11/17/2024
If it is later in the evening or the weekend when Animal Welfare isn't open, you can still help a lost pet find their way home!
1. Most importantly, if you cannot hold onto a stray animal and keep them safe until an owner is found or a shelter opens, DO NOT pick them up. Picking them up in one location and letting them loose in another is very unhelpful. Usually a lost dog is close to home, so taking them further away really lowers their chances of finding home.
2. Take a picture of the pet you found and look around. Where are you, what's the cross street, what are you near? All of this is important information for shelter staff and for your social media post.
3. If the pet has a collar with an ID tag, call and text the phone number on the ID tag. No collar? Take the pet to any local vet office and ask them to check for a microchip. This is free and quick.
4. Turn to social media. Post the animal that you found on Facebook community groups, lost and found groups, or any page that will reach a wide audience. Posting the dog on your page could be helpful, but it is unlikely the stray dog you found belongs to a Facebook friend. NextDoor is another website/app that reaches people near you, so post on there as well. Things to include on your post are: when the animal was found, the nearest location where it was found, if it is injured, and how it would be best to reach you. We discourage people from including their phone number on posts because there are a lot of scams out there. Direct messaging or commenting on Facebook posts are a safer option.
5. Call the shelter and message us on Facebook (if this is all happening in Stillwater). People will call the shelter when their pet goes missing, so we may already have contact information for you when you call!
6. If you found an animal overnight and want to keep it safe until morning, make sure to be cautious with it. Do not let a new, strange animal approach children or your current pets. Keep the stray in a crate with water and shelter, or confine them to a garage or bathroom if you don't own a crate. Don't let a good deed turn into an accident.
7. Lastly, if you found an animal but cannot keep it until a shelter opens, leave them in the EXACT place you found them. You can still post about the animal and make it clear that you had to leave the animal where it was found. This will give the owner a chance to go there and look for their lost pet, and will also give the animal a chance at finding its way home on its own. DO NOT give a found animal away. That is unfair to the owner of the animal and the animal. Finding an animal does not mean they have bad owners, accidents happen and sometimes animals escape.
