It Won’t Happen To Me
I see sad dog stories on television and on social media often. However, this past weekend a story hit me harder than usual. There was a house fire and one person died, another was injured and the dog was missing. The ending was happy as the survivor and the dog was reunited and the community helped to pay the veterinarian bills.
What if something horrific happened to me or you? Have we planned appropriately for this?
No one wants to imagine the worst. We often think that if we imagine something bad, we tempt fate and the bad thing really could happen.
No, we don’t necessarily want to concentrate on the negative. But if we don’t consider all the bad things that could happen to our dogs, how can we be prepared to help save their lives?
You can’t always control everything that your dog does, but you can be prepared for the unexpected. You can’t explain the dangers of the world to your dog, but you can keep them in mind and learn how to deal with them so that your dog will be more likely to survive them.
Here’s a list of a few things to do to keep your dog safe:
- Keep a collar on to identify your dog. Every dog should have a collar. This is the best way to be reunited with your dog quickly if he is ever lost or injured. You’d be surprised how often this happens. **I will write more about keeping collars on/off dogs in the future. This topic can be controversial.
- ID your dog. Please use an ID tag and microchip in case your dog gets lost or gets out and loses his collar. Many people are never reunited with their pets because the pets don’t have any form of identification.
- Keep a leash or harness by the door in case you need to get out of the house quickly with your dog or dogs – especially in case of a fire or other critical emergency. Keep multiple leashes if you have multiple dogs.
- Keep fire safety stickers on the house so firemen will know how many of each kind of pet are inside.
- Observe your dog for problems and know the common signs of illness. Call your vet when you detect a problem.
- Keep emergency phone numbers handy e.g. vet, emergency clinic, humane society, animal rescue, poison control. Print and keep this list of emergency phone numbers in some place easy to find.
I think I do a good job of being prepared, but I know there is always room for improvement. Do you have a plan in place? What recommendations do you have? I would love to learn from you.