Lost pet help

Most lost pets find their way home through neighbors. Make a flier with a current photo of your pet, and make the word “LOST”, the picture and your phone number the largest things on it. Post it around the neighborhood, and consider emailing it, marked urgent or high priority, to your neighbors and homeowners’ association.

Get the word out on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, on local lost pet pages and websites, and on community association or town bulletin boards.

Walk around the area calling your pet’s name. Stop by your neighbors to ask whether they’ve seen your dog or cat, and leave a flier with them. If that doesn’t turn anything up, drive slowly around the neighborhood.

Cats tend to stay close to home, so check under open steps, in bushes and in sheds. Normal feeding time, and just before and after dark, are excellent times to look. Shake a box or can of treats and call their name.

Clarksburg isn’t far from the Montgomery–Frederick county line, so contact both counties’ shelters. Give them a good description of your pet, your contact information, and where and when your pet was lost. Emailing or faxing your flier helps. If your pet has a microchip, give them that information too.

Check with them daily for updates, and don’t rely on them to call you: they’re very busy places. Be proactive and go and visit. Even with the best picture or description, people interpret descriptions differently, and a scared pet might not respond to its name, so you could be told your pet isn’t there when it is.

• Montgomery County

  • 7315 Muncaster Mill Rd., Derwood, MD 20855
  • Tel 240-773-5900 · Fax 301-279-1063

  The Montgomery County Humane Society keeps its stray animal list on Pet Harbor. It might not be up to the minute, so also call 240-773-5960, or try their Facebook page.

• Frederick County Humane Society

  • 217 West Patrick Street, Frederick, MD 21701
  • Tel 301-694-8300 · Fax 301-694-8305

  Their Facebook page helps with lost and found pets.

• Frederick County Animal Control

  • 1832 Rosemont Ave., Frederick, MD 21702
  • Tel 301-600-1546 · Fax 301-600-1547

  They keep a list of missing pets on their website, and a Facebook page.

If your pet has a microchip, call your microchip company to report them missing. If your pet is registered with HomeAgain and you’ve paid the annual fee, they’ll proactively alert veterinary hospitals, animal shelters and volunteer “Pet Rescuers” within a 25-mile radius of where your pet was lost. If you’ve only paid the lifetime fee, you can still call at any time to pay the annual fee.

Call veterinarians, emergency clinics and specialty hospitals in your area. Good Samaritans sometimes find pets and bring them to a nearby veterinary practice. Bring your flier to these places too: most have a bulletin board where it can be posted.

Emergency and specialty hospitals near Clarksburg

It may sound a bit quirky, but it’s another option when nothing else has worked, and pets have been recovered this way. Choose someone based on a recommendation: this is an area ripe with people who may want to capitalize on your desperation and raw emotions.