I really need some good advice. My cat Rex, who is an indoor-only cat, escaped from my parents’ house on Tuesday. He has been seen only a couple of times since then–and not since last night at 10pm, when I failed to capture him.
Please tell me all your best tips and tricks for recapturing a lost indoor cat. We’ve tried a lot of stuff from the Internet to no avail.
I need him back; he’s my special little guy.
Can you get a live trap (borrowed from the vet or possibly the humane society?) and load it up with his favorite food?
We’ve tried that, to no avail. We’re calling animal removal services tomorrow to see if we can get someone professional to do that too.
Cats often hang around very near to the house they escaped from, but they’re scared so they hide and make themselves not easily visible. But they’re often right there.
If you can get a live trap (many shelters or rescue groups will lend you one, usually for a refundable deposit), set it near the house and bait it with smelly food. Canned mackeral or tuna is good. Be aware that you may trap other cats or other animals in there. DO NOT attempt to release a strange cat or, obviously, a wild animal without using heavy leather gloves. Wear long pants and long sleeves. Make sure you’re familiar with how the trap works and closes, otherwise you may trap your cat and he’ll get out and then it’s pretty unlikely he’ll ever go in the trap again.
So: bait the trap, get it set up near the house (so it’s not sitting out in the open). You might want to put a towel or blanket over it part-way so it’s kind of disguised. Some cats will go in easier if it’s not so open. You need to make sure to check it often, esp. if it’s cold, hot, rainy, etc., outside.
When one of mine escapes - the one who loves the feather toy or laser pointer - I bring that outside and lure him with it. This might not work though for a scared cat, and is probably only feasible if you can actually see him but not catch him. Shaking a Tupperware container of crunchies works well too.
Put up signs too. Just in case someone happens to get him and thinks he’s homeless.
Good luck.
Edit: saw your last post. Keep trying; it often takes a few days to get a cat into a trap. Don’t give up - he’ll probably come around when he’s hungry enough.
Nothing to add here, Jones, but I wanted to wish you luck - worrying about a lost cat sucks. Hope yours is okay, and comes home soon.
I realize it’s the wrong time of year for this to be the most pleasant tactic but have you considered going outside with some smelly food, and just sitting/reading for a good hour or two? If the cat is in the vicinity, just sitting there, patiently, will often draw it out. Let him approach you, and then when you’re absolutely sure he’s started to relax and trust you, grab him then.
Good luck!
This page at PetRescue.com has probably the most thorough advice as to how to find a lost dog or cat.
Good luck! My cat was missing for a week, and I was despondent. We assumed she was dead, but then miraculously showed up. The timing suggested she had possibly been locked in a neighbor’s garage while they were away on vacation.
Last year, we retrieved our cat who had been missing two whole weeks. We lived in a apartment on the 4th floor; the cat was lost in the gardens on the inside of the block, inaccessible to us, although we could see him occasionally at dusk or twilight. At first, we tried the wait-beside-the-food thing, but that didn’t work; we couldn’t say long as we had to use a neighbours garden to get in and out; and secondly the cat had become so frightened he wouldn’t be picked up and but in the carboard box we had for that purpose.
Then we went the route with the borrowed life trap, set in the garden of our downstairs neighbours, god bless them for their cooperation.
But instead of putting smelly food in it, we put in it the cat’s security blanket, the one that smelled like home and like his favourite cat-friend back home. We figured that way other cats wouldn’t be attracted. And it worked !
The best thing happened when the trap had caught the cat. My two other cats could see the whole thing from our balcony, and they actually came to get me, waking me (it was 6 a.m.) mewing excitedly. The cat that was caught was in absolute panic in the cage. But it was all worth it when I had hauled the big cage over the neighbours hedge, through their garden, up three flight of steps and had released the cat into our/his house. The other cats ran up to him, sniffed him, while he ran around the house trying to make sure everything was still there. After five minutes, they all calmed down and lied down.
I made the mistake of giving them all special festive food for the next couple days. I thought it would restore the cats health fast. But his intestines weren’t used to such rich food anymore; he probably had been living of garbage and mice for a forthnight. So all I did was giving the cat terrible diarrea for a few days, resulting in brown scrape marks over the carpet.
Also, when your cat gets back be sure to give him a tablet for getting rid of intestinal worms.
Don’t give up hope! When I was little our cat was gone for 8 days - she had been spotted several miles away, but somehow she made her way back. Later we realized she had crawled into my aunt’s car to sleep and my aunt had driven away with her, luckily she had stopped at a nearby grocery store and our cat got out of the car.
My friend has successfully used traps to catch her cats every time they escaped, so keep trying. Good luck!
Thank you to all for the advice. I sat outside from 11pm on Saturday to 8pm on Sunday with only a couple of hours worth of breaks. I never spotted him.
When we get our traps, I will make sure to put in some things that smell like home.
I am just sick with worry about him. He is a wimpy little apartment kitty.
Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated!
For some reason cats can not seem to resist Kentucky Fried Chicken or the like. It is used by many feral rescue people to lure cats into traps.
I hope you get your kitty back soon.
I hope you catch your cat. I’ll say a prayer he comes home, poor baby.
I’m very sorry to hear that this didn’t work for you. I know I was offering the equivalent of “check that the power is plugged in” advice, but sometimes it is worth making sure that the basic steps have been tried before going on to the more energetic and involved options.
Again, best of luck to you and your kitty.
I appreciate any and all advice, and thanks for the good wishes.
Apparently, places that trap for pest control with humane traps think it is beneath their dignity to try to trap a domestic animal. (As if we wouldn’t be paying the same. :rolleyes: ) So, my mother is trying to find a place to come and take care of the raccoon problem they have at their house. We figure that they don’t have to know we are really hoping to catch Rex, and any raccoons that get taken away are a bonus.
I am going to use some of the suggestions from this thread to put his toys and my old t-shirts in the traps.
I am frankly bewildered that there are no services whatsoever for this kind of thing.
QN, duude [if you’re not a dude I apologize]. I share this every chance I get when I hear someone’s lost a housecat.
Ours was out for over a month. He was old, indoor only, and, I was convinced, entirely too stupid to find his way home if he got too far. He showed up next to our garage one day long after we had given up.
I read something or other confirming what others have said here: indoor cats who get out seldom stray far; he is around somewhere. Subsequent experience with subsequent cats who have escaped have confirmed this.
On another lost-kitty occasion, I stood outside at night clucking and cooing and saying her name and shaking the food bag. (Felt like a right fool) She was around (I saw her dart from here to there) but was just too scared to come out. I went inside and came out about an hour later doing the same thing. No dice. An hour later I opened my front door and there she was, ready to come in.
Trust me, kitty is not far.
Someone else mentioned putting out kitty’s favorite blanket; I’m convinced that they also strongly identify with the peoples’ scent, so I put some of our dirty underwear next to an open groundfloor window. (hee)
I’m hanging on to hope because of stories like this. I know he is around my parents’ house because I saw him once on Saturday night. He’s just well-hidden. Their house is built into a hill, and that hill is a death trap for people–and perfect cover for a kitty. Right now it is a muddy, leaf-covered, slippery mess.
What has me freaked out is that my father (retired, home all day) refuses to help look. He thinks I shouldn’t be upset or care about a cat. My mother works full-time. I have a full-time job, a part-time job, and go to school full-time. This is my busiest time of year, and my parents live 30+ miles away. I don’t have time to look for him. 
P.S.-- Not a dude.
Is it possible for you to leave a door open? I know it’s cold, and you may have other animals, but the one time Dewey got out and I couldn’t find him (he was only out for an hour or so but it felt like an eternity!) I’d left the back door open while I searched and I noticed him slipping in when I was out in the yard.
Now that I have removed my other indoor-only cat back to my house, Mom is leaving some windows open–including the one he escaped from.
My 18 year old cat once jump off of a third-floor apartment balcony, soon after we had moved in. Other residents reported seeing him hanging around but after about a week, I hadn’t. It was February and cold and I was worried. One evening, I took a box of his dry cat food, and went to sit on the entryway stairs, near where he had been seen. I shook the box and called his name for maybe 20 minutes (like drpepper, I felt like a fool). Finally, I heard a mewing sound and some scratching noices. He had been staying in the vents of the laundry room, right next to the steps I was sitting on. I scooped him up and headed home. My cat smelled like drier sheet for a while after that.
Sometimes they just like to hang out and be little freedom fighters for a while. Leave food out, shake a can of Pounce, and put signs up in the neighborhood (or hand them out door-to-door). It helps if the neighbors can see a distraught owner in person for some reason. Let people know that the cat was loved and not abandoned! Good luck.