Pet Survival Kit

The likelihood that you and your animals will survive an emergency such as a fire, tornado, or terrorist attack depends on emergency planning done today. It is the responsibility of all pet owners (survivalist or not) to properly prepare for pet survival with an emergency preparedness plan. The best pet survival kits will consist of the following:

Short-term survival
Recent pictures of your pet placed both in the pet survival kit Survival collar worn by your pet that contains the pet’s ID, name and address, phone number, rabies tag, and license

Your pet’s vaccination documents with proof of rabies vaccination
Copies of other important medical records
Pet Health records
Mini-first aid kit with pet meds
An extra leash and collar
A pet carrier
Water and food bowls.
Two-week food supply
Several gallons of clean drinking water
A pet waste disposal system including newspapers, cat litter, poop scoop, bleach, and plastic garbage bags
Grooming tools, toys, and treats

Place all of the contents in a large bag clearly labeled and place inside the carrier. Planning and preparation will enable you to evacuate with your pets quickly and safely. But keep in mind that animals react differently under stress. Outside your home and in the car, keep dogs securely leashed.

Long-term survival
If you plan on storing a six-month or longer supply of pet food you need to purchase food grade buckets to store the food in.

Blanket
A good pet first-aid book
De-wormers
Pepto Bismol tablets
Generic Benadryl capsules -- 25mg, for allergies
Sterile gauze rolls and pads for bandages
Adhesive tape
Ace self-adhering athletic bandage
Hydrogen peroxide
Rubbing alcohol
Over-the-counter antibiotic ointment
Epsom salts
Tweezers
Petroleum jelly
Antiseptic lotion, powder or spray
A Nylon leash
50 feet of rope
Cotton balls
Splints and tongue depressors
Towels
Muzzle or material to make one
Penlight
Scissors
Needle-nosed pliers
Ice pack
Plastic eyedropper or syringe
Sterile saline solution
Glucose paste or corn syrup
Styptic powder or pencil
Latex gloves
Ear-cleaning solution
Nail clippers

You never know what unexpected situation may arise so be prepared to improvise and use what you have on hand. If you evacuate your home, DO NOT LEAVE YOUR PETS BEHIND!

Roughly 600,000 pets were killed or were left without a home as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Many pets lost their lives due to the immense weather, and others could not be taken into safety shelters so they were unfortunately left stranded.
(www.hurricanekatrinarelief.com)

How To Survive

Skills Beat Gadgets and Practicality Beats Style.
Search the web and you can find everything you need to become a survivalist. No way! Preparedness is not just about accumulating a pile of stuff. You need practical skills, and those only come with study, training, and practice. Any armchair survivalist can buy camouflage fatigues and an array of guns and accessories. Equipment should not be mistaken for genuine skills and practicality.

Tools Without Training Are Almost Useless.
Owning a gun doesn’t make someone a marksman any more than owning a skateboard makes someone a skateboarder (although there are an awful lot of posers out there). With proper training and practice, you will be miles ahead of the average citizen when you need to implement your survival skills. Get at least some basic medical training. Get the best firearms training that you can afford. Raise a vegetable garden each summer so you can become accustomed to growing your own food.

In the coming months I will discuss: food storage, bartering items, navigation, first aid kits, coping with critters, emergency backpack, how to start a fire without matches, and water treatment. I hope to supply you with all the information you need in order to survive both inside and outside of your home.

Solar Water Disinfection and Pasteurization

According to the EPA, if you can’t boil water, you can disinfect it using household bleach. Do not use non-chlorine bleach to disinfect water. Typically, household chlorine bleaches will be 5.25% available chlorine. Bleach will kill some, but not all, types of disease-causing organisms that may be in the water. If the water is cloudy, filter it through clean cloths or allow it to settle, and draw off the clear water for disinfection. Add 1/8 teaspoon (or 8 drops) of regular, unscented, liquid household bleach for each gallon of water, stir it well and let it stand for 30 minutes before you use it. Store disinfected water in clean containers with covers. There are two big disadvantages of treating water with chemicals. First chlorine can be potentially dangerous if used improperly and it may not be readily available when you need it. A safer product is ION. It is a non-toxic, stabilized oxygen liquid that is added to stored water and reportedly kills pathogenic bacteria. However, it is not readily available in most stores. But there is a safe chemical free option, inexpensive option for disinfecting your water.

Cardboard and aluminum foil are unlikely tools for disinfection water until you factor in sunshine. Solar water pasteurization uses the heat of the sun to raise the temperature of water to a point where microbial pathogens are destroyed. Disease-causing organisms in water are killed by exposure to heat in a process called pasteurization. Water that has been heated to 65ºC (149ºF) for a short period of time is free from microbes including Escherichia coli, Rotaviruses, Giardia and the Hepatitis A virus.

Although traditional fuels can be used to pasteurize water, on sunny days solar energy is the better choice. A major problem with boiling water for disinfection is its energy consumption in relation to cost and availability of the fuel supply. If you do not have electricity you do not want to spend all of you fuel supply sanitizing your water. Boiling water for five to ten minutes takes a lot of fuel.

With full sunshine, it takes about 2 hours to pasteurize 2 liters of water. In order to determine when water has reached pasteurization you will need to invest in a simple device called a WAPI (Water Pasteurization Indicator). The WAPI is a simple reusable device containing a special soy wax. The wax melts at the same temperature as the water is pasteurized. The tube hangs on a string inside the container with the wax end up, and once the water around it becomes hot enough to kill the bacteria the wax melts, running from the top part of the tube to the lower end. Although it is designed for solar pasteurization, the WAPI can be used for pasteurizing over most fuel sources including gas, wood, and charcoal. WAPI’s generally cost between $5 and $10.

Solar water disinfection is also known as SODIS. The SODIS process involves filling clean PET (Polyethylene Terephtalate) transparent plastic bottles with water and exposing them to full sunlight for six or more hours. The combination of UV-A radiation and raised water temperature disinfects the water. There are a few drawbacks to this method. SODIS efficiency depends on the physical condition of the plastic bottles, with scratches reducing the efficiency of SODIS. Leaching of bottle material. There has been some concern over the question whether plastic drinking containers can release chemicals or toxic components into water, a process possibly accelerated by heat. A solar cooker will make the process more efficient.

While pasteurizing will solve a lot of disease problems, it does not remove other things found in the water such as chemicals, pesticides and heavy metals.

You can purchase elaborate solar cookers or build one using simple materials. You can find a large number of solar cooker building plans at http://solarcooking.org/plans. I have included instructions for a simple windshield shade solar cooker at the end of this article. I have also included instructions from Needful Provision, Inc. on how to construct a simple solar water-distilling unit.

Building and testing a solar cooker also makes an excellent school science project. The last project I worked on with my child was, “Can you bake cookies in a solar oven in North Carolina in the month of January?” The conclusion was yes. Solar cookers should certainly be one the items at the top of the list for TEOTWAWKI. They are portable, use only the sun as an energy source and they work!

”KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON”

Are You Prepared?

"Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food," Barton M. Biggs writes. "It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe, there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down."

We are in control of our destiny, but a breakdown of society could redirect the future. The question is - are you prepared for the fallout?