WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU FIND A CAT

                     

If you find a cat outside or a cat has started to hang out near your home of workplace, it may need help.  
The cat may be:

• an indoor/outdoor pet who lives nearby and is allowed to roam outside.

• a lost cat whose owners are looking for him/her.

• a cat that has been abandoned by his/her owners.

• a community cat that no one owns but people in the neighborhood know and feed/shelter.

 

Previously, the standard advice to a person who found a stray/homeless cat was to take the cat to a local animal shelter. But recent studies have shown that this is really not the best thing to do for the cat if you find one that needs help.  In fact, research indicates that cats have much better chances of being reunited with their owner if they don’t enter the sheltering system.

So when you come across what appears to be a homeless/abandoned cat, or a cat finds you, follow these steps suggested by the Humane Society of the United States:

FIRST:  Look for Status Clues

Collar. If the cat has a collar, the cat is most likely a lost pet or a pet cat who lives nearby and is allowed to roam outdoors. If the collar includes identification, try to contact the owner.

Ear-tip. A community cat who has been spayed or neutered will have a tipped or notched ear (where a section of an ear has been surgically removed). An ear-tipped cat in good body condition may have a caretaker in the neighborhood.

Microchip. If you can safely* get the cat into a carrier or borrow a humane trap, take him/her to a veterinarian or animal shelter to be scanned for a microchip or ask a local rescue organization if you can borrow a scanner. 

Body condition. Does the cat appear in good body condition and only appear at your house sporadically? That’s a good indication that the cat is being fed elsewhere.

NEXT:  Evaluate the cat’s level of socialization
While there are no hard-and-fast rules, a cat who approaches you and is friendly toward humans is more likely to be a pet who is allowed outside or a lost or abandoned pet. A cat who is unsocialized (or feral) is more likely to be a community cat. (While a cat that remains unapproachable after several days of feeding  may be feral, it is still possible that it is a pet that is very scared, lost, or has been outside for a while and has had to learn to be fearful and cautious.  Not all pet cats are friendly and trusting of strangers (especially outside of their home environment), and some community cats are friendly and social. So socialization alone won’t tell you if a cat has an owner or caretaker, but knowing how the cat behaves around people will help guide your efforts to help them. 
 

SHARE:  Get the word out

• Talk with neighbors, mail carriers, and anyone else in your neighborhood to see if they know anything about the cat, or if they know someone nearby who feeds community cats.

• File a Found Cat Report with PETFBI (a Lost Pet Registration Site).  Someone may have filed a lost cat report that is a match.

• If the cat is friendly, purchase a breakaway collar (or use this template to print out a paper collar) and include a note asking the owner or caretaker to contact you.

• Post flyers in your neighborhood and, while you’re doing that, look for signs—like food and water bowls, shelters and other cats—that someone is caring for community cats. Leave a note or knock on the door and introduce yourself as a fellow animal lover who has come across a mystery cat.

• Post found notices (with pictures of possible) on social media sites, including NextDoor, and local Facebook groups for your neighborhood and lost and found pets groups.

 

NEXT:
The help you provide will depend upon the status of the cat you found:

IF a Lost Cat: If the cat is scared and eludes the owners’ attempts to retrieve them, check out these tips for trapping a lost cat.

If a Free-Roaming or Indoor/Outdoor Pet Cat: If the cat is an owned pet who is allowed to roam freely outside, politely talk to the owners about the hazards of allowing their cat to roam outdoors and the statistics of indoor only cats versus indoor/outdoor cats' lifespans (12-15 years versus 2-5 years.)  If their pet isn’t spayed/neutered, you can provide information on local low cost spay/neuter programs and the benefits of spay/neuter. You might offer to help transport the cat to the clinic if transportation is a problem.

If a Spayed or Neutered Community Cat: If the cat is a sterilized community cat who is cared for by one or more neighbors, you can offer support in a variety of ways, such as by donating cat food, helping to build a winter shelter, or feeding when the caretakers are out of town.

If a Unsterilized Community Cat: You may discover that your mystery cat is being fed by one or more households but hasn’t been spayed/neutered or vaccinated. By helping to get the cat altered, you can provide a longer, healthier life for the cat and help reduce more homeless kittens being born without homes.  (See these resources for low cost spay/neuter services.)

STILL A MYSTERY?
Sometimes, you may not be able to identify an owner or caretaker for the cat. In this case, what you do should be guided by the cat’s level of socialization and the capacity of our local shelters and rescues.

If the cat is socialized and friendly, contact central Ohio shelters and rescue groups for help getting the cat vetted and placed into an adoption program.  If the rescues and shelters re overwhelmed, consider fostering the cat until you can find an adopter or until rescues and shelters have more capacity (**If you are willing to foster the cat while he/she is looking for a new home, foster-based rescues like PetPromise will be much more likely to be able to assist with the medical care and placement of the cat.). If fostering is not possible and the shelters and rescues are at capacity, you can get the cat sterilized and continue providing care while you search for a home for him/her.
 

An unsocialized cat is less likely to be accepted into a program for adoption and if taken to a shelter will likely be euthanized.  So while shelter or rescue placement will probably not be an option,  you can greatly improve the cat’s chances of a long, healthy life by practicing TNR ("Trap Neuter Return"). Enlist the help of other animal lovers in your neighborhood to figure out the safest place, within the cat’s home territory, to feed the cat and a location for a winter shelter. By making this a community effort, you’ll ensure that the cat will still have caretakers if you go on vacation or move. And you’ll have done your part to reduce feline overpopulation and provide a safer, healthier life for your mystery cat.
 

**IMPORTANT NOTE about handling unfamiliar cats: Even the friendliest cat can lash out in fear when an unfamiliar person tries to shove them into a cage or carrier. For your own safety and the cat’s, use bite-resistant gloves when handling an unfamiliar cat or kitten, or borrow a humane trap for an unsocialized (feral) cat or kitten. While rabies in cats isn’t common in the U.S., even the suspicion of rabies can be deadly for an animal who has scratched or bitten someone. For example, in 2018, 21,764 cats were killed and tested for rabies. Of these, 241 (1.1%) were confirmed rabid, while 21,523 cats didn’t have rabies and died unnecessarily.

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