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WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU FIND A PET. |
If you have
found a pet you need to act fast. People who have lost pets start their search
immediately and then tend to scale down the search if there have been no
results within about 2 weeks. If you have not taken the following steps in the
first few days of your sheltering of the lost pet, you may have missed the
"window" of opportunity that exists during the first two weeks when
the owner is looking the hardest.
First, check to see if the
animal has an identification tag. If so, use that information to try and
contact the owner.
If you have a digital
camera or can photograph the animal with a regular camera and scan the photo
into your computer, creating a .jpg, and e-mail it to us, it will save a lot of
time. Please limit the size of the .jpg to 1 megabyte. We also need the date
and major cross streets where found, breed, gender, size and a short
description
Please note that we
currently are serving Pima County (Tucson) Arizona only. If you are not in our
area check with your local Humane Society or County Animal Care organization to
see if they offer a similar service. If not, tell them to contact us for how
they can set up a similar program. We are a non-profit all volunteer
organization and we will show them how to do it at no cost.
If you cannot provide a
photo, we can meet you and the animal at a convenient shopping center near your
home and photograph the found pet and scan it for an identification microchip.
It is very important that the animal is checked for a microchip either by us or
your vet. E-mail us at the above e-mail address requesting this service. There
is no charge for this service to you or the pet owner. This will get the photo
on our Found! pet web site right away so that the owner, who is probably
checking the web site daily since the pet was lost, may be able to identify the
animal and bring about a reunion of pet and owner within a few days.
You can use the photo,
yours or ours, to make a poster to place around the neighborhood and at
convenience markets and other businesses in the area. Also, spread the word to
the children in the neighborhood. They have a communication network that
reaches far beyond the neighborhood and it might bring quick results.
Next place an ad in the
newspaper Lost and Found section at
Check the Lost ads to see
if any match the description of the found animal.
Check out Craig’s List Craig's List Pets
Contact the Humane
Society's Lost and Found Department at
It is important that you
should accomplish all of the above within the first day or two that you have
begun to shelter the animal.
The next stop is your local
veterinarian. Have the animal scanned for a microchip and checked over to make
sure that it is not carrying any diseases or pests and see if the veterinarian
or any of the staff might recognize the pet as belonging to any of their
customers.
Hopefully, within a short
period of time, you will hear from the owner and you will enjoy the extreme
pleasure of seeing a pet and its owner reunited, thanks to your kindness and
caring. It is one of life's greatest thrills to participate in a reunion of
this type.
Some other thoughts. Please
plan on sheltering the found pet for at least 2 weeks. It takes time for all of
this to come together. Please also try to avoid the all too common temptation
to blame the owner for the dog being lost. Although it is highly unlikely that
the owner is to blame (our statistics prove this) remember that it is the pet
who wants his family back and we need to help the pet return home.
If, unfortunately, you do
not hear from the owner within a time period that you feel is the maximum that
you can continue to shelter the animal, then you should contact us about adding
the animal's photo to our Adoption section. You should also contact the Humane
Society or the Pima Animal Control Center to discuss their accepting the animal
into their care.
Good luck!
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