You have a flashlight and batteries. You’ve stocked up water and food in your pantry. You know where to find safety.
But is your dog ready? And have your trained your dog so s/he know these important emergency commands before disaster strikes?
Will You Ever Face A Disaster?
Before I share the emergency commands I’ve taught Honey to help in a disaster, I need to reach out to you lucky ducks who stay disaster-free.
Sure, you were smart enough to be born in or move to a place that doesn’t suffer from wildfires, tornadoes, earthquakes, blizzards, or hurricanes.
But that doesn’t mean your dog doesn’t need to learn these cues. After all, they will help if you ever need to move, visit family with your pup, escape a house fire, or admit your dog for surgery at the vet.
What To Teach Your Dog Before Disaster
How many of these does your dog know?
Her Name
Honey probably does not know that her name is Honey.
But when I say “Honey,” she snaps to attention.
Honey knows that when I call her name, she needs to listen up to hear what I have to say next. It’s a valuable attention-getter.
Yes, many dogs do not know their names.
You’ve seen it. People walking in the park yelling, “Buster, Buuuuuuster, Buster” while their out-of-control dog ignores them.
Does your dog know her name? Wait until she’s calm in the house with no major distractions and call her using a calm voice. What does she do?
If you get no response, it’s time to teach your dog her name.
To Relax While Being Carried
When Honey was a puppy, I laughed when my husband bench-pressed her.
It looked ridiculous.
But it turned out to be surprisingly useful.
On the boat, we have to lift Honey onto the bed and up the cockpit stairs. Sometimes at low tide or in strong winds, Mike will lift Honey onto a short finger pier to keep her safe.
Fortunately, Honey is totally relaxed. She never struggles. At most, she’ll daintily point her toe as we near the bed.
I hope we’ll never have to carry Honey through rushing flood waters. But if we do, she’ll be calm in our arms.
Will your dog?
To Come When She’s Called
There’s no skill we practice more than recall.
Partly because it’s so important for safety. And partly because it’s the skill we ruin the most through our bad behavior.
I regularly practice calling Honey to me when I have pizza, a ball, or something else she’s particularly fond of. Hopefully if we’re ever struggling not to take the cyclone express to Oz and have left Honey’s leash behind in the rush, all those hours of recall practice will pay off.
How likely is your dog able to come when you call? And what if there’s a squirrel or some stinky goose poop in the other direction?
To Rest In A Crate
More hotels and emergency shelters are allowing pets all the time. But only if you bring a crate.
You may not need a crate at home. But you don’t want to wait until your dog needs to be crated before you start training.
Is your dog able to relax in a crate? Or will you need to sit in one with him to keep him relaxed at the vet’s office or a disaster shelter?
To Potty On Different Substrates
If you’ve followed our failure to get Honey to “go” on the boat, you know I’m the last person to advise you on this.
Actually, our experience has only helped me realize how helpful it might be to have a pup who will potty anywhere in an emergency.
If you have to leave your home in a disaster, you’ll be happy to know your pup is willing to use concrete, gravel, oyster shells, or strange grass for their “potty.”
Honey is strictly a grass or gravel girl. But if your dog has this emergency skill, let us know how you trained it.
Ready For A Disaster That Never Comes
What’s the worse thing that happens if you train your dog and the disaster never comes?
You end up with a tighter bond than ever and a well-trained dog.
If I had my choice, I’d much rather have a dog whose training prepares her for a nonexistent disaster than have a disaster with a poorly trained dog.
If your only emergency is watching disaster porn on the news, get off the couch. Grab some treats. Call your dog (if she knows her name; if she doesn’t you know what you need to do).
And start teaching these important cues before disaster strikes.
Your Turn: Have you done any special training to help your dog cope with an emergency? What?
We are pleased to be joining the Positive Pet Training blog hop with Wag ‘n Woof Pets, Tenacious Little Terrier and Travels with Barley. The hop remains open through Sunday. This month’s theme is “September is National Disaster Preparedness Month – how do you use training to prepare your dog for disasters?”, however, you may share any positive pet training story, whether it’s on our theme or not!
In The Middle Of An Adventure, It’s Tough To Be The Dog.
So spot on! Don’t underestimate how important these seemingly easy thing are! Another one…”Stay” – meaning do not move one more inch- is also super important to keep them from something dangerous …like a water puddle that may have a live electric current in it because of severed power lines or shattered glass shards on the ground. Great post.
Oooh, yes. Good one, Christ. How could I have forgotten “STAY?”
You’re 100% right, recall is the best ‘trick’ you can teach your pet. We practice that one every day and just pray there are no squirrels around since all bets would be off with Elsa if there were. Stay safe and know we’re sending oodles of poodles thoughts for your continued safety.
Squirrels are tricky little critters, aren’t they? I bet they’re just waiting to pop out when you’re practicing with Elsa.
Mr. N is very happy to be carried (by me). He’d be fine being carried through floodwaters. He doesn’t want to get wet!
He is willing to go on strange surfaces outside. I was thinking though that maybe I should try to train him to use pads for emergencies. Right now he’s very much opposed. Thanks for joining the hop!
I saw a few friends who dug up grass to put in the garage for their pet before the hurricane arrived. I suspect Mr N would expect no less from you. 🙂
Oh, you got some great ones there that I never thought of. Even though we did our best to ruin Luke’s name for him (so our trainer told us), both dogs do know and respond well to their names.
Cricket can be picked up, though she’s not thrilled about it, but I wonder if Luke would put up with that? Sometimes he surprises us with the things he’ll tolerate. Don’t touch my paws or ears, but I’ll put up with a bath, and I LOVE being brushed. Since he does like being hugged he might be OK with that. But it’s not something we’ve ever thought about trying.
Lucky for us we were smart enough to be born in one of those safer areas of the country, and stay here. 🙂
“Lucky for us we were smart enough to be born in one of those safer areas of the country, and stay here.” As soon as I read that, I knocked on wood for you.
Apparently I’ve become very superstitious since becoming a sailor.
We do have tornadoes here, but that is about it. Of course, house fires are always a danger anywhere. We are all set with our plan in case our house should blow away, but chances are slim. Bailie is the one who is scared of storms and she does sense them coming.
Hopefully if a bad storm ever comes your way, Bailie the alert dog will help you take action before things get serious.
Oh my goodness is that picture of your husband bench pressing your dog is the cutest ever! 🙂
These tips are some of the best I’ve read on pet preparedness! I’m a prepper myself (even share a survival blog with my husband over @ MoreThanJustSurviving.com) and so I find posts like this not only informative, but really important for getting positive messages related to being prepared out there.
I think the world would be a safer place if more people planned for disasters to happen *just in case*, even if nothing bad is likely to happen. So thank you for putting this together and sharing it with your readers! 🙂
That picture of my husband bench pressing the dog is just plain weird and we both know it. 🙂
Checked out your prepper site–minus all the fear and pessimism I see in some prepper sites, the site is a good fit for sailors. 🙂
Living on a boat, we try to be as self-sufficient as possible. Even doing coastal cruising means that we can’t just hop off the boat to get engine parts to make a repair or pick up a gallon of milk when we run out. I would never call myself a prepper. But I find that taking responsibility for our lives is a very conscious way of living.
From some of your posts, it sounds like you can relate.
BTW, Kittyclysm is the best name ever!
Haha yeah but my husband does weird things with my cat (like stuffing him in his shirt while feeding him butter?? & “inspecting” his teeth by opening his mouth for no real reason?), and I think that’s pretty hilarious, so bench pressing a pet is definitely on my list of super-funny/cute things I can imagine my own husband doing to a pet. 😉
I hate the fear mongering on most prepper sites. I feel like it’s detrimental to prepping; it just distracts you from what you should be paying attention to: striving for self-sufficiency, getting ready for natural disasters, being financially ready in case you lose your job.. the same “worst threats” from yesterday are going to continue being the worst threats today (the Ebola scare was so stupid..). But I know I’m in the minority in that respect.
Yes I 100% can relate to your goal of being as self-sufficient as possible. My husband’s actually pitched the idea of living on a boat to me before, he’s always liked the idea. Still haven’t because I think I’d be too anxious, especially without even having been on a proper boat like that in my life before. Maybe one day! We’ll see 🙂
And so glad you like the name KittyClysm! 🙂 I thought it was fun 🙂
These are GREAT cues to teach your dog. One of my friends in Florida just posted an update this week about how they hadn’t been able to go outside for a very long time because of the wind and rain, and their dogs were starting to get very antsy but would not go inside the house no matter how desperate they were getting (thankfully, shortly after their post, there was a break in the storm and they all got outside!) and I know that Barley would be the exact same way (Rye has no qualms about pooping inside if I don’t pay attention to her telling me she needs out).
One of my FB friends posted a picture of a kiddie pool with turf inside so their pup could potty in the garage. If I had room for such a thing on the boat (and a way to get square of turf) I’d try it for Honey.
If you ever DO face an emergency, you might find yourself really glad for Rye’s “flexibility” with house training. 🙂