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it fire, flood, storm or other public emergency, emergency
procedures could involve evacuation. Have you ever thought
of this in respect of kennels?
I have, for no other reason than my
experience with security briefings at Crufts, the Supreme
and National Cat Shows and other large, animal-attended events
where such eventualities are considered.
As far as these are concerned, public
safety has to come first and even in the PDSA leaflet on "Pets
and Floods" it is stressed: "Never put your own
or another human life in danger to save an animal".
This is one reason why there are repeated
warnings at large dog shows, advising exhibitors never to
leave dogs unattended on benches. Practically, it is highly
unlikely, in the case of emergency evacuations, that owners
will be allowed to return to their bench to collect their
dogs, as was put to me at Discover Dogs, "It is then
over to you, Trevor." Animal Evacuation Strategies
The evacuation of a collection of dogs
or cats restrained either in kennels, or on benches and in
pens at shows, would, irrespective of the reason, be a massive
undertaking. Obviously it would depend on the severity of
the risk, how imminent the danger etc. and the availability
of "handlers", be they kennel personnel or owners
at a show.
One has to bear in mind that at the
majority of cat shows in this country exhibitors and members
of the public are excluded while the main classes are judged,
which usually means until about midday. In such a situation,
in the event of an emergency evacuation, can you envisage
security personnel allowing owners back in to evacuate their
own animals, so to speak? In large kennels, particularly out
of working hours, in the middle of the night for example,
with limited or non-existent staff, would it be possible to
put a lead on every dog and every cat in its container and
take it to safety.
In any case, what is safety? Where
is the safe haven? Even if you have only a dozen boarders,
where are you going to put them? Our emergency procedures
at the veterinary hospital involved letting the dogs out into
a secure outdoor compound, which is fine in the case of fire
but what happens if it is an emergency requiring evacuation
of the site? Unpalatable though it may be, practically it
may be the safest solution to leave the dogs and cats where
they are. Can you imagine the effect of this on their owners?
But what is the alternative? In the case of more specific
emergencies there may be more time and the evacuation plan
may be more localised. In the case of flooding it may be possible
to temporarily house animals above the flood line but on the
other hand it may not
Having had experience of partial evacuation
in the case of storms, I could face that problem again with
possibly more optimism than the other emergency situations.
When a tree fell on a relatively new block of kennels, the
emergency in that particular case was the risk of escape and
all we had to do was move about six or seven boarders; of
course it had to be in the middle of the night and at the
busiest time of the year but as I have written in these columns
before, it was always my policy to leave at least 10% of our
accommodation available when we were officially "full
to capacity".
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