[USMCJim]

I have two dogs, both good dogs, both mutts, but I love em. Something I have been hashing over in the past few month is this, what happens with my dogs when the SHTF? I have decided to start training them to make them assets in that environment rather than drains on my resources. I love my beasts, but if it comes down to my family or my animals.... lots of heartache but I will do what is necessary. I would rather prepare WITH them so that they become part of the team.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Any advice would be appreciated. This is not something I have seen or heard too much about. Let's talk about it.

 

[willc453]

Been stocking dry/wet dog food just like I do for people and have a 3 month bulk supply. My plan/hope is to stay bugged in, but if I gotta go, they're going with me. Got the 3 of them saddle bags which carries 8 vacuum sealed bags (2 cups of per bag of dried dog food) and 2 cans of wet. If you buy saddle bags, make sure you get ones with a chest strap along with of course, belly straps. Without the chest strap, damn bags wiggled off the dogs like they were hula dancers! : Hope this helps.

 

[catlady12]

Stock dry food and they get scraps. 1 cat 1 purebred min pin

 

[kfilly]

I purchased 3 months supply of food as well for.my dogs and cats. I even built BOBs for.my dogs. I placed six premeasured meals into each of their backpacks that have been vacuum sealed. The cats are on their.own if we have to bug out on foot. They won't walk with us like the dogs will, and I won't be holding a leash or carrying a cat carrier when there would be.more important things for my survival. I feel the same way about all of my animals as they are a part of the family.

Even the cats will be good when SHTF. They will be good at keeping mice away. One of the must underrated things is keeping rodents away from your living quarters. Rodents will more than likely become bad after sanitary conditions deterioriate, and they are known for carry lots of diseases.

 

[dealfinder500]

This is how my pets prep.

 

[TxRanchMedic]

I put up hay bales for winter use and always try to keep an extra 60 for a bad summer. The rye and coastal fields are fertilized and rotated. The morning feed might get a little thin until the fan is cleared and back up and running.

 

[Just Jeff]

Who rated this thread one star? It's a good question.

Dry dog food has fat in it, which will probably go rancid in long-term storage. Be sure to rotate what's in storage. That's one place where canned pet food would be better than dry, IMO.

Also, be sure you practice with their packs the same way we practice with ours. They can get very uncomfortable on dogs, so going on practice hikes will help them adjust gradually, show you where any hotspots arise that would cause you to adjust their pack, etc.

 

[JustPlainT]

1. Food: Rotate stocks for them just like you do for yourself. Table scraps/other foods can work too, but make you sure you know their calorie requirements because they differ from humans (and in fact will differ from breed to breed). Your vet is a great place to ask the question about calorie requirements.

2. Pack extra water away. Depending on the dog's size this amount will adjust.

3. Any medications that you can stock up on are great. Most of these you won't be able to have much stock of, but some you can. For example, if you always buy their heartworm preventative such that you have a few months of it left, great.

4. Have some spare blankets, dog toys, food and water bowls, and leashes, as well as an extra copy of all appropriate papers on them (vet records, microchip records, photos of you with them, etc).

5. If small enough/appropriate, make sure you have a travel crate for them.

 

[Xlegionaire]

My dogs have B.O.B's and there own packs (yes my dogs resemble small horses... I do have some dry food stored but because of the low shelf life I am looking for sources for large quantities of rice and pasta. My pups are definitely family but working team members as well. The GSD is great security and the Rhodesian Ridgeback is hell on paws when it comes to tracking game and by her demeanor I can tell if its a predator or not! We dont plan to bug out! We are bugging in!

 

[Rascals]

Prepping pets, hum I say some garlic, pepper, Johney's seasoning salt some paparika, Oh nevermind, you meant to get them pulling there own weight. Our dogs grew up on the ranch, so they take care of the ground squirls, we encourage, we try to keep them away from the geese, ducks, and quail, and I don't think we will have another problem with them going after Elk, once was enough they learned that was real fast. But they can feed themselves plus they get scraps from the other animals who feed on hay and such.

 

[JustPlainT]

If you're specifically looking for giving them skill sets, it depends on your scenario.

For us, a suburban bug-in, there isn't much in the way of chasing game. Dogs are more a sentry for people like us. Some need training to do this, some it comes naturally. If you live in a more rural area and/or plan to bug out to one, hunting dogs training is good as well. Our dogs are very good about spotting would be intruders (mail men, door to door salesmen, etc) already and in a disaster situation, they would alert me to the fact that we have incoming trouble to deal with.

Cats, urban, suburbs, or rural are pre-trained killers. They were first domesticated as a prepping/survival aid, and they return to their instincts without much coaxing from humans. They excel at protecting your preps from mice and other small rodent like pests. Keep cats near or around your prep areas and watch as they take care of any pests on your behalf.

 

[Mountain]

How are you prepping your pets?

With Barbeque sauce.......


But then most of my pets are livestock.... lol

As for the dogs, well when we have pups we keep the ones with the wolf genes that allow them to get by on less food. Our dog "Chunky Monkey" is 3 generations removed from our original Timber Wolf "Gizmo" add mixed with Golden Lab now and Black mouth curr. As a pup she was less aggressive than the others and did not compete well for food, she would always sneak over into the neighbors hay field and steal apples from beneath there apple tree and sneak them back and gobble them up. It was quite cute watch her doing that. As little food as she got though, she was by far the chunkiest of all the pups and still requires only a tiny amount of food to stay quite healthy.

As for cats, we feed just enough dog food to them to keep them alive, and the rest they must make up for with hunting.

 

[Texas Patriot]

I bought my German Shepherd that really nice AR15 I saw last November! TP

 

[USMCJim]

Good responses. My dog's are mostly spoiled indoor mutts. I know that these wouldn't last long in a real survival situation unless they adapt, quickly. I was just seeing what, if anything, others are doing in this area seeing how it isn't discussed much.

 

[ambos lados]

I see lots of answers about food and backpacks, but not much about developing your dogs' capabilities to contribute to your groups' survival.

I don't have much to brag about here. My current dog is the dumbest one I have ever had. Her trained skills are mostly in the area of not making extra work for me: rings a bell to go out, does her business in 1 spot only, stands on a towel until feet dry, and just now will also find and bring the wireless phone on request. And of course barks at approaching visitors unless she recognizes them.

She did surprise me on a road trip over Christmas by taking a written message in her mouth and delivering it to a specified person on another floor. The recipient was thrilled no end, but actually all my other dogs have done this, too, as well as carrying tools back and forth, etc.

So now we have: sentry, and messenger. And the sentry alerts I have used go beyond visitors, to include sounds I may not hear right away or from a distance, such as kitchen buzzers, telephone, garbage trucks, etc.

I suspect this dog is hard of hearing, and she is certainly hard of paying attention. We have done some basic SAR work on tracking, air scenting & finding human-associated objects, but I have trained a lot of dogs, and I don't think this one will ever focussed enough to be counted on.

She does love to play ball and retrieve objects from the water, and she is an exceptionally powerful swimmer. One idea I want to try out sometime is fishing with a gill net. I know it is possible to cast the net and draw it in single handed, but I when I think of a net suspended in the water from plastic float balls on the surface, I think it might be pretty easy to train a dog to help haul in the net by grasping the floats.

I will be interested in what roles others are using for their dogs.

 

[grant9908]

My cat is part of my prep. Yum!

 

[Ghent]

I save all the vegi and meat scraps and can them with rice to save as dog food.

 

[TheGuppie]

my dog is old and useless. all i need for her prep is a bullet. get it over with and move on.

 

[TheGuppie]

on second though, get a goat. a supply of milk which can be made into cheese and trade, it will eat almost anything, can drag in it's own supplies and it can handle all terrain. Tactical survival goat.

 

[goofwife]

I volunteer at a rescue and am glad to see this thread and everyone thinking/preparing for their pets. we deal with so many people dumping them, that it's hard to imagine people actually caring enough to prepare for them.