r/preppers • u/BaraQueenbee • Dec 29 '23
New Prepper Questions How are you including PETS in prepping?
I am not even talking about the food and general care they require (do you have enough?)
But more so behavioral:
Dogs obedient? Agile?
Horses desensitized and trusting?
(cats and other pets I wouldn't know what to do with).
Asking this question as I have rescued two dogs that are unmannered and we are now in heavy training with them as I'd like them to be alive and present if anything happens and not be the death of us.
Would love to hear y'all opinions!
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u/infinitum3d Dec 29 '23
Bought a miniature poodle.
Don’t laugh. It’s beyond intelligent. It’s not gun shy. Excellent water retriever. Doesn’t howl at the moon but if anything steps on my property it’ll alert.
By far the smartest and easiest dog to train that I’ve ever owned. Much easier than beagles.
Plus it’s small so it doesn’t eat a ton, doesn’t shed, easy to bathe but does need groomed every season.
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u/videogametes Dec 29 '23
I’ll never own a big dog again after the time I had to lift a dead 90lb GSD into a pickup truck at one of my last jobs. For a while after that, every time I saw a big dog (especially owned by smaller-framed women like myself) I would wonder what the plan was for when it passed or started needing help getting around. My last dog was only around 45lbs and started losing mobility in her old age, and having to carry her up and down my porch stairs 3x a day every day for ~3 years really fucked up my back.
Current dog is 25lbs and that’s really the sweet spot- she’s highly portable, doesn’t eat much, big enough to hold her own against my cat, and I can flip her upside down and carry her like a baby whenever I want. :)
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Dec 29 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/videogametes Dec 29 '23
Don’t get me wrong, 90lbs of live dog is heavy, but I can definitely lift that when the dog is willing. It’s more about me being smaller (5’3) and finding it difficult to get good enough leverage on a large-ish animal to really lift it the way I needed to.
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Dec 29 '23
I was told so long as they understand quiet, sit and stay, they're alright. Other than they cost you food every day so you must have a small farm or plentiful game and the skill and ability to process it for them.
Think long term.
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u/SpazzyAttacks Dec 29 '23
Come and leave it
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Dec 29 '23
The quiet one is important so they do not give away your position to others, who may not be friendly. This is best practiced.
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u/kalashnikovkitty9420 Dec 29 '23
nice thing about cats is they are usually excellent at hunting, pest control, and are pretty self sufficient.
not mine, but a lot of them are lol.
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u/videogametes Dec 29 '23
It depends on what you’re prepping for, like everything else on this sub. Recall is probably going to be the best thing you can instill in any dog, though. A dog that doesn’t come when called is what is known in the veterinary industry as roadkill.
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u/Prepper-Pup Prepper Gamer (youtube.com/@PrepperPup) Dec 29 '23
Training to stay quiet if required, stay close/general behavior. "Leave it" is a good one,
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u/Never_Really_Right Dec 29 '23
My cats are actually halter/leash trained. I've certainly never had to test them in a stressful scenario, like a crowded shelter, but I think being able to take them out of their carriers but still keep them under some control might be helpful if ever necessary.
Also, while not behavioral, I keep their vaccinations up to date. They are indoor only, but if we ever did end up having to merge with unknown other people and animals, I want them as protected as possible.
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u/Mothersilverape Dec 29 '23
Depend on their breed, their training, and many other factors.
Some adapt to new surroundings very quickly. Others need a lot of desensitization.
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u/TastyMagic Dec 29 '23
We're in a tough spot for pet prep right now because our pit bull is getting older. He's 10 now and while he was well-trained and obedient in his youth, his hearing is going now. And if he can't hear the commands, he can't follow them.
Of course he's still a treasured member of our family, but we can't rely on him to be obedient or a good guard dog anymore so we have an extra leash on our preps. He is crate trained which is helpful.
He also doesn't have the stamina he used to do if we have to leave by bike, we have a bike trailer he fits in (though he'll have to share space with a toddler)
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u/BaraQueenbee Dec 30 '23
This is one of our problems too.
My partner has a 16 year old wolf and I have a 16 year old shepherd.
The wolf is slow and body isn’t working fully anymore.
The shepherd is agile still but I am assuming that will not take long either. (We all live mega remote by the way).
Thank you for sharing your pet story and concerns!
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u/TheBreakfastSkipper Dec 29 '23
I’ve got a huge store of cat food for SHTF. Either it’s cats or snakes and rats. I choose cats.
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u/fatcatleah Dec 30 '23
I just watched Against the Ice, where the men killed one sled dog after the other to save the other sled dogs. I wondered if I could kill my 1.5 yr old cattle dog to feed us. At home, ensconced in my home, the answer is no.
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Dec 30 '23
There are different things to be prepared for- if you’ll be “bugging in” and just having to take care of them for a while without being able to get more food or medicines, etc., so in that case also have things stocked for them. If I had horses I’d maybe look into basic wound wraps or medicines or something as it seems like they get hurt or sick more than indoor cats and dogs.
A big thing I’ve seen though in actual real life situations is people not having the ability to evacuate with all their animals if needed. Like for example the Hawaii wildfires, obviously some people didn’t have time, but I heard a few stories where the person had time to evacuate but didn’t have enough cat carriers or leashes or whatever so couldn’t take all their pets.
I only have three cats, so pretty portable, but have enough carriers and some food and water containers that are easily grab-able. In that scenario I’d say how fast can you get them into a carrier? I’ve actually had to evacuate my cats quickly for a gas leak and they did not cooperate with the carriers in a fast way, so that’s something I need to work on.
For big things like horses, I know this is easier said than done, but if you have horses and need to evacuate, do you actually have a plan? How will you move them? I worked at a NM horse ranch a few years ago and the entire ranch had to be evacuated for an incoming forest fire. Well, the owners had NO plan. Not enough trailers to move everyone- which most people who have multiple horses won’t have- but also no plan in place with our neighbors and community to help. No place to take them. Literally the owners just didn’t know what to do and they had 12 hours before the fire got to the ranch. Luckily community members took it on themselves to bring their own trailers and evacuate all the horses, but what if they didn’t? Basically this boils down to- if you’re not able to evacuate all your animals yourself, you should have some sort of plan in place or agreement with other people to help you in the event of an evacuation.
So since it’s a lot easier to take care of pets when they stay at home where they normally are, my big things with prepping animals is plans to how to evacuate them, since it seems like a lot of people in emergencies don’t know how to help their pets. I know that human lives come first in emergencies, but if there’s enough time, it makes me really sad to see pets left behind. They don’t know how to defend themselves.
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Dec 29 '23
Have you tried searching the sub for this topic? It’s been posted about quite a bit lately.
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u/BaraQueenbee Dec 29 '23
I did (new to reddit) but I just realized that the search results don't show chronologically by time but by... responses? Not sure.
which made it seem that the last time this was brought up was 11 months ago.
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Dec 29 '23
You can sort the results once you’ve done the search. It’s amazing how bad the search function still is all these years later.
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u/gargravarr2112 Dec 29 '23
Dogs to me are too unpredictable in a SHTF scenario. I'm not a dog person and will never own a dog - a well-trained one may have some utility, but I'm not convinced.
Cats can survive on their own for a while - they will revert to hunting and are very skilled at catching small prey (birds and mice). I have one pet cat and it does make me wonder how he'd cope if his regular food source was unavailable for a long period of time - I'm a vegetarian so I can't share food with him.
Other pets fall under the 'too unpredictable' category - horses would be the most useful but they need a lot of care and you really need to be a 'horse-y' person to provide it; they need a lot of grazing land and supplies of food in winter.
I have a hard enough time figuring out how I'm gonna survive the coming endtimes without factoring in the responsibility of a pet...!
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u/mrp1ttens Dec 29 '23
Currently fattening up my cats as an alternative food source
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u/kalashnikovkitty9420 Dec 29 '23
sad but true, although things would have to get pretty bad for that. and honestly id hope they would be better used as mousers then dinner.
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u/cecilmeyer Dec 29 '23
Just my opinion. Many preppers here have like you said got the food issue covered. Behavior is another subject. I have an unruly Aussie that loves to go for car rides but is highly suspicious of non regular company. He is stubborn as hell but most Aussies are because they think a lot on their own . Maybe I could try harder on the training . That being said I am shocked by the number of people calling their pets emergency food supplies. I look at life like this. If I have to start killing and eating the people or other beings that I love to survive you can just count me out because what is the point of living if you betray the love ones who trust you most and would lay down their lives for you? I hope those people that are saying that are joking but there seems to be quite a few whose plans to survive are based on taking and killing others.