Please help us find Ruby

First of all please excuse me for finally branching out from my usual thread to post in other areas of BB.

My reason for this thread...?

DS's beloved cat "Ruby" has gone missing. She lives inside but ventures outside to do her business during the day and comes back in within an hour to smooch up to DS some more.

On Saturday just passed she did not return from her outside adventure.

DS has been wandering around the house calling his best friend "Ruby Ruby Rubyyyy" since then and doesn't understand why she isn't coming for a cuddle.

She has a collar on with a bell, and definitely doesn't look like a stray. Unfortunately we have not microchipped her yet so she does not have any way of being identified if found.

So my question is - Can anyone offer tips to me on finding her?

So far we have done the following:
Called RSPCA and left details
Called local vets and left details
Printed a few posters to stick around the neighbourhood
Asked our neighbours (the nice ones :rolleyes:)

A few weeks ago our nextdoor neighbours cat was suspected of being baited. She was found dead just inside her cat flap by one of their children :( I'm afraid the same may have happened to our beloved Ruby.

Can anyone help me?

Oh no hope you find her safe and well! :hug:

Thank-you

It's breaking DS's heart - and watching that is breaking mine too.

Have you tried your local pound? She might have been picked up by a ranger.

Call me silly, but is the pound the same as the RSPCA? The animal shelter? I'm pretty sure we only have one of those here. I've called them and also visited them to look through their impounded cats. She wasn't there :( I left my details though so that if she is brought in they can call me.

There are some pounds that aren't connected to the RSPCA - check in the phone book to see if there are any more. Our cats are sending your DS lots of cuddles in the meantime. cat:hug:

The pound is probably the animal shelter - where the council sends lost animals.
ETA - Have you checked your garden shed (if you have one)? My cat sneaks in there every chance she gets. Ask your neighbours if they can have a look in theirs too.

Sometimes your local council will have their own pound. Check with the council to see.

I am hoping fingers crossed she comes home hun

I think you should have a squizz around your neighbourhood....i didn't want to say this BUT...if Ruby has been baited or hit by a car (not saying she has!!!!! please don't flame me for this) cats often hide if they are not feeling well/injured/are going to die, they will go away and hide.

I feel like a bad person for saying that BUT knowing me i would want to know this.

Good luck hun i hope she turns up soon

It sounds like you are doing lots to try to find her. The only other thing I can think of is to recommend going to the RSPCA and any local shelters every couple of days to check the cats there. You'd be amazed at how different your description of your cat might differ from the shelters. Also, make sure you ask them if you can walk through their hospital area. Some shelters don't offer to take you through, and if she has been injured you'd hate to miss her because you didn't see her in the hospital ward.

Maybe branch out your calls to vet clinics and shelters as well. If someone has picked her up at night when no local clinics were open, they may have driven her to their home, then taken her to a shelter or clinic in their own local area.

Good luck! I hope you find her safe and well soon!

Can you put a "lost" ad in the local newspaper/ask the local radio stations to broadcast an announcement? I hope she turns up, it's awful to lose a pet but I think it's more awful not knowing what has happened to them. Was she microchipped? If she is chipped and someone drops her off at the RSPCA/council pound or a vet clinic, they will scan her for a chip and get in touch with you that way, so if she is microchipped just double check your address/phone details are up to date. I hope you can find her!

like the others have said dont just ring you need to go to the shelter as having worked in one its really really hard to match pets with watch the owners say coz they all start looking the same, plus we just write down small details about each pet that comes in so what we might think or see might not be the same as the owner, its hard enough with dogs let alone cats... maybe take in a photo to give to the shelters so they might be able to reconize your cat if it does come in

as for the bating you live in QLD hate to say it but too many cats chase cane toads and if they get one well you can only guess, I lost a cat to this very thing when we lived in Cairns...

best of luck...

Thank-you so much ladies.

I wasn't aware that there may be more animal shelters here. I will call the council tomorrow morning and see if they have one separate to the RSPCA.

I hope that they can't missinterpret our Ruby's description, jet black is a bit hard to confuse I think. But I will definitely take the advice of visiting them regularly to have a look for myself. Just in case!

I've called a few vets, but I didn't think of the night time pick up thing. So I shall call a whole lot more tomorrow and branch out my search area I think. Thanks for that suggestion!

Fluff - Thank-you for your post. I am one of those "tell me the truth, the whole truth, even if it might hurt me" kind of people. So your posting that definitely helped me. I did think to drive the nearby streets this afternoon with DF to see if we could see her in gutters etc. but no luck.

As for the shed, after reading your post Brontide I raced down to the shed. Nope, not there. I will ask the neighbours tomorrow though to check theirs. I don't think they'd appreciate me knocking at 9pm :( Great idea though, thank-you.

She does often visit one neighbour (the one that recently had their cat baited) as her kids play with Ruby. They missed their own cat, so having Ruby visit was calming for them. They unfortunately haven't been home at the same time as me to ask if they've seen her.

Ryatha - thank-you for the cat cuddles. DS has been quite lonely these past few days and definitely senses something is wrong with his Ruby.

I hope I didn't miss anyone, thank-you to you all for your suggestions.

Oh almost forgot! Thank-you to the poster that suggested the newspaper. So simple yet I didn't think of it. I shall call them in the morning along with the local radio stations.

You could also hang posters at the local supermarket, ask if you can leave one at the post office etc.
When I was younger, our cat went missing once when he still was very young (he was jet-black, too). Someone saw the poster at the post office and contacted us. Our cat had moved into a pub!!!

I so feel for you and especially your DS. I hope you find Ruby.
If indeed cats are beeing baited, how awful. I cannot understand how someone can do that.

Sasa

I could swear I'm going crazy.
I've been hearing meowing for a few days now randomly throughout the day.
Each time I race outside to try to follow the sound and call out to Ruby.
Today, I discovered it's a bird that sounds like a meow. :(

hey there Cheeky Monkey,

we too have had our moments of missing cats.

like the others have said you need to visit the shelters in person every day or every second. the sheer number of animals that they get in is astronomical and unfortunately without a microchip, cats/dogs are not kept for long, sometimes not even long enough to get through the paperwork...

one the BEST methods we had to find our cats has been through a letterbox drop. we printed 6 LOST leaflets with black and white photo of the cat (nice up close shot of face and shoulders). give description, name, and collar details. and add the 'very missed by her family'...
in the past we have letterbox dropped 200ish. cats can wander really far, especially if they got a fright or wandered out of their territory and have become confused.

Also, i highly recommend going out at night, after peak hour and things have quietened down. go through the neighbourhood with her biccy jar and rattle it while calling her name (yeah, you'll feel like a doofus LOL!). but it has worked for us, as we found that any earlier and they would be too scared to come out of hiding.
for one of our cats is close to our DD and our dog so we took them too and it also worked. she had been missing for quite a few days and was found 3 blocks from home...

hope you guys find her, i know how awful it is to be missing a furbaby.

xx

Don't lose hope - we had a cat go missing for two weeks once - we'd totally given up on him and then one day we were on our way out and the poor thing came limping down the driveway... He'd been hit by a car and had stayed put somewhere to heal enough to come home... He had a dislocated hip that had healed in place but otherwise he was fine according to the vet. Miracles happen!