Build a pet bunker now
As a little distraction from my current master’s thesis bootcamp, I followed an advertisement on the thesaurus site I’m using because it looked slightly irritating. I ended up at the US Department of Homeland Security. Though I had had the perception before that these guys were in a state of paranoia that was way beyond the healthy, what I found was worse than I expected: A guide on how to prepare your pets for "an emergency such as a fire or flood, tornado or terrorist attack".
Now, please don’t get me wrong. I have a cat myself, which I love a lot and the company of whom I enjoy. I would certainly go to some length to protect it. But this here is a bit over the top, right?
If you must evacuate, take your pets with you if possible. However, if you are going to a public shelter, it is important to understand that animals may not be allowed inside. Plan in advance for shelter alternatives that will work for both you and your pets.
Excuse me, but I’m off to the back yard to build a cat bunker. Will stash some tins of catfood in there, along with a cat-operable tin opener and some felt mouses for entertainment. This way, my furred friend will be safe from harm while the rest of us retreats into the woods, there to heroically fend off the bearded barbarians of al-Qaeda.
But for some reason they didn’t include the bunker blueprints in their high-gloss pdf brochure. Damn. Must be somewhere else on the site.