Bugging In With Pets
Finally at long last, my Bugging In post is here! I am pleased to be back blogging with you guys after my hiatus. I have been finishing up school and starting my career in Web Development / Digital Signage. My website for that if you guys were curious is Rainey Day Hosting . If anyone needs any Internet Assistance please let me know. We also do Social Media Marketing. But without further Ado we will commence with the Pet Emergency Preparedness discussion at hand!
This first thing you have probably already considered about bugging-in is, “Do I have enough space?”. For some people this is an easy question to answer. If you don’t live to deep into any major city then the answer is usually “Yes”, However if you are like me and live in a 1,500 Square Feet Town home, the answer might not be as cut and dry. While I would love to have a cabin retreat to hangout at, and to keep all my preps at, money and work make this very hard to do. If you can accomplish this that’s awesome! I will revisit this topic of making a Prepper Retreat a.k.a. Bug Out Location in a later post.
The first and biggest concern for me when considering Bugging-In other than space is security. Sometimes what I mean by this is how stable your dwelling is and how impervious it is to unwanted guests should you happen to be gone gathering supplies or fighting zombies. Determining this is pretty easy, just walk around with a clip board and make notes of places that need fixing, windows that need to be sealed, 12 Foot concrete Fences that need to be constructed, etc.. :@) . This will give you a good place to start and it will help you on your electric bill in the summer and gas bill in the winter.
I also get a comforting feeling from knowing that my house is sealed up, bug free, and efficient when it comes to energy use. Then you can go down the list of improvements one by one until it is complete, I recommend doing this first because what good is having a bunch of preps if they are not safe from weather or intruders. Your spouse will just think you are taking care of the house which is usually a positive thing, and it is not directly related to preparedness so you keep those pesky unwanted questions from everyone down to a minimum.
Next you want to consider how long you will be Bugging-In for. Most of us including me at first will say “Forever, that is why I am bugging in!”. However in post apocalyptic situations things change and arise almost by the minute, and your plan will change quick. Personally I aim for about 3 months of Bugging In time, this gives the world enough time to deal and accept with whatever changes have happened around you, and depending on your location, enough time for most people to leave the area, or arrive at your retreat area. Staying Put at the beginning of a crisis is a good idea sometimes, and then other times it is completely impossible. Knowing when it is time to stay, and time to go is very crucial to the survival of you and your family. Don’t make hasty decisions if you do not have to, letting things develop around you before you take action can present opportunity’s and otherwise disguised traps and dangers.
So we know that God willing, we will remain home Bugging-In for 3 months. You can follow the guidelines and use the math formulas to determine how much food and water you need, everyone is different depending on the size of your family and how many pets, and their types, you need to provide for. For my family it is Me, my Wife, 2 dogs (Dobby & Benny) and 1 Cat (Biskets) . The Cat is the easiest, 1 – 30 LB bag of food and she is good to go for the 3 months. Throw in a couple bags of treats for good measure and we are off to the races. The dogs are harder to gauge because their store bought food goes stale if i buy to much before they eat it. The average shelf life of Natural Balance is about a month before my dogs start to not like it. I find it I have 2 flavors I can trick them and make it last longer, but this is a unique case. Check out my other post about Stella & Chewies Taste Test & Long Term Food storage for Dogs to get some deeper info on this topic.
Depending on what type of disaster you are preparing for, you need to keep 3 months of those types of supplies. A lot of the different situations will overlap so if you plan for Hurricanes and you get an earthquake instead you will probably be OK. But if you plan for biological disaster and you have an economic fallout some of those items might not transfer as easily. However this creates a perfect situation to convert some items you do not need into barter items. I don’t like to trade bullets or anything that someone can use to come back and take the rest of my preps with!
Once you have your basic 3 months of supplies for food and water down it is time to switch over to First Aid. You should have enough supplies for each pet as well as each human in your house. My general rule is 100 band aides per person and 1 tube / roll / 100 count of medication per person. you can adjust this and apply it to your pet first aid kit. I wrote an article about this, Preps 4 Pets – Pet First Aid Kit which includes a list and directions on how to make one of these for your family.
With the 3 most important, in my opinion, supply requirements met and a hardened stable environment to keep it in, this is a good foundation for bugging in. I live outside of Atlanta Georgia and to me the first couple months of evacuation and people trying to make a stand, can go on outside my door while me and my family can hunker down and wait for the “Storm” to Pass.
One other thing you need is a way to protect yourself. To me there is no better substitute than a good rifle, but each family has their own view on this topic so i will let you guys hash it out. Air rifles are great for hunting small game, and are virtually silent. While they don’t carry a lot of stopping power they will get you a couple rabbits. Get a scope mounted here and buy pellets instead of B.B.S. to get maximum impact. Also people don’t tend to notice people buying buying an air rifle or stocking up on 10 thousand pellets.
With all of these steps met you can be rest assured that you can survive if you stay put until your supplies run out. The best prep is a good plan so think about what you are going to do after all the supplies are gone. Do you stay and replenish? or do you make a run for the country? Maybe stay and try to rebuild the community, determining this will help you try and think about the next step after the initial collapse.
Photo Credits:
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/48166336@N00/409159632″>Pismo Beach, California, USA</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>(license)</a>
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/126917537@N03/15936518111″>First Aid Kit</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>(license)</a>
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/61466848@N03/5726683859″>Qualities of Service</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/”>(license)</a>
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/49672978@N00/405423386″>Pellet1 Stacked.jpg</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/”>(license)</a>
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/71401718@N00/3140267992″>Fire, Volcanic Ash Fallout, Earthquake, Bomb Threat, Adventurous Resident, Evacuation; Anchorage Pioneer Home Disaser Plan, Alaska, USA</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>(license)</a>
Preps 4 Pets 
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