I can't find my cat, please help me!

It's always a distressing time when you have lost your beloved pet , so hopefully we can give you some advice here. Most importantly NEVER, NEVER give up hope. Here are some points of the best course of action to take and you will be suprised how often your pet will just wander back in the front/back door wondering what all the fuss is all about.

1.  Make up some posters in A5 and A4 (or ask someone else who is computer literate to help out) and add a photo of your cat, your phone number with home and mobile if possible and a brief description of your cat. You only want a small amount of information on your posters as too much and people will stop reading. Also at the bottom ask people to check their garages and outbuildings.

2. Put the A4 posters on as many telegraph poles, community boards and local shop windows as you possibly can and don't forget to put one on your front gate. Take the A5 leaflets and start delivering them  door to door , also if you can knock on doors of your street and the streets immediatly in front and behind you. The more doors you can knock on and actually speak to people the better. Quite often you will find out that someone has seen your cat or may know if your cat sometimes may vist other gardens down the road so it's worth asking your neighbours.

3. Keep shaking the cat biscuits and call your cats name mornings and evenings at the very least. When you do call your cat and shake the box stop as it is possible your cat may be stuck in next doors shed and you may be able to hear them calling back to you.

4. Contact us on 01323 440101 and  let the Eastbourne Adoption Centre know that your cat is lost, we cover the whole of the Eastbourne area and if you do not fall within our area we can certainly give you other numbers. We do run a lost and found register so can take all your details and we will do our best to help you find your pet. All cats that come into our centre get scanned to see if they have a microchip so can be re-united straight away.

5. If it is easier then please email us on eastbourne@cats.org.uk with a low resolution picture and the following information: Cats name, colour, age, sex, distinctive markings, if neutered and all your contact details.

6. Get the phone book out and phone around all the local vets in your area, don't just contact your vets as if someone has picked your cat up they may take it to their local vets which may be the other side of town to where you live. The internet is a good way of getting phone numbers of your local vets. Certainly in the Eastbourne area we have a few different vets including Chase, St Annes, Foreman & Hannah, Horsebridge, Highcroft and Companion Care in Pets at Home.  Don't forget some vets may have two or three different surgeries and may run their own seperate lost registers so try to call them all. 

7. Have you recently moved house? If so your cat may well not be used to your new abode and is making his or her way back to where you came from, for this reason it is also adviseable to phone/email all the vets in the area you used to live just in case someone takes your pet in there and maybe drop some leaflets off to your old house and the houses either side just in case so they can contact you if they do see your cat one day.

8. Please make sure that you do contact the vets and resuce centres in your area to say you have found your cat so that they can cross your cats details from their list. We do get so many phonecalls every day from people that have lost and found cats so the better updated we are with information the better we can help people.

9.MICROCHIP  YOUR CAT IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY DONE SO!! (Read our feature)