What should I do if I find a stray cat or dog?

The asymmetry surprises people. A stray dog engages an entire statutory framework. A cat does not, because cats are legally allowed to roam and a cat outdoors is not presumed lost. That means the first question for a cat is whether it is stray at all, and for a large proportion of apparent strays the answer is that it lives four doors away and has learned it can get fed twice.

Safety

Step by step

1. Assess safety before approaching.Injured, cornered or frightened animals bite. Do not put your face near an unknown dog, do not reach over its head, and do not try to pick up an injured cat with bare hands. If it is on a road or aggressive, call the police.
2. For a dog, contact the local authority dog warden.Councils have a duty under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to accept and deal with stray dogs. Out of hours, the police will usually take details or direct you to the out-of-hours service. You can also keep the dog and notify the warden, but you must notify.
3. Check for a collar and tag.A dog in a public place is legally required to wear a collar with the owner's name and address. Many do not, but check, and check for an engraved tag on a cat's collar too.
4. Get it scanned for a microchip.Any vet will scan free of charge, and so will most rescues. This is the fastest route to an owner and takes minutes. Do this for cats as well as dogs.
5. For a cat, work out whether it is actually stray.A well-fed, confident cat in good coat condition that appears at mealtimes almost certainly has a home. A paper collar from a rescue, or a note on a soft collar asking the owner to get in touch, resolves this without anyone moving the cat. Feeding an owned cat is a common and genuinely disruptive problem.
6. Post found notices before taking a cat in.Local groups, the lost-pet registers, and physical notices in the immediate area. Give enough detail to be recognised and hold back one identifying feature so you can verify a claimed owner.
7. Contact rescues rather than rehoming it yourself.Rescues hold animals for a period, scan, advertise and check for owners. Rehoming an animal that turns out to be owned creates a serious problem for everyone including the new home.
8. Understand the legal position on keeping it.Keeping an animal you know or suspect belongs to someone else, without reasonable efforts to find the owner, can amount to theft — pets are property in law. Document what you did and when.
9. Deal with a feral cat differently.A genuinely feral cat is not socialised to people and will not settle in a home. The established approach is trap-neuter-return through a rescue that runs it, and interfering without that support usually makes the situation worse.
10. Get veterinary help for anything injured.Vets will treat a stray in an emergency and there are charities that fund it. Do not delay a genuinely injured animal in order to find an owner first.

Questions people ask