You found a pet. What now?

A frightened or injured animal can bite, including one that looks calm. Approach slowly, crouch side on, and let it come to you rather than reaching over its head.

• Contain the animal somewhere quiet: a spare room, a bathroom, a secure yard or a crate
• Keep it completely separate from your own pets until a vet has seen it
• Offer water. Hold off on food if the animal seems injured or unwell, in case sedation is needed
• Do not bathe, groom or cut off a collar. Those are identifying features
• If the animal is injured, aggressive or will not be approached, call animal services rather than handling it yourself

Photograph the animal straight away, from a few angles, before anything about its appearance changes.

Take the animal to any vet clinic, shelter or animal services office and ask for a microchip scan. This is a free service almost everywhere, and you do not need to be a client of the clinic.

Two things are worth asking for specifically:

• A full body scan. Chips migrate. A chip implanted between the shoulder blades can end up down a leg or along the flank, and a quick pass over the shoulders alone will miss it.
• A multi frequency scanner. Not every scanner reads every chip standard. A clinic that finds nothing is worth a second opinion elsewhere.

A chip number is a starting point, not an answer. Many chips are implanted and never registered, or are registered to contact details that are years out of date. If the number comes back unregistered, keep working the other steps.

File a found report with the shelter or animal services that covers the place you found the animal, not the place you live. Those are often different jurisdictions, and the owner will be calling the one that serves the area where the pet went missing.

Give them the date, the exact location, a description and your contact details, and ask them to log it. If you are willing to foster the animal in the meantime, say so. Many shelters would rather leave a found pet in a quiet home than in a kennel, and it does not affect the owner’s ability to find it.

Ask the same question a lost owner would ask: what is the stray hold period here, and what happens at the end of it? That timeline governs everything that follows.

Put the found report where searching owners actually look: the free national lost and found databases, the active local Facebook groups for that city, and a note at nearby vet clinics.

When you post, deliberately withhold something. Post one photo and a general description, and keep back a specific detail: a scar, an unusual marking, the colour of the collar, a notch in an ear. Then ask anyone who claims the animal to tell you what it is.

• Ask the claimant to describe the withheld detail before you agree to meet
• Ask for a photo of them with the animal, or vet records in their name
• Meet in a public place, or at the shelter or a vet clinic
• Never hand an animal over in exchange for money, and never pay to get one back

It happens often, and there is nothing wrong with hoping for it. There is a right way to get there.

A found animal is not yours to rehome. Ownership passes only after the stray hold period has run and the shelter has followed its process, and those rules are set locally. Skipping that step can mean handing back an animal months later, or being unable to prove the animal is legally yours if a dispute arises.

• File the found report and let the hold period run
• Ask the shelter to record that you would like first refusal if no owner comes forward
• Get the animal vet checked, and keep the receipts and records
• Once the hold has passed, complete whatever adoption or transfer paperwork the shelter uses

Doing it properly costs you a few weeks. Doing it improperly can cost you the animal.