The first hour matters more than the next ten
Most pets that get found are found within the first 60 minutes — not because someone stages a heroic rescue, but because the pet hasn't gone far yet, and everyone close enough to spot them is still in the area. Use this hour well.
Stand still and call calmly, not loudly. Panicked pets run further. If your dog has slipped a lead, your cat has bolted out a door, or your puppy has dug under the fence, your job in minute one is to be the loudest familiar voice in their world. Calm, repeated, recognisable.
Check inside before outside. Cats especially: roughly half of "missing" indoor cats are still inside the house, hiding under a bed, behind a couch, or in a wardrobe. Tear the place apart before you tear up the suburb.
Walk a slow expanding circle, not a fast big one. Dogs orient by scent. Most dogs that ran off — particularly if they were spooked — circle back to a known scent within 90 minutes if nothing else has scared them further away. Standing in your yard, calling, with the gate open, beats driving 5km away to "search."
Hour 1 to 24: the fast plays
Once the immediate sweep is done, the goal is to put your contact details into more eyeballs in the next 24 hours.
- Call your council pound and the closest two RSPCA / vet emergency centres. Dogs and cats picked up by the public very often go straight there. If your pet is microchipped, those facilities will scan and call you within hours of arrival — but only if your microchip details are up to date.
- Local Facebook groups. Every Australian city has a "Lost & Found Pets in [suburb]" group. Post a clear photo, the suburb, the time and place, your phone, and a unique identifier (microchip number, distinctive markings, collar colour). Disable photo restrictions on your post so anyone can share it.
- Door-to-door is more effective than posters. A poster on a pole gets a passing glance. A neighbour at their door gets a 30-second conversation about whether they've seen anything, and you get permission to come check their backyard.
- Update your microchip details immediately if anything is wrong. Most lost pets that don't make it home have outdated microchip details — the pet is at the vet, scanned, but the contact number rings out.
The pet-tag problem (and why we built a QR one)
The on-collar tag is the fastest channel of all — it's the one that lets a stranger contact you in under a minute. But traditional engraved tags have a real problem: they go stale. People move house, change phone numbers, change vets. Half the engraved tags in circulation right now have at least one wrong number on them.
That's the boring reason PawAWhere exists. Each tag is a unique URL the owner controls. When the finder scans the QR with any phone, no app, no sign-up, they see whatever the owner has on file right now — current phone, current vet, current care notes. Anyone can use it. The owner can update it from the dashboard in 30 seconds.
We don't pretend a tag replaces a microchip — they're complementary. The chip is the fallback when the collar comes off; the tag is the fast path when it hasn't. You want both.
Day 2 to 7: keep the volume up
If you're past 24 hours, the strategy shifts from "your pet is nearby" to "someone has found your pet and needs to be able to find you."
- Repost in the Facebook groups every 2–3 days. Algorithms drop posts off feeds fast.
- Walk past the same parks and dog-walking spots at the same times the regulars do. Lost dogs often re-encounter the same regular walkers more than once.
- Re-check pounds in person, not just over the phone. Pound staff are busy and sometimes a dog comes in unscanned or with a partial chip read.
- Don't give up at day 5. Recovery stories at day 14, day 30, even day 90 are real and not rare. Cats especially can be incredibly close to home for weeks before they surface.
What to do now, in case it ever happens
You won't read this at the moment your pet goes missing — you'll be too busy looking. So set yourself up before you need it:
- Microchip details current. Login to Central Animal Records, NSW Pet Registry, Australasian Animal Registry, or whichever your chip is on, and verify your phone, email, and address are right.
- A clear, current photo on your phone. One that shows the pet's full body and any distinctive markings. Not a cute close-up.
- A pet ID tag on the collar that anyone can use without an app. Engraved or QR — your call. Just check that the info on it is actually correct, today, in 2026.
Pick up a PawAWhere tag if you want one of ours. Or don't — what matters is that there's something on the collar a stranger can use in the first hour.