When your beloved dog or cat strays from home, it can be a traumatic experience for both of you. Here are some tips that we hope will help you find your pet.
 

• Contact local animal agencies: Rowan County Animal Shelter 704 216-7768, Faithful Friends Animal Sanctuary 704 633-1722, Humane Society of Rowan County 704 636-5700. Provide these agencies with an accurate description and a recent photograph of your pet. Check back with the shelter daily.
• Search the neighborhood. Walk or drive through your neighborhood several times each day, calling for your pet. Ask neighbors, letter carriers and delivery people if they have seen your pet. Leave flyers at your neighbors, with a recent photograph of your pet and information on how you can be reached.
• Advertise. Post notices at grocery stores, libraries, community centers, veterinary offices, traffic intersections, pet supply stores and other locations (ask permission first!). You can put a “Lost” ad in the Salisbury Post: Place a FREE Ad online or call 704 797-4220.  Include your pet's sex, age, weight, breed, color and any special markings. When describing your pet, leave out one identifying characteristic and ask the person who finds your pet to describe it.
• Be wary of pet-recovery scams. When talking to a stranger who claims to have found your pet, ask him to describe the pet thoroughly before you offer any information. If he does not include the identifying characteristic you left out of the advertisements, he may not really have your pet. Be particularly wary of people who insist that you give or wire them money for the return of your pet.
• Don't give up your search. Animals who have been lost for months have been reunited with their owners.
• A pet—even an indoor pet—has a better chance of being returned if she always wears a collar  with her rabies tag and an ID tag with your name, address, and telephone number. Ask your veterinarian or animal shelter about how to get your pet microchipped.

*Adapted from the Humane Society of the United States Pets for Life program