This evening I was relaxing in my living room, watching tv
and I heard a weird noise. I thought someone was breaking in (it sounded like a
window popping), and I looked down to see Cleo beside me to go
investigate. There weren’t any intruders but Cleo still was acting strange, and
I had a gut feeling that something just wasn’t right. I walked around looking
for something that could have made the noise to ease my mind but couldn’t find
anything.
Then I walked outside on my porch to get a look around the
house, and there it was. White, stinky smoke was flowing over the roof--I
went into emergency mode and ran back into the house to try to see where the
smoke was coming from. I couldn’t find anything, so I ran around the house and
saw that the A/C unit was smoking but not on fire. I ran inside and turned the
unit off and went back out to be sure it didn’t catch on fire, all while trying
to call boyfriend, landlord and dad to figure out what else to do so it
wouldn’t have any power connected and to ease my mind that it wouldn’t randomly
catch fire over night (good luck with that one). Luckily, I was home and able to fix the situation
without having too much of an incident. (And yes, I should have called 911
instead of everyone else, but I was trying to stop the situation and was alone,
so that was a certainly bad move in hindsight!)
So what on earth does this have to do with animals?!
Well, as I was running around the house to find where the
smoke was coming from, I was simultaneously planning what I needed to do if, in
fact, there was a house fire. The first thing on my list: get the cat carriers
out and get the cats to my car. I had already put Bonnie in the back yard, so I
could easily grab her leash and get her in the car with the cats. I also have a pet
emergency bag with the carriers in my front hall closet, so that would be my
next grab. After that, other things that are valuable to me and my boyfriend in
the house.
When we think of preparing for emergencies, it’s so easy to
think of tornadoes or hurricanes, mass floods or power outages, snowstorms or
some other large-scale events that we can see coming. But the main emergencies we should be
prepared for are things like today. The disaster kit and plan is pretty much
the same, but it just puts in perspective the importance of having those
emergency preparedness bags ready to grab at a moment’s notice.
I already have these things for my animals because I’m a
volunteer for national animal emergency response teams—my cat crates are built
and stacked in the front closet by the door, and the bag with their items are
in the same closet. Our dog leashes and halter are also hanging there, so the important animal
stuff is all in one spot. That way, I can grab the animals and be out the door
in a flash if I had to. (Confession: I don’t have a HUMAN emergency response
bag, other than my CERT bag in my car. I’ll have to work on that one soon!)
I’m
probably more prepared than a lot of pet owners in this regard, but the problem
is, a lot of my records and some of the food items in the bag haven’t been
updated in quite a while. So today was
a good reminder that everyone should have a pet readiness bag (and a human one)
AND it should be updated every six months or so. I encourage you to learn from
me today and prepare your own bag, or update the one you already have.
My goal for this week: update my pet emergency preparedness bag, hang the fire sticker on the front window (I haven't put a new one up since we moved into the new house), and get a human bag together. It won't take much time, but if something more serious does happen, it will be worth all the money in the world to me to have my pets safe and sound!
