Looking for a way to make a difference in your shelter’s population of homeless pets? It may be time to update your thinking about lost and missing pets.

Some dogs and cats entering your shelter already have a home, but for some reason can’t find their way back. They may be dogs terrified by Fourth of July fireworks, or an indoor cat who got out and is hiding, terrified, not far from his own front door. Re-uniting these pets with their families can be a cost-effective, easy way to cut down on shelter intake and reduce strain on shelter resources.

Kat Albrecht of the Missing Pet Partnership spoke with Maddie’s Fund^® recently about this issue. She stressed that a misunderstanding of how lost pets behave is a major factor contributing to low rates of pets being returned to their owner. Many pet owners, as well as shelter and rescue workers, are unaware that dogs and cats behave very differently when lost than when in their own homes.

Consider, for example, the behavior of a cat who may have been hurt or frightened:

The behavior of a sick, injured, or panicked cat is that they will hide in silence. Just because the cat owner does not see or hear their cat does not mean that s/he is not right there. The lost cat could be hiding in the neighbor’s yard. If not found, the cat will likely end up in your shelter in a few months.

Cats who are afraid or injured will seek areas of concealment such as under a deck, under a house, under a porch, or in heavy brush.

Most critically, these cats will not meow. Meowing would give up their location to a predator. Their behavior has nothing to do with whether the cat loves you, recognizes your voice, or whether s/he can smell you. It has everything to do with the fact that a panicked cat will hide in silence. So just because you do not see or hear your cat does not mean that s/he is not very close to home.

Compounding the problem, Albrecht says, is the fact that many owners and shelter/rescue group staffers are unaware of the best ways to find lost pets:

Some develop “tunnel vision” and fail to find their pet because they focus on wrong theories. They assume their dog was “stolen and sold to research” when in fact their dog might have been rescued and put up for adoption through a local adoption event.

Cat caregivers are often discouraged by others who tell them “your cat was probably killed by a coyote,” when in fact their cat is hiding under the neighbor’s deck.

Alone and discouraged, both dog and cat caregivers experience “grief avoidance” and quickly give up search efforts because they really believe they will never see their pet again.

“In addition,” Albrecht adds, “the first place the caregiver of a lost dog will search for his or her dog – the local shelter – is typically the last place that someone who finds a loose dog will take it, for fear the animal will be killed.”

So whether you’re a pet owner looking for a lost pet, or a shelter or rescue group staffer or volunteer trying to assist people in your community, taking the time to understand how the behavior of a lost pet differs from the behavior of a pet in his own home can mean the difference between lost and found for that pet. Read more here.