A lost house cat behaves nothing like a dog. A dog runs and covers distance. A cat wedges itself into the first hiding place it finds and freezes there for a day, sometimes three. It does not answer when called — not because it cannot hear you, but because in that state making a sound means giving itself away.

Hence the main rule of the search: look close and quietly, not far and loudly.

Start inside the flat

It sounds odd, but begin at home. Cats get stuck in wardrobes, behind the washing machine, inside the sofa, in the washing drum, behind the back panel of kitchen units, in ceiling storage. Check everything that opens and everything you can crawl under. Before you print posters, make sure the cat actually got out.

The stairwell and the first twenty metres

If the cat slipped into the stairwell, it is very probably still there. Walk every floor from bottom to top, including the basement and roof space if they are open. Look under the stairs, behind pipes, inside ducting. Take a torch even during the day: you are looking for a motionless animal in a dark corner, and its eyes will give it away.

If it got outside, walk the perimeter of the building. Bushes against the wall, parked cars, entrance canopies, basement vents. On the first day the radius is usually under a hundred metres.

When to search

At night and in the early morning, between two and five. During the day it is noisy and busy and the cat will not come out. At night it is quiet and the cat starts to move. Walk the same places you checked by day — it may have shifted a few metres.

Take the carrier, a bowl, and something that smells of home. Do not grab the cat if you see it: after several days outside a frightened cat may not recognise you straight away. Crouch, put the bowl down, speak quietly and wait.

What not to do

Do not search with a dog, not even your own. Do not call loudly or in a group — a crowd of shouting people drives the cat deeper into hiding. Do not count on it coming to your voice: it will come, but usually at night, and usually to the door rather than across the yard to you.

Listings

A photo in ordinary light showing the coat and the whole face. The exact building and entrance. A request for neighbours to check their own basement and balcony — half of all cats are found that way, by neighbours rather than by a search party.

If the cat is microchipped, say so: any clinic with a scanner identifies it in a minute.