If something happens to you, what would happen to your pets?
As a pawrent, it is important to consider what would happen to your pet if something happened to you. This is not just about who might provide a home for your furchild in the event of your absence, but also about protecting your companion animals from extended durations of time with no care due to a pawrent’s unplanned life event. For example, have you considered what would happen to your pets if an unexpected incident keeps you away from home or your pet’s care and no one knows? Your companion animals cannot call for help or notify anyone that they are in need. In fact, your pets are totally dependent on you for their basic needs and survival! When it comes to the comfort and safety of our loved ones, hoping for the best, but then not planning for the worst, is never a good idea. It is important as responsible pawrents that we think ahead.
Make a plan for the worst-case scenario. Believe it or not, pets being stranded due to unforeseen circumstances is a real problem. In the chaos that often accompanies a pet parent’s unexpected illness, accident, or death, pets get overlooked. Beloved companion animals are even discovered trapped inside a pet parent’s home days or weeks after the tragedy. In some terrible, but completely avoidable cases, pets simply do not make it. Plan ahead, and make sure that pets will be taken care of no matter what.
The best option is to have emergency caregivers. This can be anyone you trust to care for your pet when you cannot be there. After securing your caregivers, you should provide them with detailed instructions for your pet’s care and routine. Ensure your emergency caregivers have each other's contact information in case one of them needs backup. Also, provide those caregivers with your pet's medical history, veterinarian contact information, and include your caregivers in any legal documents. Do not forget to let your veterinarian know about your caregivers to ensure they are permitted to bring your pets in for care and make medical decisions based on your instructions. Last but not least, ensure your caregivers have back up access to all of this information in the case they misplace these records. And after all of that, remember that the emergency caregiver system only works if the caregivers are alerted immediately to the situation and promptly given everything they need. How long your pets have to wait alone can mean life or death.
To ensure that emergency caregivers know right away when your pets are in need, rather than potentially days or weeks later, you can download the Pet Notify app. In fact, Pet Notify can manage everything your emergency caregivers need, including record storage and sharing. Quite honestly, the app can do the work better than you can, since it works automatically and with no user interaction needed during an emergency. All the records and information that you would have to distribute to everyone in your life, you can instead store in the app. Set your emergency contacts, and Pet Notify will store and distribute the information to your emergency caregivers when needed. The app also notifies the emergency contacts with an alarm system if you are missing.
Pet Notify is an excellent option to prevent a lapse in care of your pet. Please visit our website if you want to know more.
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