HappyCatLady .
3 months ago
💖🐱INDOOR ONLY cats and LIMITED OUTSIDE ACCESS cats never go far. They go into survival mode and hide in silence. Most of them will not respond when they are in survival mode. 3 AM is the best time to find a missing indoor only cat. This is the time they become most active and responsive. Sit and quietly call for your kitty in your calm normal voice. Try to stay low, standing is intimidating to cats. Be patient. Do your best to remain calm despite the alarming situation. Calling for them at the top of your lungs will scare your already frightened cat. Scared cats are the best hiders.
💥💥DO NOT LEAVE THE LITTER BOX OUTSIDE💥💥 It will attract Predators that will scare your cat away
💖🐱Put Your Scent Outside —.Place your dirty laundry - Tshirt, socks, pillow case or blanket you’ve used - place near the escape point. If you have a garage (and that’s the side kitty got out) place the items just inside the garage door left cracked open 5” - just enough for kitty to get in.
💖🐱Most INDOOR ONLY cats will be within 150 feet of your home HIDING (or stuck) . INDOOR cats that get out are immediately terrified and find the 1st place to hide and HUNKER DOWN sometimes for days at a time. DO a methodical search of the area. Check the house thoroughly. Check nearby bushes, underneath cars, in the car engine area, wheel wells and around the bumpers, check under your building, crawl space, drain pipe area. It's VERY VERY important that you look for kitty as late at night as you can.. Use a flashlight as late at night as you can to look in trees, under cars and in bushes, under porches, in crawl spaces. Try to look for the glow of the cat’s eyes. Because indoor only cats hide so well they are NOT as likely to be ed by a predator. Don't give up, it can take days. weeks or even months to find a missing cat.
💥💥 HUNGER ALWAYS WINS 💥💥 place wet food just inside the escape door and get a camera aimed AT WET FOOD - to receive phone notifications of any movement. Wildlife and motion activated WIFI cameras are extremely helpful in spotting scared cats that come out to eat when no one is around. It can take many nights before hunger takes over enough to come out of hiding (if not stuck) Keep replenishing wet food each sunset…it took 2 weeks for lost cat Reesy Puff to get caught on camera eating the food at night ( we trapped her 2 nights later) It took lost cat Sophie 6 weeks to show up on camera - trapped the next night! Some cats remain at a neighbors to scared or unable to get back - wherever your cat gets sighted get a camera aimed at wet food there asap and rent a trap…
Mini Blink camera : https://a.co/ihc7BSy
Blink wireless: https://a.co/d/6LnRHNM
💖🐱PRINT flyers and hand them out to all your neighbors. Knock on doors. ASK neighbors to check Ring cameras and allow you to check crawl spaces, bats, sheds..
💖🐱If kitty is spotted on someone's RING camera or in someone's YARD but STILL HIDING when you call calmly over and over THEN I'd highly recommend setting a trap at the same time kitty was spotted on camera. The trap must be monitored every single second it is ‘set’ to trap. A lot of people are successful trapping their own cats. If you decide to trap, you must watch the trap closely, predators can a cat in a trap. In a recent case, while using a baby monitor to monitor the trap from inside the home, the guardian’s cat came to the front door at 5 AM and she was heard on the baby monitor.
💖🐱RENT/BORROW A HUMANE TRAP - Ask Nextdoor ‘cat owner’ group or other pet groups if someone can loan your a humane trap to lure kitty with stinky wet fish based food. You can rent from your local SPCA/animal shelter though it can take a few days to access so sometimes reaching out to cat groups on nextdoor and facebook will be faster. If you live in San Francisco I am happy to loan you one of my traps. Traps WORK well to lure scared cats out of hiding before Dawn or after sunset.
💖🐱I use a baby monitor → https://a.co/d/bcuK17m as part of the STAKEOUT to monitor the trap door opening non-stop livestream (or you can add your wifi camera to your iPad or mini-ipad and use the pad as your live stream monitor OR SIMPLY watch LIVE FEED from your wifi camera (mini blink works great!). When you set the trap, you place stinky fish based wet cat food as bait at the far back center of the trap BEHIND the ‘trip plate’. I would suggest getting the help with someone experienced. OR watch the training videos below. It’s crucial for you cat’s safety. You must monitor the trap at a close distance and/or watch the baby monitor live feed without distractions.
💖🐱NEVER never never never leave an active trap unattended/unmonitored for even 10 seconds. You can cause injury or death to a cat who is trapped and left inside for predators to attack. If you come across any stray cats coming to the food, please find out if kitty belongs to someone else by posting online ‘IS THIS YOUR CAT’ on facebook, nextdoor etc and take the cat to determine if micro-chipped. There are so many lost kitties and you would hope someone would do this for your kitty.
💥💥BEFORE TRAPPING: MUST-WATCH HOW-TO VIDEOS
1. Trapper Tips and Tricks! Presented by Neighborhood Cats : https://youtu.be/DtXyrD6w0bk
2.Trappers Tips & Tricks Presented by Neighborhood Cats and the Community Cats Podcast : https://youtu.be/aL6kSPjrBbQ
LINK to Graphic showing Trapping Stakeout: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vTnF0r1693YiOYLhqJGvf0KtQQ3X17Qy/view?usp=sharing
