Post Five: Lost but Quickly Found: How to Make the Best Lost Pet Poster

By Marisa Valent-Altland

Very cute but I bet we can provide more information to help Fluffy come home!

If you saw our last post on escaped cats, you know there’s a lot you can do to help your cat find their way home. While you’re waiting for them, you can make a lost pet poster to help inform your neighborhood. This is a quick way to get the word out to your local community.

Step One: Stay calm! When we panic, we often rush, which can lead to a muddled poster hard to read from a car or a quick passerby, or to missing important information.

Step Two: Include relevant information only! Too much information leads to smaller text and can make your poster harder to read and easier to overlook.

Step Three: Pick an eye-catching headline. Use something short and to the point like “Lost Cat!” and make sure to use large text so the headline can stand out at a distance.

Step Four: Include your pet’s name. This makes the poster personal to viewers and can encourage them to take a closer look.

Step Five: Write a brief description of your pet. Make sure to include details that will identify them immediately, like breed, coat color, age, sex, and unique markings. If your pet is wearing a collar (remember our post ID, Please!) include the collar color. This is also the best place to include any important medical information and if your pet has a microchip (read about microchips in this blog post:
Post Two: Microchips: A Tech Savvy Way to Bring Your Cat Home).

Step Six: Include the last time and place your pet was seen. Make sure to be as specific as you can with street names and intersections.

Step Seven: Use a clear, high-quality, color photo of your pet. (Pro Tip: take good photos of your pet’s face and unique features now, before you need them)

Step Eight: Include a phone number where you can easily be reached in a large, easy-to-read font.

Step Nine: Display it! Make sure your posters go up in the area where your pet was last seen as well as in nearby areas. Community bulletin boards, veterinary offices, and local businesses are also great places to hang flyers.

Step Ten: Don’t lose hope! If you saw our My Cat Escaped! Now What? post, you know there are a lot of things you can do in addition to posting flyers to bring your cat home. In the next week, we’ll have more information on how to get the word out about a missing pet online, as well as local resources to take advantage of.