You come home and your dog or cat is gone. What do you do to find your pet? Time is critical. You need to act quickly. Here are a few good tips:

• Search the neighborhood. Go door to door to your neighbor's house and ask them if they have seen your lost pet. Go to local parks and community centers.

• Write to your HOA community, email and social contacts. If you are part of a Home Owner Association (HOA), you can write to the board and let your neighbors know that your pet is missing. If you are part of a HOA and you don't know the name of your community group, try something like Yahoo Groups! Your community may have a discussion group online. Just go to yahoo community group. Be sure to contact your email and social network friends that live with a mile or two of the last place you've seen your pet. They may have addition suggestions. The more people you contact the more likely someone may have seen your pet.

• Contact your local shelters, dog pound or police. Animal control may have picked up your pet. Even if you pet has a chip they may not contact you right away, or at all! It's best that you are proactive and contact them as soon as possible.

• Call the local veterinarians. Sometimes the local vet will hold an animal instead of calling animal control to pick them up. Without ID, your pet may be sitting safely at the veterinarian. It's important to have your pet micro chipped. This way the vet will know who to contact.

• Make Fliers and post them around the neighborhood and local shops. Make sure you have a recent picture and describe the type of pet, breed, age and temperament. It's also very important to note a point of contact (either phone or email) and the date and location your pet was last seen on your flier. If you are providing a reward, have that in bold. There are many websites that offer this service for free.

• Turn to the Internet: There are third party site that are set-up to quickly and efficiently get the word out that your pet is missing, and aid in the recovery. In just five minutes, you can go line and provide information on your Pet and spread the word. Some services create postcards, generate fliers and call neighbors and local shelters to help find your lost pet.

Good luck and I hope your pet makes it home safely!