Take a moment to consider what happens to your business and your clients if you are suddenly taken to a hospital. If you are a pet sitter, do the dogs and cats in your care DIE? If you are a doggy daycare, do clients arrive to find the place unattended? If you are a grooming salon or pet store owner, do staff arrive to find that nobody can get in?  This is a REAL issue. In addition to being in hospital you might find yourself charged with animal cruelty.

It might be a car accident, a stroke, a heart attack, even a hostage emergency. DO YOU have someone who will take over your role if you simply don’t appear? Is there a “second in command”? with all the necessary keys?   Is there a “second in command” who will automatically check on animals in your care if you don’t contact them? Pet sitting is VERY vulnerable in this regard.

When you make your emergency plan, take just one additional minute to work out what happens if you are suddenly unable to work or communicate.

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Read also this link for a publicly available bushfire plan template.

It’s that time of year when all good businesses in the pet industry need to review their emergency plan, because with power supplies looking grim for the summer, it might be a trickier summer than you think! There’s a clear association between good planning and good business!

So, what do you need to know?

1. Understand Your Insurance. While not directly related to an emergency plan, ensuring that your store, your goods and animals in your care are covered should something go drastically wrong helps avoid business disaster. Know what kinds of emergencies are covered and which are not, and make sure to carefully review that paperwork each time you renew your policy, in case of any changes.
2. Develop a Response Plan. Make sure you’ve created and documented, including how employees should report emergencies, evacuation procedures, a plan for accounting for all employees after an evacuation, rescue and medical duties if employees perform them, and names or job titles of those to be contacted in such situations. An emergency plan template can be found HERE to make things easier for you
3. Train Your Team. Spend a staff meeting talking through the plan with your team and ensure covering emergency information is included in each employee’s induction training (see INDUCTION CHECKLIST HERE). Then create a plan for reviewing this information with team leaders, managers and/or employees who open and close the business regularly, so that there is always a staff member on hand who knows the plan.
4. Pet Shop Specifics. Pet stores with live animals have a few additional challenges.  Whether you carry fish, hamsters, or rescue kittens, make sure employees know what to do for these animals in an emergency situation – how and where to evacuate them to, and who does it. The unfortunate reality is that some emergencies may not allow all of animals in the store to be saved, and this should be discussed and agreed to avoid risk to employees. In some cases, employees may be able to take actions to ensure the animals will be okay, even if the emergency situation impacts the store for an extended period of time. This happened to a Sydney Pet Shop which was out of power for 12 days after centre fire – so it does happen!
5. Boarding Kennel Specifics. Bushfire is the biggest risk for these businesses, with full evacuation or “stay and fight” plans necessary. With two boarding kennels being hit by bushfire in the last 7 years (one was wiped out, the other with full emergency planning had no issues) – the value of emergency planning should be obvious.
6. Grooming Salon specifics. With so much water and electricity , dogs and people around, planning for electrical fires is a must! You may have only seconds to escape, and water on the floor is an electrocution hazard. Killing the mains switch on the electricity can resolve the electrocution hazard, and everyone knowing what to do in those critical few minutes is critical. Staff MUST be trained.
7. Pet Sitting Specifics. You are in someone else’s home, and you generally don’t know where important things like fire extinguisher or mains electrical switch is UNLESS you give yourself an “induction” on arrival. Safety for you and the pets you are minding ( as well as key household valuables) will be critical. Make sure you retain crates &/or leashes close at hand, and keep halters on all horses you are minding. Horses can be difficult to catch in an emergency.

Thanks to Pet Business news for part of this article.