is not too tight (you should be able to fit one or two fingers underneath without tearing the collar) and not loose enough to come off easily. If the cat comes back without the collar, try it again. The cat may have gotten the collar off & his/her family haven’t seen it. Keep trying. If the cat already has a flea collar, or other collar, you can attach a message to the existing collar with some masking tape.

But if the cat keeps coming back and still has your collar on, and nobody has written you a message on it, chances are this is a lost or stray cat, not an outdoor-access cat. Of course, there are circumstances under which this might still be a family pet that lives in the neighborhood. For instance, the family may be out of town, the cat comes and goes through a cat door, and a pet sitter comes by and puts food in the cat dish once a day. But in most cases, a family member would notice if their cat came home with an unfamiliar collar.

Microchip scan

Is the cat tame enough for you to get the cat scanned for a microchip? Any vet or shelter can scan the cat to see if he/she has a microchip that will help find the cat’s family. You would not have to surrender the cat to a shelter (though if the cat is injured or ill, it might be a good idea). Sometimes cat rescues or shelters have volunteers who are willing to come to your house and scan the cat for you.

Fill out a Found Cat report at your local shelter, and notify your town’s Animal Control Officer (or police). They may know if anyone has already reported the cat as missing, but if not, at least you can make sure they have a record of the cat in case anyone reports the cat missing later on. Many people don’t report their cat as missing right away, thinking the cat will eventually just come home on his own.

If you decide to bring the cat to a shelter, ALWAYS BRING THE CAT TO THE SHELTER NEAREST THE PLACE WHERE YOU FOUND THE CAT! That is where the owner will look for their cat. If you bring the cat to a shelter in a neighboring town then the cat may get adopted before the owner learns where their cat was taken. Most people only check the shelter nearest their home!

Whether the cat seems tame or not, please do not take a cat off the street without notifying your neighbors. You can take a photo of the cat and make some inexpensive flyers or posters to put around your neighborhood, and post the cat online to Cat Finders’ Facebook group, at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/CatFinders/

It would also be very helpful to post the cat on other lost/found pet sites (see Links page) and especially to your community or town Facebook pages or groups. Always try to leave at least one piece of information about the cat private, so that you can screen anyone who claims to be the owner. For example, if the cat has white paws, but the paws don’t show up in the photo, the real owner could tell you over the phone that their cat has white paws, but a pet trafficker who is merely trying to get a free cat wouldn’t know what color the paws are.

Check craigslist to see if the cat is posted as missing (but Cat Finders does not recommend posting there yourself as it invites scammers to contact you). The cat might not live on your street, but might live a few blocks or a mile away, and might have a family searching for him/her.  Also look for posters/flyers that the cat’s family may have posted.

Remember that it is possible this cat has been missing for months, and the family may have already given up hope, so may no longer be actively searching for a cat they believe they will never find. But if they see your poster, imagine how happy they would be! See Cat Finders’ Posters page to see examples of effective posters.

Cat with “tipped” ear

If the cat is not tame, and you haven’t been able to find the cat’s family with your posters and online listings, what can you do? If the cat seems fearful of humans, this may be a shy pet, or a barn cat or a feral cat. If the cat seems all right, and just needs some food and water, and you are willing to set up a shelter of some sort for the cat, you don’t necessarily have to do anything. You can, if you wish, call a rescue or shelter that does TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release) to help you get the cat neutered and vetted. If the cat has one ear that has the tip cut off, that means the cat has already been neutered and vetted by a rescue group. Please do not trap a possibly feral cat and bring him/her to a shelter unless you know for sure that your shelter has a feral cat barn program. Some shelters still euthanize feral cats.

Here are some easy outdoor shelters you can make, and some you can buy, to help keep neighborhood cats alive:
Cole and Marmalade’s easy Rubbermaid cat shelter: https://youtu.be/lpW69fNzcjc
Outdoor Cat Shelter Options | Insulated & Heated Feral Cat House Ideas (alleycat.org)

Thank you for helping to reunite a lost cat with his/her family, or for helping a cat in need.

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