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What else can we do to find our cat? It’s been 36 hours.

She goes out every now and then but never more than two hours; this is the longest she’s been gone. She snuck out late last night when my mom was letting the dogs out. It was raining almost half of the last 24 hours. She is mainly an indoor cat, however she has had one incident a year ago where she got lost for almost 30 hours and we found her on a fence two blocks down a day and a half later at 4 am.

What we've done so far:

  • put flyers in the neighborhood and tell people about our cat;
  • posted on local Facebook groups about our missing cat;
  • looked for her late at night, we took flashlights and have been looking from 10 pm to 4 am intermittently as well as through the day;
  • put her food and litter out;
  • smeared wet food on the fences surrounding our house and a few of the neighbors' fences with their permission;
  • let our dogs out to see if they can attract our cat (they are pretty close to each other).
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    Aside of the problem, pure interest: what should wet food on the fences work for? Oo
    – Allerleirauh
    Apr 30, 2020 at 11:55
  • @allerleirauh, we just felt that would leave a scent trail for her if she did get lost somehow I don’t know if it will help
    – bob
    Apr 30, 2020 at 13:18
  • I wish you she comes back fine. Here there is a phrase "A good cat has minimal two families who think the cat is their cat"
    – Allerleirauh
    Apr 30, 2020 at 16:43

1 Answer 1

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  • Is you cat desexed / neutered? If not, it might be looking for a mate, in which case it would usually return after 2 - 3 days. Desexing removes the sex drive and the incentive to run away.
  • Is your cat chipped? If yes, call surrounding vets and animal shelters. They should scan runaway pets for chips by default and register them in a database. The chip ID of your cat should be noted somewhere in its vaccination record. If you cannot find it anymore, ask the vet that implanted the chip.
  • Are there any farms or mass breeding stables nearby? We live near such a stable and noted that cats sometimes get trapped or locked up there in search of mice or food. You could call them and ask if they noticed anything.
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  • Hi there. She is neutered. She is not chipped, we are beating ourselves up for that now, however she is a very curious cat she gets distracted by birds and anything that moves(insects and stuff) and will chase them despite being a mostly indoor cat. We live in a pretty residential area, lots of houses very closed to each other, not a farm place at all. We looked all night 10pm,2am, 4am with flashlights posters everywhere ( within two blocks of us which is already far for her) could not hear her at all....
    – bob
    Apr 30, 2020 at 13:16
  • Cats can roam for miles, two blocks isn't far at all. A fully indoor cat that escapes, however, will usually stay very close to home. The problem here is that you've let your cat be an indoor/outdoor cat, meaning she is much more bold about roaming. Widen your search radius.
    – Allison C
    Apr 30, 2020 at 14:29
  • @Allison C, we suspect this could be the case. We just don’t know how to do it effectively. It takes us like two hours to even go through two roads near us ( we go to their backyards and day her name for every house) where we know she usually goes too, there are a lot of blocks and residential roads nearby that she could have theoretically gone too but we have never seen her go to those areas. We posted flyers and on Facebook so I hope someone can spot her, she always comes back within 2 hrs so I’m afraid she’s starving by now
    – bob
    Apr 30, 2020 at 15:56
  • If you have a nextdoor community or any local lost cat Facebook groups, post there as well. Add flyers farther away from your home, so you can get as many eyes looking for her as possible. And check ALL vets, shelters, impounds, etc in a wide radius from your home. She may already have been picked up and put into "stray hold."
    – Allison C
    Apr 30, 2020 at 15:58
  • As a note on that, at least where I live, an animal in stray hold can only receive life-saving vet treatment, but not for anything that's not yet life-threatening. (My roommate who works in rescue recently did a stray hold on a cat with massive facial swelling that had to be left untreated.) If she's injured and being held, you contacting shelters regularly can get her needed vet care faster.
    – Allison C
    Apr 30, 2020 at 15:59

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