Search the Area Thoroughly

• Start searching in the area where your pet was lost immediately after you realize they are missing. Do not delay the search.
• Call the pet’s name repeatedly.
• Use a favorite food or toy to entice the pet. Shake a box or bag of treats or use any other familiar noise such as the rattle of your keys.
• Stop periodically to listen for your pet – a bark, a meow, a rustle in the leaves.
• Think like your animal. Search low, under sheds, in tight spaces, and search up high as well.
• Ask neighbors if you can search their yard or property.
• Place something your pet may recognize by scent outside: dirty clothes, bedding, favorite toys, odorous food such as tuna, mackerel, liver, chicken. Placing a litter box outdoors may assist in recovering a lost cat.

Make Flyers

• Put a good quality color or black & white photo of your pet on each flyer; use 8 1/2-inch by 11-inch paper; using colored paper will draw more attention.
• Include your pet’s species (cat, dog, etc), breed or breed mix, sex (including whether it is spayed/neutered), age, weight, color, markings.
• Leave out one or two distinguishing marks or characteristics – a floppy ear, a stubby tail, a missing canine tooth, one blue eye), so you can determine whether someone claiming to have found your pet, actually has.
• Do not put your name or address on the flyer; include your phone number instead.
• Offer a reward, but withhold the amount.
• Post as many flyers as possible within a one-two mile radius of where your pet was lost. Drop flyers at veterinarian offices, local shelters, and local animal control shelters.

File a Lost Report with GMHS

• Email GMHS at [email protected] to file a lost report. Also call your local animal control, as well as shelters and animal control shelters in surrounding jurisdictions and file a lost report. 
• Visit local shelters often – every day or two – to look for your pet. Remember that your description may not match someone else’s description, so in-person visits are important. 
• Provide the shelter with a flyer containing pertinent descriptive information and a photo in case your pet is turned into the shelter.
• Virginia law requires municipal shelters to hold animals for five days if found without a collar; ten days if found with a collar. Do not depend on a shelter to hold your lost pet indefinitely.

Call Local Veterinarians
Don’t forget to call and/or post flyers at veterinary clinics, to include emergency facilities, in case your pet is found sick or injured. 

Contact Local Rescue Organizations

• Circulate flyers to local rescue organizations that can spread the word through their network of animal welfare contacts.
• The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) picks up animal remains, including pets, found on the road. Call your local VDOT office about animals killed on a roadway.

Use newspapers, the internet, the radio to assist in your search

• Place an advertisement in one or more local newspapers.
• Xtra 99.1 FM will announce lost pets on the radio.
• Take to Social Media! The following Facebook groups post found/lost pets:  Gloucester, Mathews, and Middlesex, VA Lost & Found Pets; Gloucester County Pet Connection; and Gloucester County Pets Lost, Found, And Looking For Their Forever Homes.