Notice

[Dewitt]

#1 Never ever leave your pet behind when evacuating 
for ANY reason be it a hurricane, a fire, or a man
made disaster, even of you think you will be back
soon, Hurricane Katrina has taught many, that is
a fatal mistake (although most people have already
forgotten that and still did the same thing during
Hurricane Rita) and at LEAST 600,000 pets suffered,
drowned and died of starvation and dehydration when
there simply weren't enough rescue groups available.
As hard as it might be to put a small or large animal 
in the car with you, PLEASE just figure out a way and 
put them on your lap if you have to, they depend on 
you to protect them and not chain them up to suffer 
and die. It should never and will never have to be a 
choice between your pet(s) and your kids, you figure 
out a way to get EVERYONE to safety, including your 
pet who is your responsibility and also a member of 
your family, otherwise you should not own a pet in 
the first place if you don't see it that way.

#2 Please adopt a pet from your local shelter instead 
of buying one from a pet store. There are many great 
pets waiting for a home but 80% end up being put to sleep 
because so many people end up buying pets that come 
from puppy mills where the animals are tortured, forced 
to bread 24/7.
Google.com: "Puppy Mills" and you will understand.
Help stop puppy mills by putting them out of business  
and help stop thousands of animals from being put to 
sleep every day and adopt a beautiful friend from your 
local shelter today. Most shelters have pure breeds as 
well, but I prefer mutts myself. Just 1 adoption by you 
will make 100% difference in the life of that pet.
Please also consider adopting a mature pet over a 
puppy or kitten, mature pets are usually more at risk of 
being put to sleep and in most cases a mature pet will 
already be house broken which is better for you.
And remember once you have taken the responsibility 
of taking a pet, be kind to it forever, give it a better 
life then it previously had, in most cases it has been 
abused by a previous owner. If you can't take the responsibility,
don't get one as it will hurt the pet in the long run when 
you decide you don't want to keep it.

#3 NEVER leave your pet in a place you would not leave a 
baby in, such as a car when the temperature outside is hot 
or cold since a car will heat up or cool down really fast 
to an extreme temperature usually worse then it is outside 
and leaving a window cracked open wont help, its is a myth-
even if you think you may only be gone for a few minutes, 
those few minutes make a huge difference on the inside. 
As well do not leave your pet chained outside for more 
then an hour in same types of temperatures. They have fur, 
so imagine yourself in that kind of temperature and how 
you would feel being chained outside for hours in it, and 
then imagine wearing a fur coat during this time- as well 
you should remember that asphalt gets hot, so put a bare 
palm to the asphalt when it gets hot before walking your pet, 
if it burns your palm, it will burn their paw pads when they 
are walking on it so try to acclimate them to pet booties if 
at all possible when conditions are really bad.

#4 If in circumstances of last resort you decide to post a 
listing on craigslist to give your pet away, consider the 
fact that 70% of those you get responses from will NOT BE 
with good intentions, even if they sound and look like 
the nicest and most trustworthy folks on the planet, 
they are professionals and know what unsuspecting owners 
want to see. Once they have your pet because you trusted 
them when they brought "their" 10 year old kid with them, 
your pet will very likely end up being used as live bait 
for dog fight training, or sold to labs for scientific 
experiments, and you will never know, you will just hope 
for the best and want to believe you did the right thing. 
So think very carefully before even deciding to make that 
listing, you might just decide you should make every attempt 
possible to keep your pet with you after all even if it does 
soil that nice new carpet a few times a day, you are better 
of investing a few bucks and taking your pet to a pet behavior 
specialist which will almost always solve the problem behavior 
of your pet.

Thank you for reading and please DO take all this to heart, 
and forward this to anyone you know that also 
owns a pet or is thinking of getting one.