Meet the woman behind Lost and Found Pets

With nearly 20,000 Facebook followers, Lost and Found Pets in Bristol and South Glos one of the largest groups of its kind in the UK.

Set up four years ago by Michelle Pibworth from Yate, the group has helped reunited hundreds of lost and found cats and dogs with their owners. Its members have also helped track down some more unusual missing pets, including a flying fish.

“We’ve had a wallaby go missing near Cribbs Causeway,” says Michelle. “But the most unusual was a post titled ‘Have you lost a fish?’

“A woman was walking along the street in Downend when a Koi carp fell out of the sky and landed on the pavement in front of her. We think a heron had dropped it; she put it in a bucket of water and contacted us.”

Along with a team of volunteer admins, Michelle has dealt with thousands of posts about missing pets.  

“It has taken over my life,” Michelle admits. “I have small children so I try and get up five or six in the morning to bump or move posts or I’ll stay up late at night when the kids are in bed.”

A quick scroll through the Facebook feed shows that it’s mainly cats which are found or go missing.

“We have never had so many found cats,” says Michelle, and she warns that not all cats are lost.

“The problem at the moment is that if people see a cat outside they think it must be lost.

“People keep picking them up and taking them home. Old cats can look a bit sad but they are allowed outside. They are cats and that’s where they below. If it has a thyroid problem it may look skinny, if it has lost teeth it can’t groom itself so it can look scruffy.

“We always say paper collar a cat unless it obviously has an injury.”

As the group has grown, it has taken on a more campaigning role, from warning people about tying dogs up outside shops (“It takes nothing for someone to take them away for breeding, baiting or fighting”) to a new campaign to encourage people to microchip their cats (“cats will be cats but people think they are lost and give them to a rescue centre – if they are not chipped they can be re-homed in seven days”).

But the ultimate aim of the group is to carry on helping to reunite lost pets and their desperate owners.

Sarah Fowler is a legal secretary from Bradley Stoke and is one of the group’s volunteer admins. She says it’s the community support which makes the group so special: “Some cats have been missing for months; a lot of members give owners support and encourage them not to give up hope.

“That’s what we like about it – they are there for each other.”

She says the group now has a network of people with expertise in all different areas who the admins can call on at a moment’s notice: “We all have our niches and we have members we can tag if there is an injured bird, or badgers or if we need a hedgehog rescued.

“Anything that comes on we know who to contact.”

The group isn’t content with just posting and re-posting. They have members who will go out and search for animals. Sarah says she spent seven days looking for a snake in Staple Hill lately.

“It was found and the lovely thing is that the man who lost it has stayed on the site and offers his help with reptiles.

“That’s why is is so good as we have members with knowledge for all these different animals and they will offer advice.”

Finding some missing animals can be incredibly urgent, says Michelle: “We had a guide dog go missing. His owner posted a video of the dog and we all fell in love with it.”

Luckily he was soon found with the help of the group and returned to his owner.

“That’s the aim,” Michelle adds. “Reuniting pets with their owners and we are there to help you do that.”

If you mention the Lost and Found group, Rowe Vets will microchip your cat for £10.

Read more: The people and the animals behind vet school