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Them too: an emergency plan and kit for your pets

When a storm, a fire or a flood means leaving home, the animals you live with have to go somewhere too, and many public shelters and hotels do not take them. This page is for a calm day before that. It keeps a line for each animal, walks through the plan Ready.gov, the U.S. government’s emergency preparedness website, says to make for pets (a place that will take them, a person who steps in if you cannot, the microchip, who to ask near you), and turns Ready.gov’s pet kit into a checklist. It puts all of it on one sheet you can print or hand to the neighbor who has your key. There is no account and no price.

Private by design. Nothing you type is sent anywhere. What you write and tick is kept in this browser on this device from the first box you fill in or tick, and one button erases it. This page runs no analytics or tracking. How we handle privacy. That is not the same as secret: anyone who uses this browser on this device can read the plan, so on a shared or public computer print or download it and use Erase everything before you go.

If there is danger right now, call 911 and follow what local officials tell you. This page is for before. If the disaster has already happened, open After a disaster. If you are thinking about ending your life or hurting yourself, call or text 988 (in the U.S.) now, or open Get help now.

This tool needs JavaScript. You can do the same thing on paper: write each animal’s name and what it looks like; under that, a place that would take them, who would care for them if you could not, and where they hide; under that, what is still missing from their kit. Ready.gov’s own page and its printable brochure are at ready.gov/pets.

Good to know

Where the plan and the list come from

We added no advice of our own about what to plan for or what to pack. The first four boxes in step 2, the four carrier tips and the five lines for large animals in step 3, and the ten kit items in step 4 are Ready.gov’s words, from its page Prepare Your Pets for Disasters (marked last updated 03/20/2026). We read it on October 9, 2026. The “where our pets hide” box and the two-kits line come from sentences on the same page. Three things are ours: the titles of the last three boxes in step 2, the short examples under each box, and the short names the sheet uses for the kit items. Ready.gov calls these “items you may want to include”; it is a list to work from, and the page treats it that way.

What else Ready.gov says on that page

If local officials ask you to evacuate, that means your pet should evacuate too. If you leave your pets behind, they may end up lost, injured or worse.
Have two kits, one larger kit if you are sheltering in place and one lightweight version for if you need to evacuate.
Review your kits regularly to ensure that their contents, especially foods and medicines, are fresh.
Always bring pets indoors at the first sign or warning of a storm or disaster.
To stay informed: pay attention to wireless emergency alerts sent by state and local public safety officials, and listen to local officials when told to evacuate or shelter in place.

How it works

Our animals holds up to 12 lines: a name, the kind of animal and what it looks like, a note.
Their plan has six boxes. Leaving a box after you change it keeps it; the Keep button does the same thing.
Before we have to leave is Ready.gov’s four carrier tips, its five lines for large animals if you have any, and a box for anything else.
Their kit is the checklist: ten items, in Ready.gov’s words.
Our sheet prints the animals, the plan, what is in the kit and what is still to get, with a box to tick beside each thing to get.

What this page can’t do

It does not know which places near you take animals. No shelter, hotel or boarding place is listed here. Ready.gov says to contact your local emergency management office, animal shelter or animal control office; they are the ones to ask.
It sends no alerts and cannot warn you of anything.
It does not say how much food or water to keep for any animal. Ready.gov’s list says “several days’ supply” and the page leaves it there.
It is not veterinary advice. Ready.gov says to talk to your veterinarian about what belongs in a first aid kit for your pet; this page names no medicine and no product.
It keeps no photo. The picture of you and your pet together is one to print, or to keep on your phone and with someone outside your home.
It cannot remind you to check the kit, and it is not an official form: it is not a Ready.gov or FEMA page, and nobody from an emergency agency has looked at it.
The plan does not move to another phone or computer by itself. Print it, download it, or use My data on this device to carry a backup across.

Tools that go with this

Before it happens: the emergency plan and supply checklist for the people in the home.
Our way out: a home fire escape plan with a drill timer.
My emergency card: a wallet card for each person, with who to call, allergies and medicines.
Where things are: where the papers and the keys are, for the person who would need to find them.
When it’s dangerously hot and When it’s dangerously cold.
After a disaster: where to sleep tonight, FEMA, replacing papers and the scams that follow.
All the free tools, and how to save them on your phone so they open with no signal.

A plan on paper, not a promise. This page writes down what you decide and counts what you tick. It does not know your animals, your home or your area, and it does not replace your veterinarian or the instructions of local officials. In an emergency, call 911.

The tool and the wording around it were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy); the plan lines and the kit list are Ready.gov’s, and the plan itself is written by the people who live with the animals. It was not reviewed by a veterinarian or an emergency manager, and it has been checked by programs, not yet used by people. Also in Spanish: Plan de emergencia para mascotas; both pages keep the same plan on this device, and each shows Ready.gov’s lines as its own language’s page words them. The page holds one plan and keeps it until you erase it. Found a mistake? Email [email protected].