If you've found a cat

Cats are our whole world at Sierra Pacific Furbabies, so we hear "is this cat lost?" questions constantly — and honestly, the answer is often no. Plenty of cats seen outdoors aren't lost at all: some are pets with regular outdoor access, and others are community cats who live outdoors on their own and always have.

If a cat looks healthy, relaxed, and confident, they're probably exactly where they're supposed to be and don't need rescuing. If a cat looks sick, injured, or distressed, though, that's different. Please follow the same steps above for dogs.

Here's our favorite trick: check the tip of the cat's ear. A small, straight-line notch at the tip of one ear (an "ear tip") tells you this cat has already been through a trap-neuter-vaccinate-return program, like the ones we run ourselves. It means she's already sterilized and vaccinated against rabies, and that someone in the community is looking out for her, whether or not she's friendly toward people.

A healthy ear-tipped cat doesn't need to come to a shelter or to us. The kindest thing you can do is leave her exactly where you found her.

Behavior can tip you off too, even before you get close enough to check an ear. A stray cat, one who's used to living with people, will often approach you, meow for attention, or seem comfortable being handled, and most likely wandered off from a home nearby.

A cat who's never been socialized to people — sometimes called feral, though we prefer the term community cat — will typically keep her distance and avoid contact, even if she looks perfectly calm and healthy otherwise.

And here's something we want more people to know: outdoor life isn't inherently unsafe for a community cat. Cats have lived alongside people outdoors for thousands of years, and the cats we care for through our TNR program go on to live long, healthy lives outside with disease rates and lifespans comparable to indoor pet cats.

A calm, confident, ear-tipped cat living outdoors isn't a rescue situation; it's a TNR success story.

On the flip side, if a cat is clearly friendly and doesn't have an ear tip, treat her like a lost pet rather than assuming she's simply an outdoor cat with no home: ask around the neighborhood, check for a microchip, and post her photo locally using the same steps above for dogs, before deciding she doesn't need help getting home.