Planning for the Unexpected
Hello, it’s Melanie Canatella! Recently my basset hound Ramona ended up at the emergency vet due to poision. We do not know what it was or how it happened; that’s a long story for another day, but it happened. Due to last weeks adventures, I wanted to talk about planning for the unexpected with animals. I have a long list of procedures in place for almost any type of emergency possible. It is good to prepare for the unexpected because that’s how life is! When it comes to our animals, we need to be sure we have procedures in place so care does not decrease and safety increases, but also to decrease stress during stressful events.
The first thing I always have is a separate account with my bank specifically for animal emergencies. I do not touch this fund ever except for emergencies. I do not pull from it for food, enrichment, or basic vet visits. I put a specific amount per month in there that I have determined from my monthly income. Even any money I get from holidays, special occasions, or an influx of funds that month I will divide into the emergency fund and my personal savings. It really came in handy when Ramona was at the emergency vet because she could get high quality care without me stressing about how I will pay the bill after. I didn’t have to stress about funding, or trying to quick sell things, because I had it covered already. Though stress does come back after that huge chunk of change is gone, I know that I have enough in my personal saving I could dip into if someone else has a medical emergency.
Another thing I recommend is to have a written plan of action for emergencies. What if you have to evacuate your house for any reason, where will you and your animals go? Communicate with friends or family to see if they are a resource, or look into hotels in your area and budget that you could go to with your animals, ensuring their pet friendly and how many pets per room. Two years ago, I brought home bed bugs after rescuing two African greys from a residence. I had to move everyone out of the house for 2.5 months immediately for fumigation that was toxic to parrots. Thankfully, my mom made her home bird safe, and we were able to stay there.
Think about other situations. What if there was unfortunately a fire? This is one of my biggest fears. If you have dogs or cats, keep extra leashes everywhere. I have leashes by my back and front door and in my bedside table. This is so at anytime I can easily get my dogs out of the house. For my birds, since it is impractical to get 10 large carriers out in the event of a true emergency, I have adopted the pillow case method as makeshift carriers. I put parrots in pillow cases, zip tie them, and throw them into my car until everyone is safe. Then, I will get them into carriers, which are housed away from my house in a separate building.
Having an escape rout is important to know in case of other natural disasters. Wild fires, flooding, hurricanes, tornados, earth quakes, all of these are potentially frightening and devastating. Plan out escape routs for traveling to safety. Traffic may be bad, or roads may be unsafe depending on what is going on, so finding multiple paths to escape can be handy in a situation where stress is at an all time high. Even having extra cages or carriers in tornado shelters, basements, etc. can make moving animals to safety so much easier. I can assume that people who live in areas that are known for certain natural disasters to happen already have plans in place, and likely have already lived through a crisis, but even for those areas that are not known for problems should still have a plan of action in place just in case. It doesn’t hurt!
A big one that I cannot emphasize enough is training. I have been through emergencies, most of them medical emergencies, with a lot of animals of a variety of species. I’ve been through so many that when something does go wrong, like last week, I am very calm and logical about things. Usually, my emotions come later, like when I was leaving the emergency vet with Ramona still there getting supportive care. But with my experience I have also found that life is so much harder for everyone when the animal is not trained. Stress can be the difference between life and death for a sick or injured animal. If we can decrease the stress in the patient then we can help the animal easier and we decrease the chances of an animal becoming more critical.
In my recent experience with Ramona, I was really thankful for these behaviors I trained. Ramona is really comfortable traveling in a car. She is comfortable with other people walking her away from me, though she does look back from time to time (which is extra sad for me). She knows how to take pills and liquid medications without needing to force them down. She takes pills in her food bowl, or with a bit of peanut butter, and she will sit and lick a syringe with even aversive tasting medications inside. She is crate trained, decreasing stress while being in the kennel at the vet. The techs were very happy with her being so calm and quiet in her kennel. They said the only time she got rowdy was when I called for the last time to talk to the vet and she was being discharged; the staff swore it’s because she knew I was coming. Ramona knows how to give her paw and is comfortable with people holding it, making it easier for blood draws and IV catheters. She is comfortable being touched and manipulated all over. My dogs allow a vet to do anything to them, even sitting still for x rays without sedation. Not only was hearing how great she was from the techs nice, but also knowing that she is less stressed with the care she is getting was very reassuring.
Now, for birds, I have been through far more medical emergencies with them, and I have found a lot of behaviors to be helpful! One of the most important behaviors you can teach a parrot is to be calm while being restrained in a towel. A lot of my guys are, and I always leave the towel they were trained with at the vets with them. Birds are naturally neophobic and can behave differently at subtle changes including the change in the look and color of the towel. I always leave mine with them because I know they will be successful with it. If your bird is restrained trained, the vet staff can do a lot with your bird without having to teach more behaviors. Vets can get a weight on your bird, do the physical, take blood, give medications, do nail and beak trims if applicable, transfer your bird from carrier to the kennels, can give x-rays easier, and so much more. If you are going to teach your bird one husbandry behavior, I highly recommend restraint training. This is something I train and work on with clients who are interested.
There are other behaviors you can work on with birds. Training them to step up on a T perch to get their weight is helpful. All of my birds are, and I bring their T-perch to the vets, and will leave it there with them if needed, so my birds are successful. You can learn a lot about a bird’s health from their weight, so it can help you catch illnesses faster! Another behavior is syringe training. Being able to give any medication no matter the taste to your bird voluntarily makes life so much easier. I have to hang out 12 syringes of medicine per day on a variety of my birds. Having them be trained makes this easy and not stressful. I have an online class on how you can train that!
I also recommend that birds are trained to be comfortable going in and out of a carrier, and with riding in a vehicle. Not having to fight your bird to get into the carrier while trying to get hem medical attention is so nice! Also, making sure that your bird doesn’t get car sick and knowing how to manage that before your bird needs to be seen. If your bird is unwell, or worse critical, and they are vomiting in their carrier, that makes their health decline quickly. The last one is to go in and out of their cage easily. This should be easy if you have already done carrier training, but for some species, like cockatoos, or individual birds, this is a behavior that needs to be mastered and worked on frequently. That way staff don’t possibly get bit resulting in them needing to use protection to handle your bird in the future, like gloves or towels, and in return decreases stress for everyone.
You never know when an emergency is going to happen, so being prepared always for one is helpful. Though these plans and behaviors are helpful, there will always be stress in these situations, and you never know how they will end up. But, having plans and behaviors in place can bring reassurance and decrease that stress. It could just be the difference between life and death. Don’t wait till its too late and your animal is already sick, start while they are healthy! If you have any questions, or are looking to start training some of these husbandry behaviors with your animal, then feel free to reach out to me with your behavior goals! I would love to help you and your animals be successful!