Most people lose power due to storms, hurricanes, or even ice storms. You humans need to be prepared to take care of us doggies in an emergency situation. Before I give you some tips, I want to take you back to when I was a wee lad and my litter mates and I survived our first ice storm. It was February 2009 and a huge ice storm hit western Kentucky. People were without power, water, food, batteries, heat, you name it. I was only a few weeks old, but lucky for me, my westie mom took good care of me and made sure we were warm. My rents, who I hadn’t met yet, had no heat for over a week. They learned that cats get very cranky and almost psycho when the temperature drops below 50 degrees in their home. Finally, they got their hands on a generator, got the house warm, and then went to pick me up. So today I wanted to give you humans some important tips:
- Food. Keep plenty of food for us. If you use canned food, don’t forget you will need a non-electric CAN OPENER. I can’t imagine something much worse than knowing my favorite dog food is in that can but I can’t get to it! Also, you will need a cooler to keep any of our food cool once you open it. Food poisoning isn’t any more fun for dogs than humans, and I don’t think pet parents will enjoy doing the clean up!
- Water. You can’t trust that the water will be safe if you have no power. If you have a well, then your pump won’t work. If there is no power at your city’s water works then how can their machinery run? So keep extra water on hand for your family and for all your pets too.
- Appliances. Some annoying electronics beep and beep when they lose power. Trust me, that drives us dogs crazy and it upsets us … so please make the beeping stop … and the quicker the better.
- Candles. Be careful with these. If our tails hits them (ok not mine … its short … but think of a lab tail) we can catch on fire or catch the house on fire. My cat sister, Pepper, got too close to a candle one time and did burn some of her fur off. Mom said it scared her, but luckily Pepper didn’t get hurt. Unfortunately, the house smelled like burnt hair for a couple days.
- Potty Breaks. Without power, it will be very dark outside for us at night time. Also, after a storm, who knows what blew into our backyard. So take extra care to check out our potty area before sending us outside.
- Blankets. In winter, it will get really cold without heat – so give us some extra blankets or better yet let us snuggle with you!
With a few safety tips, you can survive a bad ice storm like I did!
Your Pal,
Good post, dear Prestone! :*
People forget about keeping a non electric way to open cans all the time! Excellent post!