Choosing and Timing Emergency Boarding: Vet Clinic, Commercial Kennel, or a Friend's House

Compare the three on four properties you can verify, not on the label. Overnight staffing, backup power, who may legally give your animal its medication, and whether the place stays reachable once the region starts moving predict far more than “vet clinic,” “kennel” or “friend’s house.” Then work backward from the forecast: pick the facility before the season, confirm it when a threat first appears, and treat a hurricane watch as the decision point, not the booking point.

A veterinary clinic can be an empty building overnight, and at least one hospital quoted below says so about its own hurricane arrangements. A boarding facility can publish three generators, a concrete perimeter wall and technicians on site. Each of the four properties is answerable in advance with a phone call or a document, and none is reliably visible on a website with photographs of dogs on couches.

Whether to board at all, or take the animal with you comes first. What to walk in with once you have picked a facility is the intake packet the counter asks for.

Rules below are attributed to the state, county, federal agency or certifying body that issued them. Facility policies are that named business’s own published position and apply to that business only. Requirements vary by state, county and facility, so treat all of it as what to confirm with your own facility and jurisdiction.

The Label on the Door Predicts Almost Nothing

Bellalago Veterinary Hospital in Kissimmee, Florida says on its hurricane page that it does not host animals at the hospital during a hurricane or tropical storm. A veterinary hospital has declined to be a storm option at all.

Country Inn Pet Resort & Animal Hospital in Davie, Florida publishes the opposite on its Hurricane Proof Facility page: the facility is open and staffed through all storms and able to care for pets during evacuations. Its feature list includes three generators that it says can run an average of 10 days without refueling, hurricane impact windows and doors, a building built to hurricane code, a 12-foot solid concrete wall, and vet technicians and kennel technicians on staff during the storm. Those are the business’s own claims about its own building. Read the page in full before relying on any of it.

Both are veterinary practices, which is why the category “vet clinic boarding” is useless as a shortcut.

Whatever the label, what matters is that a written plan exists, names the rooms animals move to, states a capacity and names a person or place to go if the building must be evacuated. That is the artifact to ask every candidate to show you.

Property One: Who Is in the Building at Three in the Morning

Owners assume a veterinary clinic means somebody is watching, and that a kennel means nobody is. Neither assumption is reliable, and at least one state has written the answer into law.

California requires the disclosure for kennels, not for veterinary premises

California’s Pet Boarding Facilities chapter, Health and Safety Code sections 122380 through 122388, was added by Stats. 2016, Ch. 364 (SB 945) and took effect January 1, 2017. Section 122384(a) requires a pet boarding facility operator to give each owner written information, including the “Days and times during which personnel are onsite.” It also covers general observation practices during each 24-hour period.

The statute does not say why. What it means for you is concrete: in California you can ask for the onsite hours in writing. Where no such requirement applies, ask out loud, and phrase it as “between what hours is the building empty, and who has keys if it is,” not “do you have overnight staff.”

Two boundaries matter when comparing a clinic to a kennel:

• The floor is low. Section 122383(b) requires an operator to observe each pet as necessary, but no less than once every 24 hours, to recognize signs of sickness, injury or distress. Once every 24 hours is what the statute guarantees, not a description of good practice.
• The chapter does not reach veterinary premises. Section 122380(e) defines a pet boarding facility as a place where four or more pets in any combination are boarded for compensation, and excludes among others the premises of a veterinary facility registered under Business and Professions Code section 4853. So in California, the written onsite-personnel disclosure a kennel owes you is not owed by the veterinary hospital across the street. That runs opposite to the assumption most owners start with.

Section 122388 also lets a city or county adopt additional standards, so a California reader should check the city or county on top of the state.

One veterinary hospital answers the staffing question in writing. Three Rivers Animal Hospital in Covington, Louisiana states on its hurricane page: “There are no overnight employees.” It adds that employees with keys are within a close distance of the facility and can assess damage and check on the animals, and that if roads become impassable it will have an employee report to the facility as soon as physically possible. That is the shape of answer to want from every candidate: who is where, with what, and how soon. A facility that will not answer in those terms has told you something too.

What a 24-hour emergency hospital actually is

One kind of veterinary facility is continuous by definition. The Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Society (VECCS) runs a voluntary facility certification program. Its Facility Certification Guidelines, last revised July 26, 2024, say Level I and Level II facilities are open to receive emergency patients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and Level III facilities are open nights, weekends and holidays. Every certified facility must have a licensed veterinarian dedicated exclusively to emergency and critical care scheduled during all operating hours, and must document that with a 30-day veterinarian schedule.

Certification is voluntary, so a practice without it has not failed anything. What it gives you is a precise question: is this hospital open to receive patients 24 hours a day, or does it board patients overnight in a building that closes? Those are different products sold under one word.

A county that publishes the question for you

Lee County Domestic Animal Services in Florida puts the staffing question in its hurricane guidance. Its Hurricane Guidelines for Pets page tells residents to call boarding kennels or veterinarians with boarding facilities, ask whether someone will be there with the pets during the hurricane, and ask whether the facility is structurally prepared to withstand hurricane-force winds. It lists asking friends or family to provide temporary foster care alongside that.

If your own county publishes something similar, use its wording on the phone. If you are not sure which agency that is, the directory of what each state’s emergency management agency publishes about pets routes you to the state’s published source and says plainly where a state has published nothing.

Property Two: What Happens When the Power Goes Out

Ask about the generator separately from the disaster plan. In the rules below they are separate things, and only one is required.

What the licensing rules require

North Carolina licenses boarding kennels through the Animal Welfare Section of the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, under 02 NCAC Subchapter 52J. Rule .0201, readopted effective October 1, 2022, has three relevant subsections:

• Subsection (c) requires “adequate electric power to comply with the Animal Welfare Act.” That is a service requirement. Standby power is different, and the rule text does not require it.
• Subsection (q) requires an operational smoke alarm and carbon monoxide alarm and a means of fire suppression, such as fire extinguishers or a sprinkler system.
• Subsection (r) requires all licensed and registered facilities to develop and maintain a plan of action for the continuity of care and/or evacuation of animals in a natural or manmade disaster.

The plan is required. The generator is not.

Colorado licenses boarding and training facilities under the Pet Animal Care and Facilities Act, with rules at 8 CCR 1202-15. The version effective July 15, 2025 puts the contingency plan at rule 18.26, and a rule number is only as good as the version it came from, so match the number to the version you are reading. Rule 18.26.1 requires facilities to identify situations needing a contingency plan, covering electrical outages, faulty HVAC systems, fires, mechanical breakdowns, animal escapes and natural disasters or weather emergencies. Rule 18.26.2 requires specific tasks, including animal evacuation or shelter-in-place instructions and provisions for backup sources of food and water, sanitation, ventilation, bedding and veterinary care. Rule 18.26.4 requires an annual review and says plans, review documentation and training records must be available to the Commissioner on request.

Again, the plan is the requirement. Backup food and water appear in the Colorado text. Backup electricity does not.

The Colorado wording resembles the federal contingency planning regulation at 9 CFR 2.134, which is written for dealers, exhibitors, intermediate handlers and carriers, so do not assume it reaches the kennel down your road.

Where backup power is required

The one document cited here that requires standby power requires it of the most intensive tier of emergency hospital, not of boarding. The VECCS guidelines list, among the documentation an applicant must supply, a backup power supply to ensure constant electric power in case of outage (Level I). The next line has no level qualifier: an emergency preparedness plan with a date of last revision, contact numbers for emergency departments and services, and evacuation plans for staff and patients.

That second line is the better ask, and you can borrow its phrasing. A plan with a date of last revision, contact numbers and an evacuation plan for staff and patients is a document. “We have a plan” is not.

Questions that separate a generator from a working generator

A generator on a feature list and a generator that runs ventilation for four days are different things. Ask about fuel and load:

• What does the generator carry: lights and a few outlets, or heating, cooling and ventilation for the kennel runs? Cooling is expensive to carry and easy to leave off.
• How much fuel is stored on site, and how is it resupplied if roads are closed? Country Inn’s claim of generators that can run an average of 10 days without refueling is a claim about stored fuel, which is the number to ask everyone for.
• When was it last run under load rather than started for five minutes?
• If the building becomes unusable anyway, where do the animals go? A facility that cannot name a destination has not finished the plan.

The page on what keeps an animal alive through a multi-day outage at home works the same load-and-runtime arithmetic from the owner’s side.

Property Three: Whether Anyone There Can Legally Give the Medication

This property decides the choice for many households with a senior, diabetic or seizure-prone animal, and it runs against instinct: the commercial facility is often the most constrained of the three, because it is the one the state wrote rules for. Your veterinarian is the one to tell you what your animal needs; the rules below govern who may give it at a facility.

Two state rules that bind a boarding facility

Colorado’s current rules (8 CCR 1202-15, effective July 15, 2025) treat routine and calming medication differently. Rule 15.5 permits the routine case: boarding and training facilities acting as agents for the owner may administer medication as directed by the owner’s veterinarian. If the operator agrees to give prescription medication, it must be in the original container issued by the veterinarian or pharmacy and given according to label directions. The label must carry the client and pet name, dosage, drug name, veterinarian’s name and date issued.

Rule 15.6 closes the calming case. Facilities may not give tranquilizers, sedatives or any other drug or supplement “designed to calm an animal” unless it is given under the direction of the animal’s veterinarian, with a written prescription. Note that this reaches past prescription sedatives to non-pharmaceutical calming products many owners assume are outside the rule.

North Carolina reaches a similar place through 02 NCAC 52J .0210(j), readopted effective September 1, 2022. Boarding kennels may not give a prescription medication, tranquilizer, sedative or calming drug unless it is administered under the direction of or by prescription from the animal’s veterinarian, with written permission from the owner, and any medication must be in the original container issued by the veterinarian or pharmacy and given according to label directions.

These rules apply in Colorado and North Carolina. Other states may say something different or nothing at all, so read your own.

The practical consequence is a season-scale errand, not a storm-week one. If your animal takes anything, ask your veterinarian to have it dispensed in a labeled original container with written direction before the season starts. The medication refill calculator works out how far ahead the refill has to land.

Which facility can handle the complicated animal

Rules tell you what is permitted. A facility’s own service tiers tell you what it will take on. Animal Medical Clinic in Melbourne, Florida publishes Special Care rates for pets with special needs, listing diabetic boarders, medical boarders who need more than 6 medication administrations per day, and aggressive boarders. That is one Florida practice’s own threshold, not a standard, but the question is worth asking everywhere: at what point does my animal stop being a routine boarder here, and what changes when it does?

For an animal with mobility loss, cognitive decline or incontinence, the boarding question sits inside the wider one covered in moving an old or disabled animal through a displacement, including the parts a facility will hand straight back to you.

Property Four: Whether the Place Is Still Reachable When the Region Leaves

This property ends plans, and it is invisible in normal times because the facility answers the phone.

The most instructive published policy belongs to Three Rivers Animal Hospital in Covington, Louisiana. If a category 3, 4 or 5 hurricane is projected to make landfall in the New Orleans/Covington/Mandeville area, all client pets must be evacuated at least 24 hours before landfall, which means each owner or designated emergency contact must pick up the pet at least 24 hours before expected landfall. For a category 1 or 2 hurricane, the hospital recommends the same pickup and will decide on evacuating following the advice of local authorities.

Two further lines describe the relationship once the storm is close. Business hours and boarding pickup times during a natural disaster will be posted on the door of the clinic. And failure to claim a pet before evacuation releases the hospital of all liability for the transport and boarding of the pet during the evacuation.

The update channel in that policy is a sign on a door. If you have already driven north, the sign is behind you. Ask every candidate what its channel is when the phones are busy and the power is out: a text list, a recorded line, a social account, a named staff mobile. “We’ll call you” is the answer everyone gives and the one that fails first.

Other published policies say the same in different words. Animal Medical Clinic states: “Our facility is not rated to withstand major hurricanes.” If a category 3 or higher hurricane is forecast for its area, it will not accept boarders and will ask that current boarders be picked up, and it says it may not be able to care for them. Coastal Veterinary Hospital & Pet Resort in Jacksonville, Florida published a hurricane post on August 28, 2019, so check that it still reflects the practice’s position. It says the practice will keep doing business while conditions are safe, will continue to house pets during certain emergency situations, does not recommend leaving pets to be boarded if a category 3 or higher hurricane threatens, and adds: “in the event of a mandatory evacuation, our staff will be required to evacuate as well.”

That last statement is the honest core of the property, published by a business that would rather have your booking. These are four businesses’ own policies, quoted because they are unusually candid, not because they bind anyone else. Yours may hold a different line. Read its page, then ask.

California’s statute admits the same limit. Section 122383(f) requires an operator to maintain written policies that address animal care, emergency care, veterinary treatment, and disaster planning, evacuation and recovery. But subdivision (j) says what the plan is worth on the day: in a natural disaster or emergency evacuation, the operator must ensure humane care of each animal as the chapter requires “to the extent access to the pet is reasonably available.” The legislature wrote the failure mode into the duty. That is a description of physics, not a criticism, and it is why the location question outranks the amenities question.

Plan the pickup run too: it means a drive on roads already loading, with a crate in a car. What a parked car does to an animal in heat covers the temperature problem, and what your state’s law says about a stranger who breaks the window covers what happens if someone decides a five-minute stop was too long.

The Friend’s House, Graded on the Same Four Properties

The spare bedroom is a different instrument, not a lesser kennel. This grading is EmergencyPetPrep’s own judgment, not a rule or finding from any authority.

Overnight presence. Often the strongest of the three, and the reason many anxious, elderly or reactive animals do better there. Confirm the person will still be in the house, not evacuating or working a double shift during the event.

Power. Often the weakest. A house has no generator, no commercial HVAC and no obligation to have either. If the animal depends on temperature control, a friend’s house without backup power is a worse bet than a hardened facility with one.

Medication authority. The Colorado and North Carolina rules above are addressed to licensed operations (Colorado names “Boarding/training facilities” and North Carolina names “Boarding kennels”). Whether a private arrangement with a friend falls inside those schemes is a question for your state’s animal welfare or agriculture agency. The practical limit is skill: a written instruction is not how someone learns to give an injection, so ask your veterinarian to teach the person on the real animal, with you watching, before the season.

Reachability. Entirely geographic. A friend across town is inside your evacuation zone, under your order, in your traffic. A friend outside the region is a genuine option and a longer drive, which changes the timing below. Lee County lists asking friends or family for temporary foster care alongside calling kennels.

Three additions specific to the friend case:

• The containment gap. A licensed facility has runs and latches, and in Colorado an isolation area unless the Commissioner grants an exemption (rule 16.1). A house has doors that open onto a street, opened repeatedly by people carrying boxes. Send a crate, a slip-proof harness and a written rule about which door the animal is never near.
• The paperwork gap. Put the veterinary authorization, the medication list, the microchip number and two contact numbers in writing and hand them over physically. The pet daycare emergency intake checklist goes field by field through the same handoff.
• The insurance gap, covered below. The endorsement described there is written for practice owners who board, hospitalize, groom or transport animals, not for a neighbor doing you a favor. That is a reason to be clear with each other in advance, not a reason to refuse the offer.

What Each Option Demands as Proof

Proof requirements are set facility by facility far more than category by category, so ask where the requirement comes from.

From your state, sometimes, and narrowly. North Carolina rule 02 NCAC 52J .0210(h) requires animals in a licensed or registered facility to comply with the state rabies law, but the next sentence says the subsection does not apply to animals that have been in the facility less than 15 days. That covers nearly every boarding stay, so the guarantee comes from the facility’s own contract.

From the facility, almost always. That is why the vaccine list is a phone call. For dogs, Animal Medical Clinic requires current DAPP, rabies, kennel cough and leptospirosis vaccination, with canine influenza recommended for frequent boarders but not required. If a pet’s vaccines were given elsewhere, it needs written proof from the previous veterinarian. It strongly recommends vaccinations at least one week before boarding but says it will administer them on admission if necessary, and that a doctor can give updated vaccines with an exam. A clinic that boards may be able to vaccinate on the spot, which is one of the few structural advantages of the clinic option. It is facility-specific, so confirm it, and who may give which vaccine can itself be a question of state law. The boarding intake checklist covers records, the license and the signed treatment authorization.

From the license file, if you know to ask. In North Carolina, rule .0210(a)(2) requires a boarding kennel’s program of veterinary care to be submitted with its license application or renewal and approved by the Animal Welfare Section inspector. Asking a North Carolina kennel to show its approved program of veterinary care is asking for a document that exists and has been reviewed. That is much stronger than asking whether it has a vet.

One more North Carolina rule: .0203(g) requires that owners be advised at reservation and admission if the animal will be kept in outside facilities. In a storm, indoors versus outdoors is not a comfort preference. Ask, and ask again at drop-off.

Timing: Working Backward From the Forecast

The National Hurricane Center’s glossary says that, because preparedness activities become difficult once winds reach tropical storm force, “the hurricane watch is issued 48 hours in advance of the anticipated onset of tropical storm force winds.” The warning is issued 36 hours in advance of the anticipated onset of tropical-storm-force winds. Earlier still, a Potential Tropical Cyclone is a term for a disturbance that is not yet a tropical cyclone but poses the threat of bringing tropical storm or hurricane conditions to land areas within 72 hours. Those figures describe tropical systems only and say nothing about any other hazard.

Lay a facility deadline against that scale. Three Rivers requires pickup at least 24 hours before expected landfall for a category 3, 4 or 5 storm. Landfall is not the same instant as the onset of tropical storm force winds, and the two are not separated by a fixed interval, so the arithmetic is approximate. Its direction is not: a warning issued 36 hours before the onset of those winds goes up before a deadline set 24 hours before landfall, and for a storm coming ashore in the facility’s own area the space between the two can be as little as half a day. The warning is not a starting gun. It marks that the pickup window is closing, which is why everything that takes longer than a few hours has to be finished before it appears. Animal Medical Clinic’s refusal threshold is a forecast, not an arrival, and a forecast can change category within a single advisory cycle.

A sequence that survives a real storm:

• Before the season. Pick the facility and confirm the four properties. Ask your veterinarian to dispense medication in a labeled original container with written direction. Put vaccination records and a license copy somewhere you can hand across a counter. Name the person who will collect the animal if you cannot. Animal Medical Clinic states that during hurricane season clients must tell it who will pick up the pet in the event of a major hurricane.
• At a Potential Tropical Cyclone or a long-range threat, roughly three days out. Call and confirm the arrangement is live and space exists. Ask the facility’s own cutoff for this storm and write down the answer with the time.
• At a watch (48 hours before the anticipated onset of tropical storm force winds). This is the decision point, not the booking point. If you are still choosing a facility here, you have lost most of your options, because prepayment, signatures and vaccine timing take longer than the window left.
• At a warning (36 hours before that onset). Execute. Drop off, or abandon the boarding branch and take the animal with you.
• Inside a facility’s pickup deadline. The branch is closed.

Evacuation levels decoded for pet owners covers the civil evacuation levels layered on top of these weather products. That is a separate clock, and often the earlier of the two.

For a hazard with no watch and warning, invert the schedule. A tornado warning or a fast wildfire run gives you nothing like a 48-hour watch to book against, which is why the arrangement has to already exist, with the records on file and the authorization signed.

The Deposit Trade-Off

Animal Medical Clinic publishes the strict end of the range. To avoid no-shows, it takes reservations only if prepaid, paid from the day the reservation is made until the day after the storm is forecast to be past. It states: “Hurricane reservations are non-refundable and a signature is needed confirming that the client understands this.” It accepts only current patients and says clients may not schedule an exam only to become established for hurricane boarding.

From your side, the trade is straightforward once named. A refundable reservation is one you can walk away from, and also one the facility can lose to someone who commits harder. A non-refundable prepaid reservation buys certainty and spends money on a storm that may miss you. There is no clever answer, only a clear one.

Three things make it less painful:

• Ask for the cancellation terms in writing before you commit, including whether an unused prepaid storm reservation converts to credit for a future stay.
• Decide how many storms a season you are willing to prepay for. If the answer is one, the reservation belongs later in the sequence, and the earlier work is confirming the arrangement.
• Price the alternative. A pet-friendly hotel room outside the zone is the usual fallback for a failed boarding branch. Getting and keeping a pet-friendly room during an evacuation covers what to confirm first.

The pet emergency fund planner covers where a storm boarding commitment sits among costs a household self-funds.

The Contract and the Insurance Behind It

The coverage most people assume is automatic

AVMA Insurance Services describes an optional endorsement called Animal Bailee. Its page says that anyone who hospitalizes, boards, grooms or transports animals could be held responsible for accidental injury, loss or death of an animal in their care, custody or control, and that if the incident is unrelated to treatment, professional liability coverage may not protect them. It says standard liability policies typically exclude incidents occurring outside of treatment.

The endorsement covers loss or injury from non-treatment-related perils such as fire, wind, theft, escape, flood, vandalism and attacks by other animals; offers tiered limits (per-animal, transportation and premises); and typically applies per specified location, so each site where animals are boarded needs its own coverage.

That is one insurance program’s description of its own product, and other insurers differ. Ask whether the facility carries anything for non-treatment losses, whether the limit is per animal, and whether it attaches to the location your animal will actually be at, which may not be the one you booked if the facility relocates.

The waiver you will be handed

Facilities also allocate risk in the contract. Three Rivers’ policy releases the hospital of liability for transport and boarding if you fail to claim your pet before evacuation, and states that animals that become sick or injured during boarding will be treated after an attempt to contact the owner, with accrued fees the owner’s responsibility. Neither is unusual. Together they describe a situation in which the animal is treated, you are billed and the facility is released, all while you are three states away. Read them before you sign.

Four clauses to ask about before you sign

This list is EmergencyPetPrep’s own, not a rule from any authority and not legal advice:

1. Relocation. If the facility evacuates, where do the animals go, who transports them, and does anything in the contract or coverage follow them to that second address?
2. Unreachable owner. Who else may authorize care when you cannot be reached? Name a second person who will not be evacuating the same county. The boarding intake checklist covers the signed treatment authorization and spending cap.
3. The pickup deadline and what follows it. Get the deadline in hours-before-what terms, and get in writing what happens to the animal if you miss it, including whether the facility will transport it and what that costs.
4. Notification and records. What triggers a call to you, and what will be written down? California section 122383(i) requires an operator to notify the owner immediately that a pet is sick or injured, unless the owner has indicated in writing that notification of a particular type of illness or injury is not required. Ask what your facility’s equivalent is.

The Four Properties Side by Side

Read this as a list of things to verify. Every cell is a question for the specific business in front of you.

Property	Veterinary clinic that boards	Commercial boarding kennel	Friend or family outside the zone
Overnight presence	Ask whether it is open to receive patients 24 hours or boards in a building that closes. The VECCS 24/7 language applies to Level I and Level II certified emergency facilities, not to general practice.	Ask for the hours personnel are onsite. In California, section 122384(a)(2) requires that disclosure in writing. Outside California, treat it as a phone question.	Often the strongest, if the person is genuinely staying. Confirm work shifts and their own evacuation plan.
Power and climate	Ask what the generator carries and how much fuel is stored. VECCS documents a backup power supply only at Level I.	Same questions. Neither the North Carolina nor the Colorado rule text requires standby power of a licensed facility.	Often the weakest. No generator, no commercial HVAC, no obligation to have either.
Medication authority	Ask what the clinic will administer and what it needs from your veterinarian. A clinic may be able to vaccinate on admission, but that is facility-specific.	Constrained by state rule: Colorado 15.5 and 15.6, North Carolina .0210(j). Bring the labeled original container and the written direction.	Those rules are addressed to licensed facilities; ask your state agency what reaches a private arrangement. The real limit is skill, so rehearse before the season.
Reachability in an event	Ask for the pickup deadline and the communication channel. Several published Florida and Louisiana policies stop accepting boarders at a forecast category.	Same questions. Ask where the animals go if the building becomes unusable, and ask for a named destination.	Entirely geographic. Inside your own evacuation zone leaves the animal under the same order you are. Outside the region is a longer pickup drive.
The document to ask for	Emergency preparedness plan with a date of last revision, and in North Carolina the approved program of veterinary care.	Written disaster or contingency plan. Colorado 18.26 and North Carolina .0201(r) require licensed facilities in those states to maintain one.	No inspected document is likely to exist, so you write one: authorization, medication schedule, contacts, containment rules.

The Selection Call, Question by Question

This is a selection checklist, distinct from the packet you carry to intake. Work it once, in a calm week, on two or three candidates, and keep the answers where you can find them.

• Between what hours is the building unattended, and who holds keys during those hours?
• Is this facility open to receive patients around the clock, or does it board overnight in a building that closes?
• Does a generator exist, what loads does it carry, how much fuel is stored on site, and when was it last run under load?
• May I see the written emergency or contingency plan, with the date it was last revised?
• Does that plan name a relocation destination, and does it name who transports the animals there?
• What is your pickup deadline for a named event, stated in hours before what, and what happens to my animal if I miss it?
• How will you reach me when the phones are jammed, and how do I reach you? What is the channel if the answer is not a phone call?
• Will my animal be housed indoors or outdoors, and does that change during an event?
• What is the last date my animal’s vaccinations can be given for this stay, and will you administer anything on admission?
• Who may give my animal its medication here, what do you need from my veterinarian, and what will you write down each time?
• At what point does my animal stop being a routine boarder and become a special-care case, and what changes then?
• Do you carry coverage for non-treatment losses to animals in your care, and does it follow my animal if you relocate?
• Is the storm reservation prepaid, refundable, or convertible to credit, and what am I signing to confirm that?
• Who is my named backup collector, and have I told you their name and number in advance?
• If this facility says no, what is my second facility, and have I put it through the same list?

Where to Go Next

This page is the facility-selection spoke of the pet emergency playbooks. Whether to board at all rather than travel together comes first, and the intake packet a counter asks for covers records, the crate, the treatment authorization and the spending cap. If boarding and hotels both close, see what a co-located public pet shelter requires and what to do when your county runs no pet facility. If the animal travels with you after all, hurricane pet preparedness is the plan to fall back on, and the carrier page for the flying case explains why a crate specified to fly differs from a kennel crate.

This week, with no storm on any map: call two facilities outside your zone and ask the first six questions on the list above. You are not booking anything. You are finding out which of them can answer without pausing.