Evacuating with Your Pets

by Carrie Boyko, CEB

courtesy smiteme via Flickr.com
FEMA Rep Assists Evacuated Pet and Owner

With National Preparedness Month upon us, All Things Dog Blog has been busily preparing a Twitter Party for Dr. Emmo's pet first aid products, promoting preparedness for pet owners. As you may know, my family lives in the heart of Hurricane country, and we have had to prepare for evacuations on a few occasions. It's not fun, but it's very important that we get past that and realize that without a plan we could find our pets in grave danger.

I wish I had photos of our last trial run. In 2004 when 4 named storms hit central Florida, we were under serious encouragement to evacuate to the north during one particularly overbearing storm. Which one I don't recall! At that time we had 2 large dogs, a cat and a rabbit to evacuate along with us, not to mention a grandma! Clearly this was going to be a 2 vehicle effort.

I set up our dogs' crates and the 2 carriers for Patches and Robby, making sure that each had a door facing the exits of the car for easy retrieval. That left us with a good estimate of space for a cooler of food, pet supplies, and our suitcases. This was quite an adventure and really did get me to thinking about how dear my pets are to me and what would happen if we were separated. 

No way was I leaving them at home, even if I only believed we would be away a single day. What if my petsitter could not get to them. What if they were injured or missing? What if another tree struck the house, leaving an open exit? It just was not worth the risk.

Long story short we were spared when the storm veered away from us and we were able to tough it out at home with merely heavy wind and rain. Even so we were pummeled with large pine trees falling, hitting our home, and ripping up sidewalk along the way. It was not a time for our pets to be left alone.

Tuesday evening, along with the Event Barkers team, I'll be producing a Twitter Party to promote preparedness, in honor of National Preparedness Month. Our sponsor is Dr. Emmo's first aid solutions and we'll be joined by Arden Moore, a pet first aid expert who will be sharing tips and answering questions. I hope you'll join us to find out more about this important topic, and learn how you and your pets can continue to bond throughout a disaster brought on by Mother Nature.

Join us each week for the Weekly Wag bonding series, held during the Saturday Pet Blogger Hop. The hop is hosted by Life with Dogs, Two Little Cavaliers, and Confessions of the Plume. You are welcome to link up here, or check any of their sites for their rules of participation. Happy hopping!