Over the past 10 years or so, I have actually become an expert on missing escaped cats. Last year I told my daughter how to find her missing cat in Las Vegas (I live in another state).
She told me about his escape 6 weeks earlier and she got her kitty back 4 days later following my advice.
1) Cats rarely wander far (start at 250 ft from home and add 50 feet for every week since loss).
2) They will find somewhere to hide and will sleep all day. You can only find them at night.
3) Put out water and food for them. It will slow down their wandering.
4) Don’t even bother looking in the daytime. They have changed to entirely nocturnal and maybe a little dusk or dawn routine.
5) If you have a web cam. Video record the food and water bowl area with time stamps enabled.
6) when you know what time they visit the food each night you can then be up and get them back, but coax them back, don’t chase them, they are faster than you.
My daughter’s cat visited the food between 2:30 and 3:30 am each night. She coaxed him back with a pint tub of freshly opened dried catnip.
I have given this advice to 11 people and every one has successfully gotten their kitty back, with one exception where the kitty was at the pound, but they got that one back too.
Also, don’t expect the pound or animal shelter to find your cat, to them a cat is a cat, you have to go there and look yourself.
Good luck with your hunt.
Jack
Years ago somebody gave me a beautiful female Siamese cat. I was showing her to my neighbor when a car drove by. The cat tried to wiggle away, and I held her tighter. She chomped down on my hand, driving her fangs right through my knuckles. I hel on as long as I could and finally had to let got, whereupon she leapt from my arms and took off.
I went to the hospital for emergency treatment, and the doc said, "Please tell me that this was your won cat that bit you." "Yes, except I'd only owned her an hour before it happened." The doc scowled and said, "You have to find that cat within a week, or you'll have to undergo rabies treatment."
We look and called and notified all the neighors. Nothing. We drove around the nearby neighborhoods at night looking for her. Do you know how many cars hang out under cars in urban neighborhoods? A lot of them. We put food for her on the deck and in the garage with the door ajar.
3 days later I woke up early on a Sat. morn. and spotted my other cat (an orange tiger Tom) sitting outside the garage like he was on guard. We pt on robe and slippers (and garden gloves) and snuck out to the garage and slipped in. There was my Siamese cat sitting on a pile of lumber in the far recesses of the garage looking smug.
We captured her and locked her up for a month with no further incident. We named her Skitty and owned her for many years afterward.