Maile:  - to share what she's knows about this particular topic. She is a guide dog user and has done presentations on this topic before. Because we want to take advantage of everything that she has to tell us, she is going to mute us. But if you happen to have a question during her presentation. Please email it to me, and I'll forward it to Jenine, so she'll cover every single question that comes through, at least we hope every question we will be covered during the call. My email address once again is M, as in Mary, George, G-E-O-R-G-E, @guidedogs.com. Thanks again, Jenine, you can go ahead.

Jenine:  Okay. Now that we have everybody muted here, let me repeat Maile's email address for you just in case the echo was a little crazy there. It's mgeorge, that's G-E-O-R-G-E, preceded by the letter M, @guidedogs.com. So if you have any questions, anything I don't cover, hopefully we can get through everything in this hour. It's going to be a quick hour, at least I'm hoping so, anyway. I'm very honored to be with you all, and I heard some names that I've known for many years out there, so thank you so much for having me. 

Emergency preparedness is a hot topic. It has been for quite a long time, since 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, etc. And particularly after Hurricane Katrina, people with disabilities really came to the forefront in emergency preparedness planning because of some of the tragedies that took place during that particular emergency.

Probably the biggest thing that FEMA and all of your local emergency preparedness organizations want you to be aware of in preparing is it starts before there is an emergency. It starts before there's bad weather, before there's a natural disaster, when everything is nice and calm, and we're all just sitting around kicking back. 

We're going to talk a little bit tonight about how you can prepare for an emergency and then what to do during the emergency. You can't be prepared for everything. So trust me, you can plan, and you can try very hard to make sure that you have everything, and you always inadvertently miss something. But at least you will be ready, and you will know the answers to some of the most common questions.

The best way to start your emergency preparedness is to find out what goes on in your community in case of an emergency. There are generally three types of emergencies that we think about. We think of a person emergency, and we'll go over that here in a bit. We think of a natural disaster, and we think, these days unfortunately, about act of terrorism. That can be domestic or foreign, whichever it happens to be, and we'll talk about that a little bit. 

When you think about how to prepare for any of these kinds of emergencies, first of all, you really want to identify who will take care of your dog if you're not able to. That could be in the case of a natural disaster, highly unlikely, but if you're involved directly in it, and you're injured, you want to make sure that there's somebody out there to take care of your dog. 

If you're involved in a personal emergency, say you fall and hurt yourself in your house, you get hit by a car, god forbid, or any number of things that can happen to folks, have a plan, have a plan ahead of time. Ask a neighbor; ask a friend; ask someone to be that caregiver for your dog. And when you talk about being a caregiver with someone, you want to make sure that they know your dog; that they know how to feed your dog, if there are any special commands that your dog uses at feeding time; at breaking time, how to take your dog out. Don't just turn them out in the backyard and let him eat everything that's back there. Don't leave him unattended back there. Go over with them what the commands are for your dog, etc. So prepare it like you would your child to go on a sleepover sort of. And you may want to have a time when the person takes care of the dog over, say, an evening and just let them get the experience of taking care of the dog so the dog is used to them, used to their house, etc. 

It's really important to have all this in place before anything happens because we never know. Accidents, things like that can happen to any of us at any time, and so having this caregiver is a really important step. Also, remind the caregiver what they should do if you're incapacitated for a long time. Should they call the guide dog school? That's always a good thing to do because in many cases, your school can help either get the dog to their facility or a facility where it's going to be able to be housed during your recouperation, etc. So having that person know what to do is a really good thing.

Now, going through my notes here. So after we've identified our caregiver, and our caregiver knows the food, and all of that stuff and has a key to our house so that they can get in in case they need to and get dog supplies and things like that, then we need to identify ourselves to our public agencies. And that would be each county is required by FEMA to have an emergency management plan for natural disasters and all kinds of disasters. So you want to find out from your city and/or county what that plan is and who you should to talk to. 

Your local police and fire department are great places to identify yourself. Just walk in and say, "You know what? I want you to know that I am a person with a disability, and I have a service animal. I live at X address. And what are the plans in this area in case we have a natural disaster?" Around the country there are different types of things that can happen, weather events, forest fires, kinds of things that generally your safety services are prepared to handle. So these folks are not going to look at you like you have two heads. Trust me. They are, in most cases, going to understand what you're talking about. They may even, and they should, actually, have a registry where you can say, "Please put my name down. What kinds of arrangements are going to be made for transportation of people with disabilities? Where can I go if I need to evacuate or go to in the case of this really inclement weather, a warming center?  How can I get, then, from the warming center to, say, a hotel, if I have to stay overnight and my power is off or something like that? How can all of this happen? What are the procedures in place for this to happen?" And it's good to know that ahead of time. 

Those calls can be made just so that any time that you've got some free time and you can talk to your public officials. And if they don't know, keep hounding them until they the answer for you. I know that some of the smaller, more rural areas of the country, they may not really quite have it together yet. And that's where you can help them at a time that's not an emergency. So that you can say, "Look, if you need some education on blindness, some education on guide dogs, I'd be happy to help you do that in exchange for me absolutely knowing that I'm going to be take care of in case of an emergency and that anybody else in my community will as well."  

Learn who your neighbors are. I know that in some urban settings and in some communities, this can be a little dicey, but it's important to know your neighbors because in the case of any sort of emergency, you're all in it together. And that's when you really are going to be relying on other people as they might be relying on you to know where to go, what to do, and how to help. 

Learn where your evacuation centers are and how to get there. How are you going to get there if it's snowing like mad and you have to evacuate your house? How will you get to a warming center? What will that look like for you? So know that ahead of time. 

Finally, in my prepare ahead of time steps, talk to your veterinarian. And I say this for a number of reasons. Talk to your veterinarian about boarding your dog. Some veterinarians offer boarding services; some don't. If your vet doesn't offer a boarding service, ask him or her where they would recommend to board your dog in case you're incapacitate and you need to have your dog somewhere where it's going to get care. Then talk to that boarding facility. Let them know this is a service animal. I may need to board it here for X number of days while someone contacts the guide dog school or another facility if it's going to be a longer term kind of thing.

Now we're going to get to the fun part: other things you can do to prepare, the physical things. Put yourself together an emergency kit. Now you're going to put together one for yourself. There are all kinds of resources online about how to do that for you, the human. We're going to talk about your dog's emergency kit because they get their own emergency kit, and they're going to need one when you see the number of things that go in here.

I suggest starting with a good backpack or duffle bag that you can put everything in. One of the easiest things to do -- and I want to thank the folks at Leader Dogs for this because their alumni actually came up with this set of suggestions and workshop that I attended recently. Make yourself an ID card. You can print this information up on a piece of paper, fold it up and put it in your wallet. You can print it however you want, but as long as you have that with you, on your wallet, or in your dog's harness pouch. I've even seen a little USB kind of thumb drive that you can put on your dog's collar and put this information in it. So those kinds of things are out there where you can have this information on your dog as part of your dog. 

What you want to put on this little ID card is the following information: your dog's name; your dog's breed, color, and gender; any tattoos or microchips if you have the numbers for those -- that's great to put on there -- or just identifying that the dog does have a microchip in case their collar and their microchip tag might be gone and where the tattoos are if your dog has tattoos; your regular veterinarian's contact information; your caregiver's contact information -- and that can just be name and phone number -- that's fine; any medications your dog is on, especially daily medications and weekly medications -- monthly ones that's not as serious, but if they're on daily medications, definitely put that on your card; any special food your dog eats -- you want to put that on the card.

Okay. You finally want to finish your card with the contact for your guide dog school. That's really important because if your dog somehow is separated from you, and believe me, we've gotten these calls and they always happen. I work for The Guide Dog Foundation and believe me, we get these calls. They happen on the weekends, and they happen during the holidays. We get a call that says, "We found a dog wandering in X, Y, Z neighborhood." Or "X, Y, Z dog has just been brought to the Humane Society or this veterinarian or that veterinarian. What do we do with it? It has your tattoo on it." Then we have to track down, oh my gosh, what happened to the person. 

In one case, the person was hit by a car, and the dog escaped and it ran away. Luckily, the dog was not hurt. We were able to get the dog. Everything was fine. But you want to put something on the dog that will identify the guide dog school so that people can know where to call and what to do, just in case. So that's our emergency card.

Now, if you use a smart phone, and you use an ICE, I-C-E, in case of emergency, application -- and there are many of them out there -- if you use one of those, add this information about your dog to that app if you can. And if it doesn't have fields to add the information, write to the app developer and let them know that you would like a place to be able to add that information. The app that I use that I'm in the process of adding all of my information to is called ICE 911, I believe. I'd have to look up the exact name of that app, but it is one for the iPhone, and it allows your basic information to come up whenever your screen is locked so that people can actually see it. And those are great things to have if you have your phone with you, something that would have information that they could find out about your dog on a similar sort of little ID card to what you would have in print in your wallet.  

Let's look at the other items in your emergency kit. In your backpack, you are going to have a one-week supply of dog food. I found an eight-pound bag of whatever dog food you have, sealed up, works really well to fill the bill for this. We'll talk about checking the kit periodically also. At least one-week supply of medication, if your dog takes a daily medication. If it's a weekly or monthly medication, you may want to put one dose in there. 
We're expecting you're not going to be away from your home for more than a week during a natural disaster. We certainly hope that's the case. If it's not the case, and you're away longer, that's when we're going to look at some support services for you. 

Canine first aid kit. These kinds of kits are available commercially. You can buy a premade one or you can make one up yourself. And I'll tell you some items to put in the self-made one so that you know exactly what they are, and you can label them in Braille if you like. I know the Red Cross has a very nice canine first aid kit. They're also others that are commercially available with items. 

Clean up bags, of course, and those can be of any size, shape, and color as long as they get the job done. 

Vet wrap. Vet wrap can be used for a million and one things. Vet wrap is just a stretchy kind of gauze, if you're not familiar with it, that basically sticks to itself. It's a great bandaging material. You can make a muzzle out of it. You can do a number of different things with it. It's just a handy thing to have in any pack or first aid kit or even in your harness pouch for bandaging up a foot that's been cut on something. 

Resealable bags. These can basic Ziplock bags. You will need these to keep things dry, including some of your paperwork, including a copy of your vaccination records, your dog's vaccination record. Actually, your vaccination record is not so important, but your dog's is definitely important. You may, in some situations, have to show those to public officials. It's pretty rare that you would, but having them in your kit is always a good idea. 

A towel. Of course if you're in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fan, you know you never go anywhere without your towel. But that notwithstanding, a towel is a great thing to have in your kit. If you can find one of those super absorbent terry towels, those shammys, those are great, something you can dry your dog with. 

Dog boots. You can either -- and there are a million different kinds of dog boots out there, folks. I hesitate to give you any recommendation, but basically, you want, at the very least, a disposable bootie, something that is going to keep your dog's feet clean and away from the salt, away from the heat, and things that might cut their feet. So a pair of dog boots thrown in there is always a good idea. In my mind, the disposable kind are good enough for this kind of a kit. Save your good boots for your every day travel. But you can get disposable dog boots. I believe there's one company called Pawz, P-A-W-Z, that sells a line of disposable boots that are quite good. 

A dog dish, of course. In fact, a couple dishes, maybe one for food, one for water depending on what your dog likes. There are a number of foldable bowls out there. Bamboo makes a wonderful line of silicon, collapsible bowls that fit very nicely into backpacks and such.

Drinkable water. This is something you're going to change fairly frequently. I would say once a month, go into your kit, look it over, change your water out, look at your food. Drinkable water, they recommend two gallons minimum. Now you could have more than that, but then it gets a little unwieldy to carry around. The reason you want to have water already on hand and water from your home or water that your dog regularly drinks is that you may be going someplace else, and your dog may have a reaction to different water. Most dogs don't, but some dogs are a little sensitive. Also you may be in a situation where you have to boil water or have water stored. This way the dog will have its own drinking water, and you'll have the water there in the kit already. 

An extra leash and/or tie down cable or bed chain, whatever you happen to call them, but that cable that you use to restrain your dog. An extra leash is always a good idea because these are stressful situations and dogs like to chew. You definitely don't want to come up with a short leash at any point in this whole adventure. 

And, as I was reminded by somebody who sent in an email -- this is great advice -- a chew toy or your dog's favorite toy because your dog is going to be stressed during this period and having something for them to chew on and release some of that stress or play with is a great idea. 

Here are some items that should go in your canine first aid kit. Boy, it's a good thing I'm not reading my own Braille out loud. 

Scissors and tweezers. These are very important. Hopefully, you will not have to be removing any foreign bodies from your dog's paws or anything like that, but just in case, that's always a great thing to have in a first aid kit.

Antiseptic wipes or antiseptic handwash, something like that, an alcohol wash, something that you can sterilize an area with. 

Antibiotic ointment. You can get this from your veterinarian. They can recommend the type of ointment for you. There are several on the market, Neosporin, a couple of other types that are out there specifically for dogs, one whose name is escaping me at the moment. 

Nausea and diarrhea medication. Very, very important. Again because you're going into a stressful situation, and you want to have these medications on hand for your dog. Talk to your vet about this. What medications do they recommend? Can you use some Pepto-Bismol tablets, or are you going to need a special veterinarian version of that? Also for the diarrhea, what can you use for that? Some Pepcid AC is always a good thing to throw in there too because it's just a stomach calming kind of thing if your dog has a bit of an upset stomach from all of the chaos that it's going on.

Bandaging. This can be vet wrap, but mostly it's gauze pads, just some good sterile gauze pads. You can get those at the drug store. I like the bigger sized ones, at least 4 inches by 4 inches because usually if a dog needs a bandage, they usually need a big bandage, especially on something like paw, if it's been cut, or a nose or an ear or whatever. So I would go with the 4 by 4 inch big gauze pads, if you can.

Kwik Stop for broken nails. And Kwik Stop comes in a little tub. You can usually find it at pet stores. It's usually where the nail trimming items are. It's basically styptic powder, which I'm not sure exactly what it's made of, but it's the stuff that you put right on a broken nail, and it stops it from bleeding, and it stops it very quickly. If you can't find Kwik Stop, you can take a bar of ivory soap and use your cheese grater and grate the bar of ivory soap into a little container and seal it up and put it in your first aid kit. That also works to stop bleeding on dog nails. It's not quite as quick as Kwik Stop, but it certainly does work fairly well, and then of course clean off your cheese grater [laughs]. 

Calming medication. This is a personal choice, but it is a good thing to put in your kit. Any kind of medication with valerian root is usually a good calming medication. It doesn't dope up your dog. It doesn't make them unable to work. It just takes the edge off of them. And if your dog is already frightened by thunder, etc., you may really want to talk to your vet about some additional kinds of calming medication for really high stress situations. 

A cloth muzzle. This is in case of injury. You want to muzzle your dog, and you want the secure muzzle for your dog because when they’re hurt, they don't care, probably. They're hurt and they're going to snap. So you're going to want some sort of a muzzle in there. It can be as simple as something that looks like a cloth hairband for those of us that used to wear those or a sweat band. But some sort of a cloth muzzle to be able to restrain your dog, if they are badly hurt. 

I would recommend that, if you find it available in your area, that you take the Red Cross Animal First Aid course. They do frequently have it available. We also have a contact sheet presented at Guide Dog Users, Incorporated. It's a top dog workshop, and she does this nationally. So if you all would be interested, this lady is fantastic, and she has presented these workshops to blind guide dog handlers, so she very familiar with how to show you physically how to do these things. But a first aid workshop for animals is a really good idea. That way you can get to know your dog, get to know how to monitor their vital signs, and things like that.

Okay. Let's go to the types of emergencies. We're all prepared. We have our kit. We have everything we need, and now we're going to go to the types of emergencies. 

We'll start with the personal emergency. Now we're going to assume that you have found your caregiver ahead of time, and that you've discussed all the things that you need to tell them about your dog, all those parent-like things that we tell anybody who's taking care of our dog for us. And we've shown them how to relieve the dog, how to clean up, all the commands the dog knows, what to let it do and not do. 

Another really important thing to tell your caregiver: "Do not take my dog out in harness. Do not try to work my dog." Now, if it's another blind person and another guide dog handler, maybe they understand the dog and they know the dog. That's up to you. But generally, you don't encourage that for people. Your dog's going to be stressed enough without you. They're going to know something is wrong and asking them to work either for someone or as a way to just keep the dog with that person, nah, not a good idea. So I would recommend not having the dog in harness and working with you. 

If you're going to be in the hospital and you're going to be there for a while, check the hospital's policy. Hospitals are not required or expected under the ADA to care for your dog. And I know that some hospital staff are more than happy to do this. Unfortunately, they can get in trouble for that from their supervisors, etc., because it's not something that they're really supposed to do. 

Now, can your dog be with you in a hospital? It certainly can if you are in an area that doesn't require people to wear protective clothing. If you have to wear protective clothing or people have to wear that to come visit you, then it's not a good idea to have your dog in there with you. So, now, and I'm [background noise 00:24:43] I was just reading one of Maile's messages here. Anyway, back to the hospital, check on the hospital's policy about service animals. 

This is something really important that the Leader Dog folks said. Let's say you are taken to the emergency room of your local hospital. Do you know whether they have a kennel available for your dog if you're unconscious or incapacitated somehow? If they don't, you might want to suggest that and just say, "You can get a nice, collapsible kennel, a great thing to have and a great thing to just place in your facility. And it can be put in somebody's office. If there's somebody who comes in with a service animal, the dog can be put in the kennel if necessary until something can be done." That's just one of those good prepare ahead of time suggestions.

Okay. Now we're at the fun part, natural disasters. And my goodness, haven't we had a lot of them this year. As I said earlier, each county and each municipal area is required to by FEMA to file a disaster preparedness plan. And as part of this plan, they do have to include services for people with disabilities. So you will want to ask your local officials what are they going to do? What is their plan for evacuating people with disabilities? What is their plan for evacuating people who don't have transportation? It's obviously a very, very important thing. Will they come and get you and take you to a shelter if need be? What is their plan for that? Identify yourself to your local law enforcement and emergency personnel prior to any kind of disaster. 

Let's look at a couple different kinds of natural disasters. 

Fire. We never want to think about fire either happening to our own home specifically, or in the case of you folks out in the West, there are wildfires and some of those, of course, in the East. We know that Florida a few years ago had a series of very bad wildfires. The first thing you want to think about it -- and think about this wherever you go -- how can I get out of my structure with my dog? Think about this in your own home. Let's say your house catches on fire. How can you get out? Are you going out a window? Can you get your dog out the window? If your doors are blocked, how can you get you and your dog out of your structure? If you live in an apartment building, and they kept the fire stairings and things like that, look at how you're going to get out of that building. Look at the ways before an emergency, and talk to your landlord and your building management in conflict management about exactly how they want you to evacuate and the best ways to evacuate if necessary.

As always in the case of fire, keep low. If that means grabbing your dog by the collar or harness and dragging them down to the floor so that they can keep low and out of the smoke as well, that's a very important thing to do. Don't be afraid to do that with your dog. 

If your area is under the threat of wildfire, and they tell you to evacuate, do it. I know that some people want to stay with the homes and their belongings and things like that, but it is so much harder and more dangerous for the emergency personnel to get you out after they've given that evacuation order. So whenever they give those orders, really pay attention to them because they are there for your safety as well as the emergency personnel. 

The same thing goes for floods. And floods sometimes can happen in just minutes. A dam can break, whatever, can happen. I had a friend, years ago, who was out walking, and it was storming, and it was bad weather, but she had to get home from where she was going. And she came up to a street corner, and she heard just a massive amount of water like she was standing in front of a river. Well, the truth was, she was standing in front of a river, and her dog backed up and said, "We're not going across there." One of the emergency services people came up and said, "This is not safe." 

If you hear a lot of running water in your path and you're out walking, don't try to cross it because flood waters can contain a lot of debris. It can take you and knock you over very quickly. So be very, very careful, and if you do get into some standing water or some moving water, try to back out of it as quickly as you can because you definitely don't want to play with flood waters. They can be very, very dangerous, and very quickly, before you know it, you can be overwhelmed by them. And your dog will try to do whatever it can to try to be with you because that's what our dogs do. And so we don't want to endanger us or our dogs. So stay out of those waters.

Oh, now we're getting into the good one: blizzards and severe winter weather. I certainly hope everybody is warming up around the country. I know we had some subzero weather the past couple days, and we were very lucky we did not lose power. But keep an eye on your winter weather, and don't be a hero. Do not stay in your house if your power goes off. Leave, if you can, leave, and prepare to leave because if you lose power, as time goes on, it's going to get colder and colder. And you may think, "Well, I can handle it." But if that temperature drops, the temperature in your house drops, then other things begin to happen. Not only does your power go off, but your water pipes can freeze, and all sorts of other things can happen. So it's just a good idea to leave if you can. Go to a warming center. Hopefully you figured out where those are before the bad things happened, and you can get there. Go to your neighbor's house. Stay together with people because if you're there in your house alone, and another emergency happens, say you become ill or you have some sort of other personal emergency, what not, it's going to be very hard for people to come get you if it's so cold and such. So get out if you can, if your power goes down. 

If you're power doesn't go down, one good thing to do when it gets really cold -- and we had this question about water pipes. Your utility company will have lots of tips for you on keeping your water and electricity and everything maximized during winter. Pay attention to those. I know most of us just kind of blow that kind of information off. But really, call your water company, your city water company, whatever you use, your power company, and say, "I'm concerned about what I should do if my pipes freeze or break, and my house is full of water, and it's freezing out there." 

As the weather gets bad, fill up some containers with water, drinkable water. Because you're not only going to need water to flush your toilet and to take a shower with or to take a sponge bath with, but you're going to need water to drink. And so make sure that you've stored some water.

To keep your pipes from freezing, one thing you can do is to keep that water running, a very, very low trickle, but keep it running. That always helps if your pipes are on the outside walls of your house, you may want to wrap them with something, a blanket, whatever. Just to keep that temperature a little bit down. 

Now somebody else, "How cold is too cold to go out with your dog?" Wow. That's a tough one. The general wisdom that I have always heard is 10 degrees for more than half an hour is too cold for your dog. If you're going to be out for longer than that at 10 degrees -- and that's just 10 degrees flat, not even counting a windchill or whatever -- more than about half an hour is too long for your dog. 

What begins to happen is the skin tissue on their noses where they have no fur and the tips of their ears where their skin is fairly thin begins to get frostbite. And that is not a good situation. It's not good for the us. It's not good for the dog. The paws are a little bit tougher than that, but eventually their paw [automated phone operator 00:33:08]. So if you see them licking their paws -- and not just because of all the salt -- but maybe biting at their paws, that's probably a sign that they have been out too long. You want to get them inside, and you want to use very warm, not hot, but warm water to wipe off and periodically blot their noses and the tips of their ears if they seem to be shaking their head a lot or rubbing their nose or chewing on their paws quite a bit. You want to make sure to clean those paws off when you come back in and definitely clean them with warm, clean water because they're going to be stepping in all kinds of things, salt. Hopefully not as much pet unsafe antifreeze as there used to be, but certainly antifreeze will be out there quite a bit, so you want to definitely clean those paws off and make sure that you don't have any frostbite.

If you have no other choice than to be outside for that long, I will say, break down, take a cab, do whatever you have to do, but keep your dog out of the minus 30 and 40 windchills that are out there because they don't really have the same protection that we do. And that kind of wind chill, over even about 10, 15 minutes, is going to be way too much for them. I strongly suggest winter coats are great. Boots are fantastic for your dog, but minimize the exposure in the really, really severe weather if you can.

Earthquakes. You guys are the specialists at earthquakes at Guide Dogs for the Blind, I have to say. I have never been through an earthquake. My husband has been through them. My one piece of advice is do what your emergency preparedness people tell you to do. Take shelter inside. After the event is over, be extremely careful going outside. 

The same thing can be said for our next category: tornadoes and other severe thunderstorms and hurricanes. Because after these events, there is so much debris outside. You want to be extremely careful. It's almost worse after the event, sometimes, than before. In the case of a tornado or hurricane, a severe storm that comes up suddenly, you want to practice ahead of time, one safe place in your house. Learn where that western inside wall is, in the case of a tornado. You want to be against that, generally, against that western or southwestern inside wall. You want to be in the middle of the house, if you can get there, preferably in a bathroom in a bathtub, some place like that, and bring your dog in there. 

Many dogs, as they get older, are going to get more sensitive to storms, so bring out those calming medications before the storms, if you know that they're coming. Sometimes we have these popup thunderstorms, particularly here in the Midwest where you don't know they're coming, and they just hit you like a freight train. And you have no idea that they're going to be that bad. All you can do is hold on, don't panic, don't get overly gushy with your dog, just be very matter of fact, very calm. If your dog is panting and being very, very stressed out, you just have to let the dog do this because really, in the moment, there's not a whole lot that you're going to be able to do to reach them. After the fact, you can talk to the school, talk to your veterinarian about ways to handle storms and things like that and maybe some stronger medications that you can get for your dog if they show that they're being very upset.

In the case of tornados, those of us in the Midwest, if you have a tornado shelter in your house or a basement or a place that you can to, practice getting there quickly with your dog during tornado season or during the severe thunderstorm season, which extends a bit beyond tornado season. We've had severe weather in March. We've had severe weather in November that involved thunderstorms that we had to take shelter from. 

Hail is another big one. If you find yourself caught in out in this kind of weather, I don't care what the building is, go inside. It's very dangerous. The wind can pick up in speed exponentially, and a stick becomes a missle. So think about that if you get caught out in a storm. Get into a bus shelter. Get into some sort of shelter in a building, not under a tree. We've all heard the stories about lightening striking trees, but the truth is that other things can strike trees. Branches can fall off trees, etc. So don't take shelter under the trees. If you have to run up on somebody's front porch, do it. Do whatever you have to do to keep you and your dog safe, if you get caught out in one of these storms.

The hurricanes you usually get a little bit of prep time. And again, know your local area. Know what your disaster plan is and know where you need to go during that hurricane. 

All right. Now, moving on to our next category. And I know I haven't covered all of the natural disaster kinds of things that can happen. I'm sure there are avalanches and rockslides and dust storms and all kinds of things, but the big thing about natural disasters is to know ahead of time what kinds of things can happen in your area, what your local plans are, and then what your personal plans are in your house, and make sure that your dog is incorporated into those plans. How am I going to get my dog out of the house? How am I going to get us to a safe place? And make sure that you're prepared with your emergency kit for yourself and then a special one for you dog. 

Now let's talk about a really scary part of today's society: acts of terrorism. Let's say you are at the mall, and there is a mass shooting. A person opens fire on people. This has happened. It happens everywhere, unfortunately, in our country today. Let's say you're a college student and something happens on your campus. The very first thing you need to do, religiously, is follow all of the instructions given by the law enforcement people when they arrive. Before they arrive, get down. This is the safest thing to do. Get down, get small, and get behind something. Put something between yourself and your dog and the person doing the shooting. If people are running and you can follow them, that's wonderful. Do it. Get out. Get away. And stay away. Don't try to be a hero. 

If you are in the direct vicinity of the shooter, get down, get small, and stay there. Don't move until law enforcement people tell you to move because they could mistake you for the gunman if you're up and moving around and trying to figure out how to get out. Just lay there until somebody with some authority tells you to get up. It's kind of a scary thing to think about. It really is. But it's something that we definitely have to do. 

In case of a bombing or an explosion, if you're running, know that there's going to be debris and that your dog may be hurt by running through the debris. So be very careful, and if somebody's got to pick up your dog, that's fine. That's great. Let them do that. 

In case of you being in a building, etc., that is exploding or there are explosions around you, this is going to sound horrible, but be prepared to let go of your dog. Sometimes, you just have to do that. I know how Michael Hickson, who's one of our heroes in this community, certainly didn't do that on 9/11, but the other gentleman who escaped the World Trade Center did do that. And he and his dog both got out, and life was good. But you have to be prepared, sometimes in some situations including natural disasters, to do that to save either yourself and/or the dog. It's a tough thing to think about, and nobody ever wants to think about being put in that situation. But it's something that you have to not beat yourself up about doing either if you have to, but hopefully you won't, and hopefully your dog will help get you out of that situation.

Now, after the disaster, sometimes this can be almost as bad as the actual event. And as I said before, there's usually a lot of debris with a natural disaster, even a blizzard. With a hurricane, there's certainly a lot. As the folks who went through Hurricane Sandi last fall experienced, there's a lot of debris, a lot of debris. And that debris can stay there for weeks and onward. It can really change your regular route. In the case of a blizzard, snow removal itself can just destroy your regular routes and your regular ways of getting places. So be very patient with yourself and your dog. Always have boots for your dog when you're going out after these kinds of events so that they're not going to get the paws cut or they're not going to get any other noxious liquid, like antifreeze and other things. If they use any of the foams to fight fires and things like that, you don't want them to get any of that stuff on their paws. 

Do not ever let your dog lick from a puddle that's in the road. You never know what's going to be in there. Particularly this time of year, antifreeze is just a scary, scary thing. I've lost a pet to antifreeze poisoning, and it's not a pretty thing. 

Also, your landscape is going to change. Let's see -- make sure I have everything here. 

Finally, if your dog, after one of these events, is showing some increased sensitivity to noise, increased sensitivity to storms and changes in the barometric pressure, increased sensitivity to smoke. Some dogs who have been in a fire situation are terrified of smoke from then on, and you never know how much smoke you're going to encounter in your daily life. So you have a dog that’s afraid of smoke. Trust me, the barbeque grill at a place next door doing off could, who knows, set your dog into a shaking fit. So it's something you want to look at. And call the school immediately because it's always better to work on these problems when they start because in the case of fear, it's a tough thing to handle, and you don't want to make any mistakes in the beginning that are going to make it worse.

So the good part of my blathering on and on for almost an hour here, in summary, is that we have things that we can do. We can be empowered when it comes to these natural disasters. We can be prepared. We can think about what we're going to do ahead of time as we come into situations like winter storms and things like that. I don't think anybody knew that it was going to be this cold at the end of 2013, end of 2014, but luckily, hopefully, everyone is fine, and everyone was able to get to a place that they needed to get to if they couldn't be comfortable in their homes. 

In summary, prepare ahead of time, find a caregiver for your dog. This is a huge, huge thing, folks, to do. Prepare an ID card for your dog, not just your school ID, but something that has more detailed information about your dog, including your caregiver's information, your guide dog school's information, and your veterinarian's information, so that people will know exactly where to take the dog and what to do. Talk to your vet ahead of time about what to do with your dog, etc., and whether they would be able to take the dog in case of a personal emergency. In the case of a natural disaster, that's going to get tough because everybody's going to want to bring their dogs to the vet. 

There have been a lot of questions about what to do if you get to a shelter and they say, "No animals allowed. No way." This is where that education ahead of time goes a long, long way. Talking to the FEMA agency, the FEMA designated agency in your county, in your city that handles disasters and saying, "Look, I don't want this to happen. I don't want to have to fight this battle." Because legally, yes, your assistance dog, your "service animal" is entitled under the ADA is allowed to come with you into the shelter. The shelter folks are not responsible of course for providing anything for the animal. You have to bring all of that with you. 

But I happen to know that the Red Cross -- we have reached out to the Red Cross as a guide dog school. I know GDB has as well. All of the schools when there's a disaster, believe me, we're on the phones and --  do we have anybody if the Red Cross needs anybody? So you can always make that connection through the Red Cross back to us, your guide dog school, and make sure that you get what you need. If it's special food, if it's medication, whatever it is, try to make that connection. 

Get that started ahead of time though. Talk to the emergency agencies about what is going to be available, and make sure that if that means you coming to speak to some of the training classes for personnel, great. Offer your time to come do that and get some materials from your school to do that education. That will go a long way in easing your mind, and plus you're going to help all of the other service animal handlers in our community who they may not even know about but may come to the shelter with their service animal of whatever type. So that's a very important thing. Those are good steps ahead of time. 

Make a up your own personal emergency kit for yourself, and then make up one especially for your dog. Remember a week supply of food and change out that food regularly. Take a look at that kit once a month, see if that food is still good in its bag. Check your water, at least two gallons of water. That's about all most people can carry in a pack like that. And dump out that two gallons every month and refill it. Make sure that it's nice and clean and fresh.

Also you may want to add -- and you can get these at any camping supply store -- some water purification tablets. Those are good to have in your own personal kit as well. Because you never know what the water's going to be like where you're going to be, or if you're stranded from there or stranded in your house, you have a boil alert or whatever. Water purification tablets are always a great thing to have. Get them and learn how to use them and test them out. Try using them before the disaster. A lot of this is all about before bad things happen. 

So what I'm going to do for our final few minutes here is I'm going to open this up, and we will have Theresa and Maile, if they can grab some of your questions if you have any. Hopefully I have covered everything or everyone. 

Maile:  Hello?Hey, everybody, it's unmuted now.

Theresa:  Janine, that was awesome. This is Theresa. What a great review.

[Crosstalk 00:48:32]

Louise:  I have a question. I've been sitting here listening to you. I'm Louise in from [inaudible 00:48:36] . What happens if you're out, and an emergency happens, and you do not have your weekly kit with you? Say you're in Vancouver and you live in [inaudible 00:48:45] and your bag is at home, and you have an earthquake when you're in Vancouver. [crosstalk 00:48:51]. You've prepared everything in your own area, but you might be an hour away from where you live.

Janine:  Well, I'll tell you what, Louise, let me answer that. I'm going to mute everybody, and then I'll answer that one. How about that then? All right. So Louise's question was what happens if you're away from home, and you've got your kit and everything is great, but the emergency happens and you're not where you kit is. 

One of the best things at that point is to have that ID card with you, the ID card about your dog. Granted, you're not going to be able to get to your emergency kit, so you're going to have to rely on the kindness of strangers at that point and whatever shelter system is set up where you are. But, having that identification and those numbers and those ways that, if you are separated for your dog, people can get in touch with you, that's always a good thing. 

I have started packing things when I pack to go on the road, extra dog food, lots of extra dog food, extra baggies, first aid items, just in case something happens. I've been stranded in blizzards in airports for days, and not fun, and you need those emergency items then, but especially if you're going to an emergency shelter. Also identify yourself immediately to the emergency services people, the Red Cross people, and say, "I'm going to need X, Y, and Z." This has happened. Believe me, I have gotten this question before, Louise, from one of our graduate who ended up in the shelter after -- I believe it was Hurricane Sandy, actually. And she was just visiting the area, and said, "Wow, I have nowhere to stay, nowhere to go." So it is a thing to think about. 

If you're traveling and if you're only there for a couple of hours, whatever, I think still just thrown a day's extra dog food in. Tuck some medication in there that you can be able to get a hold of quickly in your bag or in your purse or whatever. I know I carry five million bags with me. So I wish there was a way that I could say this will solve the problem. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to play it by ear, but having that ID card of all the crucial information about your dog there so that someone can look at it is really important.

And we'll open it back up here.

[Crosstalk 00:51:21 - 00:52:13]

Jenine:  Okay. We'll mute everybody again, and Candice's note was very important. She was explaining and giving some advice about when there are these mass shooter incidents and one that a friend of hers was involved with, where the shooter actually pulled the fire alarm to get more people to run out of the building so that he could shoot them. That can happen. That's why I say okay, if people are running and you can tell that you're running away from a shooter, great. 

In a fire alarm situation, your sense of hearing is destroyed. Your direction hearing is gone if you're in a building. Generally, it's a good idea in any building, when you go in, remember how you got it and think about how you're going to get out. That's just something to remember about any particular building that you go in if you've got to get out in a hurry. You're in a restaurant and there's a kitchen fire, or you're in a hotel and there's some sort of a disaster. Think about how you're going to get out. That's something to think about all the time. 

However, in the case of a fire alarm, sometimes it is best just to wait until you can grab onto somebody official, or somebody comes to get you or something. You know it's not a real fire alarm. It's a tough call though, because I know when a fire alarm goes off in our building at the Guide Dog Foundation, we all have to go outside whether it's a fire, whether it's just the alarm malfunctioning, or it's a test. You all have to go outside. So it's a very tough call. It's something to think about if it's a shooter. But if you know it's a shooter and if other people are saying it's a shooter, you need to just get down, lay down and stay there. Again, very, very tough call.

I think we have time for one more question.

[Crosstalk 00:54:00 - 00:54:32]

Jenine:  Okay. Andrea asked if a couple things that would be good for the first aid kit would be a talking rectal thermometer. That would be great if you could find one. That would be fantastic. Although, usually you're going to have more signs than just actual temperature to tell you if your dog is having problems. That's always a good thing. I wouldn't not put it in there. And a cloth muzzle, would a head collar be sufficient? Only if you can snug it up enough to keep the dog's mouth closed. If they can open their mouth with the head collar on and you can't snug it up enough to keep their mouth closed, that can be a problem because the whole goal of that muzzle is to keep them from nipping you and biting you. And so you would definitely want something -- I know that the Gentle Leader can be snugged up pretty tight, and I believe probably the Halti and the Infinity Lead can as well. So, as long as they can do that that would probably work out well.

All righty. I'm going to turn this back over to Theresa and Maile to close out the call. I thank everybody very, very much. If you would like to contact me, you can do so, Jenine Stanley, and my email is Jenine, that's J-E-N-I-N-E, @guidedog.org. Here we go, back to your lovely hosts.

Maile:  Well, thank you very, very much everyone for joining us today for an extremely informative Speaker Series call. And Jenine, we can't thank you enough for [crosstalk 00:56:07] more questions to come. Theresa, do you have anything else you want to add?

Theresa:  No, I just wanted to say thank you to Jenine and of course to you, Maile, as well, and the committee for putting this -- it's a great presentation on. Jenine, I may be bugging you for notes, so that we can get something up on our website.

Nicole: This is Nicole from Cleveland, and I was thinking yeah, we need notes.

[Crosstalk 00:56:37]

Jenine:  I would be more than happy to provide notes [crosstalk 00:56:47].

Theresa:  All right. Everybody stay safe and take care everyone. Thanks for calling in everyone. Bye-bye. 

[End of Recording]