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Remember, 75% of cats were found within 500 meters of where they call home. So do thorough check indoors, and ask other members of the household to help. However, if your cat is gone for more than 12 hours or overnight, it’s time to take action. However, secondary infections are the greatest risks to these cats.

Wild cats threatened by ‘underrecognized’ risk of spillover disease – Mongabay.com

Wild cats threatened by ‘underrecognized’ risk of spillover disease.

Strays tend to avoid other cats, while feral cats often live in groups. Keep your cat safely contained while traveling and have them spayed/neutered and microchipped. If you tend to let your cat go outdoors, try keeping them indoors at your new location for a month or more before allowing them to venture out. You can also allow them to go outside on a leash for at least days. Instead, they seek out the quietest, safest nearby spot they can find. If they are too weak to get food or walk home again, they may be in danger of passing away in this spot.

What Do You Do With An Abandoned Cat?

While most shelters maintain a database of “found” reports, these reports are often inaccurate due to the subjectivity of the person describing the animal. Many people are not familiar with breeds and coat colors and may not be able to give an accurate description of the animal they have found. One acceptable alternative would be to post a picture of the found animal in the shelter’s computer database if the shelter has software with that capability. This would allow you to hold the lost pet, while still allowing the owner to find it at the shelter via a photo. If the animal is chipped, the shelter staff will be able to immediately look up the owner’s contact information by calling the microchip company or accessing the microchip database online. Although it may be tempting to keep a lost pet and try to find the owner yourself, it is absolutely essential that the animal be scanned for a microchip.

Consider putting out a bowl of commercial wet food or cooked chicken or beef for the cat to enjoy while you hang out near them. A common health problem that many indoor cats share is weight management. Over a quarter of all cats are obese, and indoor cats are particularly susceptible. While some indoor cats may love to play, they tend to lead mostly sedentary lives, which can inevitably lead to some weight gain. Perhaps your cat has already been found and brought into a vet or shelter.

Stray Haven is dedicated to promoting the health, well-being, and welfare of all cats, domestic, stray, abandoned, and feral. We find loving homes for these animals once they’ve received veterinary care and are deemed healthy and fit for adoption. Some open admission kill shelters don’t allow public adoptions and may not allow rescue groups to save these animals, and the majority have very high euthanasia rates. This is especially true if the cat is very young , older (over 5-6), is pregnant, or has any health issue . Some municipal animal controls have great adoption rates; you can call them or ask around to find out if the cat would have a decent chance there. If you have to choose between HSMO and the APA, the cat will have a better chance at adoption through the APA.

If the chip has not been registered, ask the company for the “implanter of record”. This is usually a rescue, vet’s office, or animal control facility that may have the owner’s information. After finding a lost cat and determining that they are not feral and is safe to approach, the next step is to figure out whether they are indeed simply lost or if they are a stray in need of a new home.

When the researchers attached magnets to the cats, however, the cats weren’t able to do this as well, supporting the idea that magnetic geolocation was involved. Although we don’t know for certain how it works, evidence supports the idea that cats are able to use the earth’s geomagnetic fields—potentially combined with scent cues—to locate their homes. If you anticipate these events, secure your cat in a safe, quiet place until the threat is over. Finally, consider getting them a collar with an ID tag with your contact info. There are even multiple pet tracking devices that your pet can wear on their collar, which allow you to always monitor their location. Previous rabies vaccination of these animals might not preclude the necessity for euthanasia and testing.

How to prepare an indoor cat for a vet visit

If you’re wondering whether you can take a stray cat to the vet for free, you’re obviously someone who wants to help, and you deserve to be commended for your efforts. Young kittens should visit the vet once a month until they are 4 months old. This is around the time they should finish all of their necessary kitten vaccinations. Once they become six months old it’s a good time to consider bringing them in to get spayed or neutered. After that, they usually won’t need another wellness visit until they turn 1 year old and are considered an adult cat. The good news is that studies have shown that about 74% of lost cats are eventually united with their family again5.