In the last thread Mel gave some great advice re our furred, feathered, and other family members:
It helps to have a kitty carrier in an easily accessible spot, and to have supplies in your emergency kit for your furry family members, as well. Single use cans of a favorite, familiar pet food (easy to carry /keep safe and fresh in case of evac), a week’s worth of any pet maintenance medicines packed in the kit, and extra bottled water with a lightweight, unbreakable, easy to pack and carry dish are essential.
The Humane Society of the U.S. has a big page of emergency/disaster prep suggestions. The very first one is “ID your pet,” and that’s exactly right. I volunteered down in New Orleans with the HSUS post-Katrina, and one of the first things I learned is that animals with IDs were highly likely to be reunited with their families, whereas animals without IDs were highly UNlikely to be so. It was heartbreaking to see animals that you just knew someone cherished and was desperately missing, but have no way of reuniting them. My dogs have always worn a collar and tag 100% of the time–even when home watching TV, because, you know, stuff happens–but since that experience I’m nuts about making sure everyone else’s dogs, cats, etc., do as well.
Loads of other great information on that page, including lists of companion animal-friendly lodgings, how to plan for helping feral cats, and advice on how to prep for when you’re stuck somewhere and can’t get back home.
Commenter Shell mentioned in the previous thread that many emergency shelters are now pet-friendly, noting how, “In the past a lot of people refused to evacuate cause they didn’t want to leave their pets behind.” Absolutely right and, as is often the case in the good ol’ U.S., there’s a shitty class aspect to this: during Katrina, wealthier people’s animal companions were often welcomed at hotels, whereas poorer people’s weren’t allowed in shelters. This was all epitomized in the famous incident where the nine-year-old boy was devastated because he couldn’t take his little dog Snowball with him on the evacuation bus. Anyhow, this all led to the Pet Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act, which mandates that states receiving federal disaster aid incorporate animal companions and service animals in their disaster planning. More info, including a list of animal-friendly shelters in each state, at this link.
Again, your ideas and suggestions welcome in the thread.
Seanly
I will second that about having ID on pets. I mentioned my mischevious girl Cricket in a previous thread. She was chipped when we got her, but my wife dragged her heels on getting the info put in our name. We also weren’t very good on keeping collars on in the house.
One evening we go out to run some errands. Well, little Miss Cricket squeezed out a partially open window by popping out the screen. We spent the rest of the night looking for her and kicking ourselves about having them not wear collars indoors. Boiseans are pretty good about not hitting animals on the road (4 lane urban roads will stop in both directions for geese) so we weren’t too worried about cars. However, the canals had been filled and lots of pets die in those each year.
My wife texted the previous owner and about 20 minutes later, she texts that she got notified about Cricket’s chip popping up at the local Humane Society. We rush over and have to go back & forth to verify that we’re now the owners of the little shit.
Now Maggie & Cricket always wear their collars except for when we go to bed.
beth
Thanks for this – I’m getting ready to evacuate first thing in the morning with my dog and cat to a pet friendly hotel. Here in the house we’re able to separate the cat’s food and litter box by keeping them upstairs since the dog’s too old to bother with the stairs anymore. Not so sure what we’ll do in a hotel room – maybe put the litter box in the bathtub and feed the cat on the desk? The dog’s fine as long as she’s knows we’re there and so’s her food but the cat’s a year old skittish thing. I suspect he’ll spend most of the trip hiding under a bed or couch – I just hope he doesn’t have any accidents or shreds the furniture. We’ve already planned on taking turns being out of the room so someone is always with him – I guess that’s the best we can do right now. I’m hoping he surprises us by turning into a good traveller. Any tips from anyone are always welcome.
geg6
Both my babies are chipped, plus they always have their tags on. I would absolutely die if anything ever happened to them because I didn’t take proper precautions. And if I had to evacuate, for some reason, I absolutely would not leave without my dogs. My dogs are more valuable to me than most of the people in my life.
Pogonip
What about little pets? Parakeets, hamsters, reptiles? I don’t know if our betta qualifies as a pet or a decoration, but he IS livestock, so I shouldn’t desert him in an emergency.
Hillary Rettig
@Seanly: They can get out in a flash. We even at once point shared our abode with The World’s Laziest Basset Hound, and HE could get out in a flash.
Villago Delenda Est
You mean that leaving Sparky and Fluffy outside where they can fly around in the gentle breeze and be free is not a good idea?
Litlebritdifrnt
Meanwhile Matt Drudge is tweeting that the government is lying about the hurricane to hype climate change. The evil son of a whatever is going to get people killed.
Pogonip
@geg6 I hope your husband wasn’t reading over your shoulder when you typed that! :P
Do you have any Lovey pictures?
Villago Delenda Est
@Litlebritdifrnt: Flush the has-been has been voicing similar stupidity.
Seanly
@Hillary Rettig:
Yes, our new dogs Cricket & Maggie are both around 3 years old & 50 lbs. We’d gotten used to older & bigger dogs – nowhere near as hyper and a bit better behaved. After Cricket’s little adventure, we realized we needed to change our behavior.
Pogonip
@Litlebritdifrnt: I went and looked at that. I wouldn’t bet my life on that guy. I’d evacuate. If it turned out the govt was lying, you could always go home.
Pogonip
@Villago Delenda Est: Who’s Flush the has-been?
MikefromArlington
I already sense the Katrina comparisons from Trump the liar. Fox will have a field day finding hacks to hype things up and try and wrap any crisis around Clinton’s neck somehow, you can count on that.
The Moar You Know
GET THEM CHIPPED.
HAVE CRATES/CARRIERS IMMEDIATELY AT HAND.
And yeah, you should have survival stock. Water, food for you, food for pets. At least a week’s worth. Blankets.
I had the dubious privilege of being right on top of the Loma Prieta quake in 89 and it took us ten days to get water back. My wife makes fun, sometimes, that I always have a flat of bottled water in the back of the truck. Another Loma-type quake and similar recovery time, well, the whole flat wouldn’t be enough for her, the dog and me.
Villago Delenda Est
@Pogonip: You know, the “one is a Nazi blimp, and the other is a dirigible” guy?
Mike E
@MikefromArlington: Yeah, well…they’ll loop around themselves in such an obvious manner doing so that their efforts will resemble Matthew’s projected storm track.
Here’s what a sound election endorsement looks like, from my local teevee news org. Of course, the comments are nearly all Clerk’s Law!
Iowa Old Lady
@The Moar You Know: A friend of mine recently moved and she got a carrying case for her cat that was big enough to have a litter box inside. That made life easier in hotels along the way.
RoonieRoo
Just a note on inside collars and why you really need to have them chipped:
I have two large, rambunctious dogs. That means we have a lot of wrestling and hard play inside the house. Once that starts the collars COME OFF immediately! My sister is a vet and she can tell you many, many, many stories of dead dogs that were strangled by their companions during wrestling or broke their jaws or injured themselves pretty severely due to the collars.
Second, you need a collar that your dog can escape from if they might get hung up on something. You do not want a fool-proof, can’t get out of collar for their everyday ID use.
For this reason, chipping is VERY important. I try to make sure my kids have their ID collars when we go to bed or when we leave but when you have large dogs that have a high play drive with each other, you need to consider this and make sure you have other methods in place for ID and making sure they cannot get out when you are gone.
Mnemosyne
I realize this probably makes me an asshole, but when I read stories like the Snowball one that don’t have a happy ending, it just makes me think there’s no point. A little boy’s dog got taken away from him and was euthanized and cremated if it was lucky and the cop didn’t just abandon it to starve.
“Making sure it doesn’t happen again” does jack shit for that animal and that kid. It’s still dead and he’s still traumatized. Sorry, but it’s true.
annie
my tea bagger sis and BIL are evacuating the SC coast. I’ll walk the higher road and wish them safety. Global climate change deniers. Wev.
Hillary Rettig
@beth: good luck tomorrow! maybe you can distract them with some primo catnip / treats. also, I don’t know what others will think of this advice but perhaps some Rescue Relief (which never worked for me but seems to for others) or doggie / kittie downers?
Please check in and let us know how you all are doing!
Hillary Rettig
@Pogonip: absolutely! little ‘uns need rescue, too!
raven
@The Moar You Know: And plenty of ammo.
Pogonip
@Villago Delenda Est: Clear as mud, sorry.
Hillary Rettig
@Mnemosyne: it’s not a great story but the outcome was that animals were allowed in many shelters, so that’s not pointless. lives were/will be saved.
Hillary Rettig
@RoonieRoo: excellent points that I had had no idea about. (since I tend toward small dogs of the foofy rather than wrestly variety). Thanks for posting!
RoonieRoo
Actually, after I just posted about the importance of chipping in relationship to collars that brings up a question. Hillary, when you volunteered in NOLA did you see them using scanners to check for chips?
Anoniminous
Jeff Masters:
Storm surge is estimated to be anywhere from nothing to 9 feet, depending on the exact location.
WereBear
I’m a huge fan of chipping, especially for cats. All of my cats are chipped, and most of them would not put up with collars. They have to be breakaway, so there you are. Chips will stick with them.
Throwing some chamomile tea into the evac bag is one of my little tricks; the tea bags can be tucked into a bottle of water, and will calm down human, canine, or feline, especially their digestive system.
Anoniminous
@raven:
Especially for the dog. Dogs have lousy fire discipline and are notoriously bad shots.
Jay C
@Anoniminous:
Yeah, well….
Dunno if its been covered elsewhere, but apparently, Matt Drudge has the whole “Hurricane Matthew” thing figured out: it’s all a government scam to hype “climate change”
h/t LGF
ThresherK
@Litlebritdifrnt: If some people want to change their “likely voter” status after imbibing that much crap media, we can’t save them all.
Plenty of real work in whatever aftermath wherever it will be from this storm.
raven
@Anoniminous: If we can establish a field of fire with cookies we may be ok!
RoonieRoo
@WereBear: Chamomile tea! That is a brilliant suggestion as it does work for everybody. Putting that on my emergency bag list now.
Gindy51
@RoonieRoo: We crate our dogs when we leave so NO collars as the tags can get caught in the wire mesh and can cause bad things to happen. Also we don’t keep collars on in the house, ever have a dishwasher rack full of dishes get dragged all over your house? What a mess. Mine were chipped before at the breeders and still have the her name on the records in case of an extreme emergency (we are injured and can’t help them).
Starfish
@Mnemosyne: Those kids who were little children in Katrina are young adults now. That 9-year-old child is now 20. I only realized this when a friend recently posted a picture from that period of her child who is now a freshman in college.
RoonieRoo
@Gindy51: I have a great visual playing in my head of a large dog dragging a dishwasher rack full of dishes around the house. LOL!
Anoniminous
@Jay C:
Drudge is called a “Conservative Republican” because “Credulous Cretin” was already taken.
Mnemosyne
@Starfish:
I’m 47 and there are things that happened to me as a child that still bother me even after 10+ years of therapy. He’s never going to forget that day entirely even when the sharpest edges wear off.
Shell
So Im sure he’d be more than willing to tweet from the shoreline at Palm Beach.
Prescott Cactus
Keep your auto gas tank near full. Refill when you are down to 3/4 of a tank if easily available. Get the most initial distance you can without having to stop. Have road food and extra extra water.
Villago Delenda Est
@Pogonip: Rush Limbaugh
SWMBO
@Pogonip: All of our dogs are chipped and tagged. When they are on leash, we clip the leash to their harness. If they slip the harness, they still have their collar with tag on.
Years ago my son had the most beautiful red betta. The book said they live 1-2 years. He lived for over 4. We changed out his water weekly and put him in a square quart food container while we cleaned up his tank. When we went to Disney, we took him in his water changing “tank” (we put the lid on the container and poked holes for air). When we got to the room, we set up his usual tank (it was a gallon goldfish bowl with marbles and his “cave” and rock). We set him up high so that the maid wouldn’t knock him over accidentally. He made several trips back and forth. He didn’t seem to mind riding in the car and was curious in the hotel room.