HOW TO FIND -- ALL --  LOCAL WIDE-AREA
HUMANE SOCIETY/SPCA SHELTERS

Humane Society/SPCA shelters: Humane Societies are mandated, usually by state governments, to intervene in animal abuse situations, and to take in strays and unwanted pets from the general public. Humane Societies/SPCAs generally are listed in both your local white and yellow pages, and may possibly be listed in your blue pages as well. Any large metro area will typically have more than one, sometimes several.

To ensure that you have not missed any, and to find many in-depth details that may be important for your particular search, review the methods used to locate both pounds and no-kill shelters, especially Section IV-c.

Keep in mind that lost pets have no conception of municipal or county borders and will cross these invisible dividers at will. Also, if kindly people pick up your pet and bring it to a pound or shelter, they will normally take it to the only one they know about, or the one that is closest to their home, or closest to where they work or otherwise venture. This could be far across one or more municipal or county borders, but still within your search area.

A possible blockade to your search: You may find that a local agency will not allow you to read through their listings of dogs and cats brought in to the facility. Sometimes this is because an agency (which is not a city pound) may consider the list their private property, not open to the public. But this can also happen because many times such lists exist only on their computer systems. In such a case, you are at the mercy of the agency employee or volunteer to search the list properly, carefully, and adequately. Worse, many facilities keep lists available for only 30 days. If you have lost your pet some time ago and you want to review back listings, and if your pet has already entered and left a facility more than 30 days ago, there will be no way for you to know. In such a case, we strongly recommend continuing your search, setting yourself a schedule, a determination of those things you will and will not do, and giving yourself a deadline as to when you will stop searching. Then do the best you can, and if you do not find your pet within that time period, simply accept it. Since many pets are out wandering on their own, or taken in to a temporary home, for some months or even a year or so, please do not give up too soon.

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