You love your pets. They are a part of your family. Therefore, when planning for your own disaster preparedness, you also need to make sure that you are doing the same thing for your animals whether they have scales, feathers, fur or fins. Without you, your pets have little chance of surviving.

Prepare Early

Even before there’s a disaster, you need to prepare. For your pets, this means ensuring they have an ID, such as a collar with your cell phone number or email address on it. In addition, you might want to consider getting a microchip for the pet. This helps to improve the chance of reuniting in case the animal gets out. Sometimes animals flee because they are afraid. They may not be able to make their way back home, or someone else might find them and take them in or to a shelter. Always check the shelters for your pets in case of a disaster. You should also have some up-to-date photos so those at the shelter can positively identify you as the owner.

You should also create a disaster kit specifically for your pets. They should have food and fresh water for at least five days as well as a few treats. It can be difficult on pets if they have to evacuate with you or if they have to shelter in place. They could be nervous because of the changes. Make sure you have any medications they might need, as well as copies of their medical records. Have carriers, leashes and other items for transporting the animals.

Having some garbage bags and plastic bags to keep your pet’s waste out of the way is important too. You need to make sure you consider cleanliness with your animals for all. You may also want to write out some feeding instructions and schedules just in case you need to board your pets. This ensures they have food and medicine provided for them when they need it.

Evacuate

If the authorities tell you that it is time to evacuate, then that is just what you need to do, and you need to take your pets with you. This is why it is so important to get animals accustomed to their carriers or if they’re not used to being in the car with you. If a potential disaster is approaching such as a tropical storm or hurricane, it’s important to make sure that you take your pets with you even if you feel that you’ll only be out of the house for a few hours. You never know how long you will really need to be away, and if you leave without your pet, you may not be able to get back into the area to get your animal.

Sheltering in Place

If you have an area of the home prepared to shelter you and your animal in the event that evacuation is impossible, make sure that it is pet friendly as well. If you’re at home, make sure you are doing it as safely and carefully as possible.

There’s no telling just how long you may have to wait until things in your area get back to normal, so keeping even more food, fresh water and supplies on hand for your pets is a good idea. When getting your own disaster kits ready, it’s easy to set one up for each of your pets as well. It’s always better to be prepared rather than watching your pets suffer when they don’t have what they need. #petdisastersupplies