Found Animals

Sad dog

 

Dog is scanned for microchip

 

Cat is scanned for microchip

Found a cat or dog? One of the quickest ways to reunite the pet with its owner is to scan for a microchip.

The following locations will scan for free:

  • Cottonwood Animal Clinic
    1101 Rio Rancho Blvd.
    Rio Rancho, NM 87124
    505-891-2800
  • Northwest Animal Hospital
    1000 Alameda NW
    Albuquerque, NM 87114
    505-898-1491
  • Petroglyphs Animal Hospital
    6633 Caminito Coors NW
    Albuquerque, NM 87120
    505-898-8874
  • Taylor Ranch Vet Hospital
    9401 Golf Course Road Suite D
    Albuquerque, NM 87114
    505-792-9666

There are stray cats in my neighborhood. What should I do?

We appreciate your concern about neighborhood cats. Unfortunately, cat overpopulation is not a problem that can be solved through adoptions at city animal shelters. There just aren’t enough people coming to the shelters looking for cats to take home. Sadly, most cats housed at city animal shelters are euthanized. The lack of sufficient homes for cats is a nationwide problem. If you find a tame cat and want to help it, the best way is to foster the cat until you find a home for it yourself. You should notify the Animal Welfare Department and register as a finder of the animal. If you surrender the cat to a city animal shelter, it probably will not survive.

Frequently, what seems to be a stray cat is an owned cat which has been allowed by its owner to roam. An owned cat typically will return to its home if you leave it alone, and it can be very difficult to find the owner if you try to intervene by removing it from its roaming area. You can attempt to reunite the cat with its owner by having the animal scanned for a microchip. City animal shelters and some local veterinarians will do this for free and if a cat is microchipped, the owner’s last known address will be on record with the company that created the microchip. There is, however, a very low rate of success in finding the owners of cats surrendered to, or picked up by, the Animal Welfare Department, partly because many cats aren’t microchipped. Last year, only about 1 in 27 cats was reunited with its owner after arriving at a city shelter.

The Animal Welfare Department works hard to help control the pet population through spay and neuter programs. If there are feral cats in your neighborhood, or if someone (including you) is feeding stray cats, there are charitable groups in Albuquerque that can help get the cats sterilized so they don’t reproduce. The cats then continue living outdoors. These groups are well versed in where to get traps, how to use them, where to take the cats for sterilization and what to do afterwards.

For more information on feral cats, you can contact:
 New Mexico Animal Friends, 881-7297
 Animal Humane, 255-5523, ext. 105

The Animal Welfare Department does not have cat traps for rent, and it will not come to your neighborhood to pick up cats unless they have bitten a person or are injured.

Feeding stray cats is very common, but attempting to eradicate the cats through poisoning or other means is a crime that will be prosecuted.

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