Care Guides

Ask people what they would do in a house fire or a flood warning and almost everyone gives the same answer: I would just grab the animals and go. That is not a plan. That is a hope. In a real evacuation you have somewhere between one and three minutes, the power may be off, and both cats will have gone under the bed the instant the smoke alarm sounded. The carriers, meanwhile, are in the loft behind the Christmas decorations, because that is where carriers live in almost every house I have ever been in.

This is the one care job that costs an afternoon and then sits in a cupboard for years doing nothing. It is also the one that people who have been through a wildfire, a flood or a burst pipe at two in the morning will tell you was the difference between a bad night and a catastrophe.

What Actually Goes in the Bag

Start with containment, because everything else is useless if you cannot carry the animal. One hard-sided carrier per cat, not one big one for two, since frightened cats redirect on each other. A spare slip lead for every dog, kept in the bag rather than on the hook, plus a properly fitted harness for anything that backs out of a collar. Add a soft muzzle for each dog even if your dog has never so much as growled, because pain and panic change animals and vets and rescue crews will thank you.

Then supplies for a week. Food in a sealed airtight container or the original bag inside a zip-lock, portioned and dated. Water is heavier than people expect: budget roughly a litre per medium dog per day and plan for three days minimum, more in heat. Collapsible silicone bowls take up almost no room. A manual can opener if you feed wet food, since electric everything is a bad bet in an emergency.

Medication is the item people forget and then desperately need. Keep a fortnight's supply of anything your pet takes daily, rotated so it never expires, along with a photograph of the prescription label showing the drug name, dose and your vet's details. If your cat is diabetic or your dog is epileptic, this single step is more important than everything else in the bag.

Add sanitation: a disposable cardboard or foil litter tray, a small bag of litter, poop bags, and a packet of unscented pet wipes. Add comfort: a blanket or old t-shirt that smells of home, which does more for a stressed cat in a strange room than any product you can buy, plus a synthetic pheromone spray if your animal responds to it. Add a basic first aid pouch with gauze, self-adhesive bandage, blunt scissors, tweezers, saline and a digital thermometer.

Finally, a spare collar with an engraved tag carrying your mobile number, and a torch. Not a phone torch. A real torch.

The Paperwork That Gets You Through the Door

Emergency accommodation runs on documents. Boarding kennels, pet-friendly hotels and many temporary shelters will ask for proof of vaccination before they take an animal, and they will not make an exception because your street is underwater. Keep a printed copy of the current vaccination record, including rabies where it applies, in a waterproof wallet in the bag, and photograph the same documents onto your phone and into cloud storage.

Write your microchip numbers on a card. Check right now that the details registered against those chips are your current phone number, because a chip registered to a house you left in 2019 is a decoration. Include your vet's number and the number of an emergency hospital outside your immediate area, since your local one may be closed or evacuated too.

Then do the thing nobody thinks of: take a photograph of yourself with each animal, printed and in the wallet. If you are separated during an evacuation, that photo is how you prove ownership when you come to collect them from a rescue point. Owners have lost pets permanently to exactly this bureaucratic gap.

Sort the destination in advance as well. A great many public emergency shelters cannot accept animals other than assistance dogs. Build a list before you need it: two pet-friendly hotels well outside your area, a boarding kennel a hundred kilometres away, and a friend or relative far enough off that the same event will not have hit them. Ring the hotels and confirm rather than trusting a listing.

Rehearse the Ninety Seconds

A kit you have never used is only half a plan. Once a year, run the drill properly. Time yourself from the alarm to standing outside with both animals contained and the bag over your shoulder. It will take far longer than you think the first time, and the reason is always the same: the cats.

So make containment easy in advance. Store carriers where you can reach them without a ladder, ideally near the exit you would actually use, and leave one out permanently as furniture so it stops being a terrifying object. Learn your cat's two or three hiding spots and know which one is realistically reachable. If you get warning of a storm or a flood, confine cats to a single small room with the litter tray before conditions worsen, rather than hunting for them at the last minute. Block the underside of beds if you have that luxury.

Keep the bag itself somewhere sensible: a plastic tote or duffel by the front door, in the hall cupboard or in the car boot. Attach a label with the date, and refresh food, water and medication every six months. Tie it to the clock change so you never have to remember it independently.

Two more small jobs. Put a pet alert sticker in a front window listing how many animals live inside and what they are, so fire crews know what to look for. And agree a buddy arrangement with a neighbour who has a spare key and permission to take your animals out if you are at work when something happens, and make sure they know where the carriers and the bag live.

One rule sits above all of the above. If it is not safe for you, it is not safe for them, so never leave an animal behind expecting to return in a few hours. Do not tie a dog outside, and do not turn a cat loose to fend for itself. Take them with you. Everything in that cupboard exists so that when the moment comes, you can.