Preparing Your Home For an Emergency

As storm season approaches it's time to prepare your household for an emergency. The likelihood of an emergency in Missouri is great and if you can prepare now it will help reduce stress for the entire household later. We face tornadoes, power outages, fires, floods, storms, or maybe someday even something like a terrorist attack or pandemic flu. The Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services ( http://www.dhss.mo.gov/ )is partnering with the Missouri Veterinary Medical Association to help increase awareness across the state. They have created the Ready in 3 to help families create steps to plan & prepare. They have asked us to help get the word out.

Go to www.dhss.mo.gov/Ready_in_3 for more information.

What are some ways you can be prepared?

• Have a battery-powered radio nearby in the event of cell towers down or power outages.


• Make an emergency kit! Basic supplies should include water, canned food (or dried), a can opener, battery-powered radio, flashlight, extra batteries, prescription medicine, first aid kit, duct tape. A car emergency kit should include a gallon of water, canned food and can opener, sleeping bag or blanket, money, first aid kit. Make sure if you have pets that you also include their food, water and medications that they would have to have. A leash or carrier would be great to keep in your safe room. See the Ready in 3 website for more ideas.


• Create a plan for two situations-staying home or leaving. Your entire family should know & understand your plan. Discuss how you will communicate with each other in difficult situations. Know your pet's hiding places so you can easily find him/her during an emergency. Exchange keys and disaster plans with a neighbor so they can evacuate your animals if you are not home when a disaster strikes.


• Have a safe room in your house and make sure all members of your family know to head there during an emergency. Make sure there is enough space for all your family members and pets. This may be a room that has to be sealed off in the event there are poisons in the air. Keep your emergency supplies in this room.


• Know where to go if you have to leave your home. Plan where the family will meet & plan different routes to get there. Bring your emergency supply kit with you. If you can, bring your pets but keep in mind many public shelters will not allow pets! Prepare a list of places that can accommodate your pet if you have to evacuate. Store the numbers to these places with your pet's emergency kit.


• Listen for information. STAY CALM!


• Identification is important for your pets. Make sure they either have microchip identification (AVID is available at our hospital), or a collar with a tag. Keep them up-to-date on vaccinations in the event they are stranded outside around other animals or end up in an animal shelter! Many pets were lost or displaced during hurricane Katrina, a microchip is the best bet you will be reunited with your beloved pet. This website was created just for the effort of reuniting pets with their families from that disaster. http://www.findkatrinapets.com/ Make sure you pet has identification.

Click on this link to view photo of animals that were kept safe during a disaster: http://www.fema.gov/kids/p_pets.htm

Click on this link to view a video called "Don't leave your pets behind when disaster strikes". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZEGyHaBOzk

Missouri Volunteer Veterinary Corps

I don't know how many people reading are aware that Missouri has a volunteer veterinary corp. Their mission is to help animal owners and officials in our communities protect the animals and public health in case of a disease outbreak or national disaster. The MVVC will be the first line of defense and response. Technicians and veterinarians will be activated quickly in their counties to serve as temporary federal personnel to help meet an emergency. Deployment during an emergency is strictly voluntary.

Two registered veterinary technicians at the Blue Springs Animal Hospital have volunteered as members of the MVVC and have been members now for over a year! They have completed the required emergency management training in the National Incident Management System and foreign animal and zoonotic diseases. They have also received their DuPont Biosecurity Kit
to use in the event of an animal emergency.

Emergencies may include outbreaks of exotic animal and poultry diseases or natural disasters as they affect animals, such as flood, fire or tornado (or hurricane in state's like New Orleans). Natural disasters are unpredictable and cannot be prevented and it is very unlikely that an outbreak of an exotic animal disease in Missouri can be prevented, so we must be prepared.

"The Corps" continues to grow as new volunteer veterinarians and technicians are added through out our state. We hope a disaster will not come our way but we are proud of our technicians that have volunteered to be called into duty if such an event were to take place! We have seen first hand their talents and we are confident they will be of much assistance!

Great Story!

This is an amazing video so I thought I'd share it. I think it shows how much a part of our family our pets can become. Enjoy!

Click here if your having trouble viewing: http://bluespringsanimalhospital.com/single_pages/video_help.html

A glimpse of one procedure we offer...

We recently purchased new endoscopic equipment for our hospital. This allows our doctors a non-invasive way to see what is going on through out the digestive tract of our patients.

This photo is of Dr. Gina Bradley looking at the stomach of Drew. Drew is an 11 year old, neutered male cat that has been continuing to lose weight. (You can see a picture of his stomach on the monitor in this photo.) Drew is under anesthesia for his procedure, with his respiration, and blood pressure being monitored by our registered veterinary technicians. He is also getting intravenous fluids while he is under anesthesia, which is a choice we offer for most procedures or surgeries that require anesthesia.

Dr. Bradley collected samples of a few suspicious sites in the intestines for pathology and sent them off to the lab for results. The results came back as intestinal lymphoma. There is a treatment available for that disease. Drew was eating and fine by 4:00pm on the same day of his procedure and we all are hoping that he will continue to feel good and respond well to his treatment!

Ali's wellness visit and our 1st Blog!

Ali inspects the fish while waiting his turn to see the vet.





This is Ali. He was not too happy to have a visit with the vet today. Most cat's don't like to leave their homes but it's very important to let a veterinarian have a look at least once yearly. We recommend twice yearly exams on all our patients, regardless of species, because of the quick aging process of animals.




Dr. Carey gave him a great check over and noticed that he is over-weight. 20.4# of cat is a bit large...but he is such a good boy! He did great for his blood sample and we obtained a urine sample by using the ultrasound to find his bladder and collected a sample with cystocentisis (getting urine with a needle and syringe). Ali never stop purring! He will need to have his teeth cleaned so we will schedule that right away. In a couple of days we will find out his blood & urine results since they were both sent out to the lab. (We run those in-house when results are needed "right now" but the lab can give us a larger profile so we prefer to send them out when possible). With Ali being overweight I guess I'll hold my breath & hope that he is not diabetic- after all, he is my cat! I have worked for the Blue Springs Animal Hospital for almost 16 years as a Registered Veterinary Technician. I really wanted to start a blog for our hospital so I (and hopefully other co-workers) can share some of the amazing, fun, and sometimes heartbreaking stories we encounter almost every day. I also answer many questions from pet owners on a daily basis so thought I might be able to post a few educational topics as well. My goal is to post something at least twice a week. I'll post Ali's "dentistry adventure" when the time comes so stay tuned!