Cause I've gone through about a dozen or so with zero success...

Or is catching stuff just really hard?

There's no method, just mainly luck in my opinion.

At best, damaging the pet yields a little more chance to succeed, but the chance added is very little. You're more likely to kill the pet than being able to catch it.

Sadly, you have to keep throwing traps til either it flees, or it's caught. x: As you gain levels and open up new areas, you may be able to buy higher grade traps, which have a higher price for a higher effectiveness.

Imo, buying pets is much cheaper :c

Aww dang.

Thanks though. I found the pet selling stuff and yeah, definitely way cheaper, but I was super bummed cause I saw a wild girl that looked like she would be a cute match up for my starter boy and dumped 5 traps out before she fled on the last one. Ah well