Your dog doesn’t care about evacuation routes. Your cat has already decided that carrier you bought is a torture device. And somehow you’re supposed to get them both out the door when a mountain starts vomiting rocks?
The Thing Nobody Tells You About Pet Emergency Kits
Most people think assembling a go-bag for Fluffy means tossing some kibble in a backpack and calling it done. Wrong. In 2018, when Hawaii’s Kilauea erupted and forced 2,000 residents to evacuate, animal shelters reported receiving dogs so stressed they refused to eat for days—even though their owners had packed food. Turns out anxiety obliterates appetite, which means your emergency stash needs to include high-value treats your pet would murder for under normal circumstances.
Wet food. Squeeze tubes of meat paste. That expensive freeze-dried salmon your cat looks at like it’s caviar.
Also: medications matter more than you think. A three-day supply isn’t enough when evacuation orders extend for weeks, which happened during the 2021 La Palma eruption in the Canary Islands. Residents who thought they’d be home in 48 hours ended up displaced for three months. If your pet takes daily meds, keep a month’s supply in that go-bag, along with medical records on a USB drive because—here’s the thing—vets in emergency shelters won’t treat animals without proof of vaccinations.
Why Your Pet’s Microchip Is Basically Useless Right Now
You got Bella microchipped. Gold star for you. Except when’s the last time you updated the contact information? In the chaos after Mount Nyiragongo’s 2002 eruption in the Democratic Republic of Congo, hundreds of pets were separated from families, and the ones with outdated chip registrations might as well have been wearing fake IDs. Check your registry info quarterly, not when lava’s flowing downhill.
Collars with ID tags seem old-fashioned, but they work when scanner batteries die.
The Crate Training You’ve Been Avoiding Could Save Their Life
Nobody likes crate training. It feels mean. Your golden retriever gives you those eyes and you crack like cheap plaster. But when Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, the U.S. military had to evacuate Clark Air Base, and they only transported animals that could be safely confined. Pets that weren’t crate-trained got left behind—a reality that still haunts some families decades later.
Start now: feed meals inside the crate. Toss treats in randomly. Make it the good place, not the punishment zone. Because when you’re loading a car at 3 a.m. with ash falling like radioactive snow, you don’t have time to negotiate with a panicked animal.
Wait—maybe the bigger issue is identification. Not just chips and collars, but recent photos from multiple angles, including any distinctive markings. After the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption in Iceland (yes, I copied that spelling), displaced pets looked identical under layers of volcanic ash, and owners who couldn’t provide clear photos struggled to reclaim their animals from temporary shelters.
Practice Runs Are Awkward But Necessary Anyway
Here’s what sounds ridiculous: doing evacuation drills with your pets. Here’s what’s more ridiculous: discovering during an actual emergency that your cat has learned to dislocate her shoulders to escape the carrier, or that your dog interprets car rides during chaos as the prelude to abandonment. The Montserrat Volcanic Observatory recommends quarterly practice evacuations after studying behavior patterns during the island’s 1995-1997 eruptions, when unprepared pets experienced stress-induced health crises even after reaching safety.
Run the drill at weird hours. Middle of the night. During dinner. Make it boring and routine so the real thing doesn’t register as apocalyptic.
The Destination Matters More Than the Departure Speed Somehow
You’ve packed the bag, trained the crate, updated the microchip. Now where are you actually going? Because not all evacuation shelters accept animals, and the ones that do often separate pets from owners—a policy that sounds cruel but prevents bites, disease transmission, and the chaos that erupts when 50 terrified animals share close quarters. After the 2014 Ontake eruption in Japan, evacuation centers turned away families with pets, forcing people to choose between safety and their animals.
Research pet-friendly hotels within a three-hour drive. Call ahead. Confirm their disaster policies, because some places that normally welcome pets make exceptions during regional emergencys when they’re overwhelmed. Have backups for your backups. Your dog doesn’t care about your planning skills, but she’ll care a lot about whether you remembered hers.
