Disaster Preparedness With Pets Part 3 -- Evacuation Plans and Training

There is one last area that needs to be addressed when we talk about disaster prep with your pets, and that is your plan for evacuating to safety, and training your pets for that evacuation plan. I’m going to use evacuation as our word for getting to safety, even if you’re taking shelter in your home.

Evacuation is something that happens suddenly. It's an abrupt change in routine and it's usually accompanied by high stress. If you haven’t provided your pet with at least some training or acclimation in regards to the evacuation, you can have serious problems.

For example, if your evacuation plan includes having your pet crated, you will want to have them acclimated to the crate. If you will need to have them on leash they should be well trained to walk on a leash during hectic and high traffic situations.

The first part of the process is to formulate your evacuation plan. I know that right now everyone is thinking tornado, but that may not be the only time you need to evacuate. You also need a plan for fire, both home and wild, and if you’re in a flood prone area you may need a plan for flood. A good fire evacuation plan can also be put into effect for other emergencies such as bomb threats, gas leaks, or other non-disaster evacuations that might occur.

Whether you’re fleeing a fire or taking shelter from a tornado, your evacuation will begin and end with your “safe zone”. The first thing you need to know is where you’re going to go before you can start figuring out how to get there. For a tornado your safe zone may be a cellar, a basement, a safe room, a shelter, or an interior room of your home. It may be a neighbor’s property or a relative’s home. In the case of fire or flood it will be a location outside the danger zone. Once you have established the location of your safe zone, you need to look at the location and determine how you can best utilize the space. What, besides yourself, your family and your pets can you fit in your safe zone? Is there room for additional emergency supplies beyond your “go kit”? Do you have electricity available? Do you have cellphone signal? How will you contain your pet safely within the safe zone? Will you be sharing space with other families?

Once you have determined where you’re going and how to best utilize the space, you need to determine how to get everyone that needs to be in that safe zone there in as quickly and efficiently as possible. This is where good training comes in. Evaluate your pet’s response to the preparations you’ll need to take for evacuation. Do they like to play ring around the rosy with you when you go to put their harness on? Do they get overly excited and become difficult to handle? Are they anxious about riding in the car?

If your dogs are like ours, putting on “clothes” is cause for great rejoicing and becoming complete and utter spazz dogs for about 15 minutes. Because of this we harness them early so that they have time to settle down. Those dogs that are hard to catch we place in confined areas like our bathroom, so that we can grab them more easily.

For tornadoes, training your pet to enter whatever shelter you will be utilizing on command can be very useful. This will require some pre-work on your part. Take your pet into the room, shelter, or cellar on a frequent basis and make them stay in that location for short periods of time to acclimate them. Use a command such as “go underground” when you take your pet into the sheltered area, and give them a treat. Keep them there for a few minutes and then let them go. If they will enter the shelter on their own praise them voluminously. Even if you have to carry them into the shelter, make a big deal about how good they are to “go underground”, and reinforce that getting into the shelter is a good thing.

If you have to leave your property to reach safety, training your dog to “load up” in the car is also highly recommended.  Take them for frequent car rides. Then train them to unload at their destination and enter whatever shelter you have traveled to utilize.

If you have multiple pets, training them to evacuate on command can be a life saver. It can save precious minutes in evacuation time and help prevent lost pets. You so often hear, “I just couldn’t get the dogs out in time…” But what if you could just open a couple of doors and yell “load up” or “go underground”?

With proper planning and training there should be very few instances where you have to leave your pet behind in an evacuation. Know where to go, how to get there, and make sure that your pet will be ready to go.