The Pet Emergency Kit: What Your Animals Need When It Counts

Emergency plans have a blind spot shaped like your dog. Families stock two weeks of food for the humans and assume the pets will figure it out. Then an evacuation order arrives and the shelter asks for vaccination records nobody can find. The pet layer takes one afternoon to build. Here it is.

Food and water: same math, smaller bowls#

• Two weeks of their normal food, rotated like yours (a sealed bin keeps kibble fresh and pest-free; note the storage mistakes apply to pet food too).
• Water: roughly one gallon per day for a large dog, less for cats and small animals, added to your household's water total, not carved out of it.
• Manual can opener if their food is canned, plus bowls and a scoop dedicated to the kit.

The paperwork shelters ask for#

This is the part that surprises people: many emergency shelters and pet-friendly hotels require proof of vaccination. Put copies of vaccination records, license/microchip numbers, medication list, and your vet's contact in the emergency binder, plus a photo of you with the pet, which is how you prove ownership if you're separated.

The go layer#

• Carrier per cat, leash and harness per dog, stored where the go-bags live. A cat you can't crate in two minutes is a cat that stays behind in a wildfire evacuation.
• Two weeks of medications, litter and a small pan for cats, waste bags, a comfort item that smells like home.
• Know two pet-friendly destinations in advance: a friend, a kennel, or hotels along your evacuation route (search "pet friendly" now, not at midnight with the highway closed).

If you shelter at home instead#

Bring outdoor animals in early: pets sense the change and hide exactly when you need them close. Keep carriers accessible even indoors: a house damaged by wind or fire can turn a shelter-in-place into a leave-now without notice.

Pets are household members; count them that way#

The quiet failure is having "some" dog food and no idea if it's four days or fourteen. Provision Planner tracks pet supplies with everything else, so the readiness number on your dashboard includes every heartbeat in the house, not just the ones who can read it.