When A Picture Is Worth MORE Than 1,000 Words
September is National Disaster Preparedness month. So we’d like to take this opportunity to provide you with a quick tip and a great resource to help you prepare to keep your pets safe & healthy in the event of a disaster.
First, the tip: Take Pictures of Your Pets.
Now, you may be thinking “I take tons of pictures of my pets, how is this tip helpful?” But you see, unlike the pictures you may take to go in a photo album or post on social media, the photos that will help you find and identify your pet in the event that you get separated during a disaster situation are quite different. These are identifying photos, not holiday card photos.
Take and store the following types of photos of each of your pets on yo
ur phone:
- Close up of their face, with them looking straight on.
- Full body shot, again with them looking straight into the camera.
- Full body shot from each side.
- Pictures of any distinguishing characteristics — include different colored spots on their coat, different coloration of their nose or ears, eye color and any spots on their eyes, lumps and bumps, and don’t forget their tail.
- If the length of their coat changes frequently, such as with grooming, be sure to take pictures of them both in their “long coat” stage and their short.
These sample photos of Daisy show her liver colored nose and another photo of her looking "less groomed" :)
These angles and these shots will do a far better job of telling people what your missing 
pet looks like than your words could ever do, especially in a time of great stress and distress. Go a quick step further and also store these photos in the cloud, using a service such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, iCloud, or another. This will help to ensure that you can access these photos (and other important files and documents) even if your phone dies on you!
Now for the resource: We’ve put together a PDF Guide to Disaster Preparedness for Pets and it’s free to download! The guide includes information about putting together a “Disaster Kit” for your pets, finding pet-friendly accommodation in the event of an evacuation, ensuring that your pets have an ample supply of their chronic medications and enough clean water to drink, including product suggestions for filtering contaminated water, and lots more.
Have a great long weekend, and stay safe!
Dr. Jason Nicholas
The Preventive Vet
Please note: Unless otherwise stated, products, services, and/or companies mentioned, or links to same, are for illustration purposes only and their inclusion does not constitute an endorsement from Preventive Vet. Additionally, we are NOT compensated if you choose to buy what we feature.
P.S. If you know anyone who would benefit from this tip please share.
ur phone:
pet looks like than your words could ever do, especially in a time of great stress and distress. Go a quick step further and also store these photos in the cloud, using a service such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, iCloud, or another. This will help to ensure that you can access these photos (and other important files and documents) even if your phone dies on you!
