This page is to assist you when your cat has gone missing. Many pets are reunited with their owners and there are a number of avenues that you need to explore to help locate them.
Experience shows that there is a greater chance of success when you put your best effort in during the very early hours and days, rather than taking a "wait and see" approach.
Full guidelines and check sheets can be found on the internet at www.petsonthenet.co.nz who also provide a free lost and found service where you can advertise your pet.
The League will hold details of you and your cat in our registers until we are advised that the animal has been located. The registers are reviewed regularly and we will contact you if a similar cat has been found, however remote the possibility that this is your cat.
We have been successful in reuniting cats who have been found at opposite sides of the city and in the unlikeliest places.
We want to help and it gives us great pleasure to see a cat returned to its owners.
What do you do? The following section provide the basic suggestions.
As soon as you think your cat has gone missing
- Search your house and garden - your cat can get into the smallest places and be shut in.
- If you have had any work done at your house, can the cat have been enclosed in a wall or similar? Could it have got into the workman's vehicle and been driven away?
- Check the roads near your house and the house and gardens of your neighbours. Shaking a cat biscuit box can attract a cat's attention if they are hiding.
- This can be a good opportunity to meet your neighbours. Take a colour photograph of the cat with you and ask them to have a look around. Many cats get shut inside sheds etc as the neighbour is unaware a cat has gone in to investigate.
- Ring your local vets and the After Hours vet - if your cat has been hit by a car, it may have been injured and driven to them for treatment.
- Ring or Email Cats' Protection League and provide full details of your pet, including any distinguishing features, when and where it was last seen and your own contact details. We will check our registers to see whether there is a potential match and record your details. Our hours are 10.00am to 4.00pm Monday to Friday and the phone number is (03) 381 0289.
- Ring, and visit if necessary, the SPCA and provide the above details also. They will record your cat on their track-a-pet database. Their hours are 10.00am to 4.00pm Monday to Saturday and their telephone number is 0900 56787. It will cost you $10.00 to register.
- Check the free websites for lost and found cats and place an advert including a photo;
- www.petsonthenet.co.nz
- www.trademe.co.nz
What else?
An unpleasant job, but one that must be done, is to ring the council to see if a cat matching yours has been collected off the road. Ring the Christchurch City Council on (03) 941 8666 and press 2 for animals.
Prepare flyers, preferably with a photo, giving full details of your pet, any distinguishing features, when it was last seen, your contact details and asking that they check their property. A template can be found on the RNZSPCA's website; www.rnzspca.org.nz/images/stories/Downloads/lost_pet_posters/lostcat.pdf
Distribute the flyers around your immediate area and include the street behind your property as cats are just as likely to wander this way as well.
Flyers can also be put up at local dairies, supermarkets, schools and on lamp posts.
Check the lost and found columns in the local newspapers and place a lost notice with them.
The contact numbers are:
- The Press (03) 377 8778
- The Star and Community News (03) 379 1100
- Christchurch Mail (03) 379 0940
- Buy, Sell & Exchange (03) 341 3888 (Free advert and they give you a free photo which is helpful if someone thinks they may have found your cat)
Keep checking these avenues regularly and keep looking and calling, don't give up!
