In 2010, my cat, Banshee, got out of my house. My roommate had forgotten to close the door behind herself when she was bringing in groceries and Banshee decided to take himself on a walkabout.

I couldn’t find him anywhere. I called my local shelter, put up flyers and posted on my community’s Facebook page. When he hadn’t come back in a day, I borrowed a humane trap from work and set it up in my yard. In the morning, I found his collar in the trap, but no Banshee. I slept with the side door open all night each night with a bowl of tuna inside the door. On a recommendation from an animal control officer, I ran a trail of kitty litter from where we had last seen him to the door. He came sauntering in at 3 a.m. on the third night, seeming none the worse for wear.

I haven’t had a pet get away from me since Banshee’s brief foray as an outdoor cat, but I tell adopters all the time that pets never escape — until they do. I don’t know a single person who has never had a pet get out. There are some basic things every pet owner can do to help increase the chances of getting their pet back if they are ever lost. Shelters are here in case your pet needs us, and that includes when they are lost, but we greatly prefer heading off their need to come to us with some simple precautions.

First, put a tag on your pet with your phone number. It seems so fundamental, but we take in lost pets daily that don’t have tags. The trick with tags is not to waste space, especially for cat tags, which tend to be small. The pet’s name is much less important than the phone number and a back-up phone number as well, if you can fit it. I have learned that Mainers are amazing in their desire to help their neighbors and pets alike, so if you have the room on the tag and are comfortable doing so, put your address on it, too. Many pets are returned to their owners because the person who picked them up was able to bring them to the address on their tag. Animal control officers are usually happier returning the pets to their homes than bringing them to the shelter.

Second, microchip your pet. Tags can break off collars, and collars can come off of pets. Many cat collars are designed to do so intentionally; cats have more delicate necks than dogs, so breakaway cat collars are designed to open if too much pressure is put on them. This is to prevent the cat choking if they are hung up on something, a useful safety feature.

A microchip is like a tag that your pet cannot take off. A tiny transponder about the size of a grain of rice, a microchip has a number unique to your pet that pops up when the pet is scanned at a shelter or veterinarian. If you have registered your microchip, that number traces back to you and gives the information needed to contact you. Unregistered, it is of very little help. Please register your pet’s microchip and make sure to keep it up-to-date! Nothing is sadder than when a shelter worker is excited to find a chip in a stray pet (yes, we really do get very excited about this!), only to find that it’s not registered or the phone numbers are disconnected or the pet was rehomed and the registration wasn’t updated to the new guardian.

Finally, talk to your neighbors and introduce your pets to them if possible. We take in pets on a regular basis that were found only a couple houses down from their home or one street over, but the neighbor who picked them up or called the Animal Control Office for help didn’t know they lived in the neighborhood. I live on a street of only four houses, and we all know each other’s dogs and outdoor cats and will know quickly if someone shows up who isn’t a part of our neighborhood. My neighbors are all lovely and I know that is not the case for everyone, but if you are in a difficult neighbor situation, then the steps of maintaining identification for your pet are even more important.

Jess Townsend is executive director of Midcoast Humane.