The Best Friends Podcast Episode 107
Most estimates say that the number of pets that become lost each year is roughly 10 million. Overall, one in three pets will be lost at some point in their lifetime. Staggering statistics but they're not just numbers on a page - each one, a pet with a loving family desperate to to find them and bring them home safely.
Unfortunately, the number of lost pets in shelters who make it home is very low. The number of lost dogs getting home has improved, but the odds of a lost owned cat in a shelter being reunited with their owner is just 2%.
This week we're focusing on lost cats, and how we can improve our strategies to get more of them back home. We spoke with someone who has helped thousands of cats get home, Lost Cat Finder, Kim Freeman.
Click here to check out all the episodes from the podcast.
Resources from this episode- The website for Lost Cat Finder, Kim Freeman: Lost Cat Finder, and check out her lost cat kit.
- Petco Love Lost missing pet database: lost.petcolove.org
- Best Friends network: Return-to-Owner Training Playbook
- Best Friends network program spotlight: The Dilemma of the Friendly Outdoor Cat
- Missing Animal Response: Tips to help owners find pets themselves
- Humane Animal Control manual: chapter on RTO
- Sample SOP and guidelines for creating an SOP
Guest this week
Kim Freeman
Lost Cat Finder, Pet Detective
As a full-time lost cat finder, Kim Freeman has 10 years of experience finding missing cats––and the dirt under her nails to prove it.
Combining missing persons profiling with mammal tracking, bird language, and the science of lost cat behavior, she’s been deemed the world expert in lost cat recovery, solving cases in 48 states and 22 countries. Her mission is getting cats found before they end up in shelters––and she's created a video on how to do it.
Because cats need special techniques tailored to feline psychology, Freeman’s search guides teach humans new, scientific ways to recover lost cats. One part of that is dispelling the memes, myths and old wives' tales that do more harm than good.
Freeman and her search cat Henry can be found at their website, LostCatFinder.com and their years of happy reunion stories catalogued on Facebook
Episode Transcript