Early in the morning about two weeks ago, a house across the street and about five houses down, had a small fire.  We didn’t hear about it until we watched the news that morning because apparently the humans and canines at Stone Manor can sleep through sirens.

Thankfully the two ladies and their dog were waiting outside when the fire department arrived.

It got me thinking.  What would we do if there was a fire during the night?

I’ve thought about it before, and our bedroom is ground level.  There is a door to the back yard right outside our bedroom door and if by chance we couldn’t get to the door, we have a chair in our room as well as the bed and we could easily push one of them over to the window and use it to climb out.  We have our important papers in a fire box that is safely tucked away and easily accessible in case of emergency.  The dog’s vet records are in 3-ring binders and I’ll put those in the same spot as the fire box.

Sampson and Delilah sleep in our room so I’m not worried about them running and hiding, and our bedroom is at the back of the house and the yard is fenced in, but the dogs don’t wear collars in the house.  Since I heard about dogs being stolen from their yards, we put locks on our gates.

Since the fire down the street I’ve been thinking about this a LOT.  So here’s what I came up with.

Hubby and I have added a key to each of our cars as well as a key to the locks on the gates to our fire box.  And yesterday I did this.

I took two quart-size storage bags and labeled them with each of the dog’s names.  I added a spare collar with a name tag and spare leash for each dog.  When we license the dogs in June I will add their old town tags to the collars.   Then I placed both quart-size bags in a larger bag and labeled it ICE.  This bag now rests on a shelf in the shed in the back yard.

I recently became a consultant for Thirty-One Gifts (if anyone wants to host a virtual party, just let me know) and plan on getting an emergency bag together that will stay in my car.  In this bag, I’ll have blankets, some food and water (for the dogs and us) a couple of spare bowls, a small emergency kit and maybe a change of clothes.

So what about you? Have you given any thought to what you would do in case of an emergency?  What steps have you put in place should something cause you to leave your house quickly?  Have I forgotten anything?