foreign [Music] joins us an animal behavior specialist Rachel some not good news about some statistics about uh homeowners who have animals and are not super prepared with their pets ahead of emergencies yeah their recent survey just came back and approximately 52 percent of pet owners in Texas have a plan in the event of emergency and 48 percent do not so split about half and half there we certainly deal with our share of severe weather what a pet owner should do ahead of bad storms yeah absolu
tely and bad weather can be anything bad weather can be wildfires right it can be just extreme heat or extreme colds there's a lot of examples it's not just hurricanes and we don't have to make pet preparedness terribly complicated it can be as simple as just having a plan I know with my pets I like to have a go bag so I have a corner of a closet that has everything I need in the events that we need to move quickly so any crates for the appropriate sized animal that we have I also like to keep c
anned food and bottled water ready with bottled water I like to have vessels for the animals to be able to drink out of so that could be a liquid bottle or it can be an open bowl a nice small one it doesn't have to be a big one and any medications that you might need in an emergency I know a lot of pet parents are concerned about how their Pet's going to behave in a crate because they're not used to it so you could ask your vet for just one or two doses of a calming medication to have in your go
bag in the event you need to move quickly is there a rule of thumb with how frequently you should take breaks if you have to travel with your pet in your car to get away from whatever situation you're in it really just depends on the pet just like if you have children some are really great in the car and others may need more frequent breaks it depends on how often they travel in a car they used to it some people travel with their pet all the time you're always going to dog parks or things like
that others the only time you get in a car is when you're going to the vet so the car can be have a negative association with some pets so it really just depends that's why I also like to encourage in times of non-emergency it's great to practice with your pet it's great to build those positive associations with their travel carrier and with going into the car so those things don't always mean something bad's about to happen so I really like to recommend that you take out that crate have it sitt
ing out have it be like a non-issue in your home and feed them treats near it feed them treats in it and don't force them into it all right Rachel salant animal behavior specialist thanks for joining us today hey thanks for having me oh
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