By now, we have all seen or heard about the wild fires that have been burning out of control in Southern California. In all, the fires have spread across 490,000 acres — or 765 square miles, fanned by Santa Ana winds that produced gusts topping 100 mph. The magnitude of this event is staggering and the measures taken to protect lives have been massive. Throughout Southern California 900,000 people have been evacuated from their homes and businesses.
Many of our animal welfare colleagues are already working to assist with the thousands of animals (domestic and wild) that have been impacted by this devastating natural disaster. As the wildfires die down, and the clean up begins there will be many more animals found in need of relocation, medical assistance and return to their homes.
The Pethealth range of programs and services for the animal welfare sector is designed to provide solutions and support for organizations and pet owners facing emergency situations.
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PetPoint is web-based and hosted in a safe and secure location – in the event that you need to relocate to another location, all your team will need is a laptop and high speed internet access to commence work at another location;
- Should your animals need to be relocated to another facility the PetPoint system allows you to transfer animal records quickly & easily to another PetPoint user’s location in an entirely paperless operation;
- Many of PetPoint’s modules can help manage your organization’s response to a disaster. For example, the Case & Equipment Rental modules can coordinate the search & recovery efforts; the Scheduling module can help track animal transports or volunteers & staff; and the Foster and Transfer modules can track temporary or permanent placement of animals involved in a disaster;
- Emergency situations resulting in large numbers of lost and abandoned animals can be alleviated by the 24PetWatch link with the PetPoint users. This link allows the 24PetWatch lost pet recovery specialists to search through the animal intakes and lost/found animal reports within all PetPoint shelters to re-unite animals with their families helping to take some of the burden of lost pets off the shoulders of the animal welfare organizations;
- In the event that your supplies of 24PetWatch microchips are damaged in an emergency we will replace them for you free of charge
More emergency preparation by pet owners will reduce the burden on the animal welfare sector in an emergency situation. We at Pethealth are here for the pet owners in your community as well.
- Review the ShelterCare tear-sheet handouts with your adopters. No pet owner can predict the future, so encouraging them to upgrade their Gift to one of our core policies listed can provide them with the coverage they may need in the future;
- Review the 24PetWatch tear-sheet handouts with your adopters. In addition to being a permanent method of pet identification and reunification in a lost pet recovery situation, the 24PetWatch microchip can additionally protect your adopter’s pets through enrollment in our EmergencyCare and 24PetWatch Medical programs.
Emergency situations are stressful for animals and can result in short and long term health issues – the ShelterCare Pet Insurance Programs continue to support the animal welfare organizations through the provision of the pet insurance options that have been specially created to meet the needs of recently adopted pets.
Pethealth is continuing to work to add more emergency management modules to PetPoint to meet the needs of the animal welfare community. We are proud to be playing an active role with SART initiatives throughout the United States.
The Pethealth Family
