Pet Evacuation Kits & Go-Bags

Build two kits. A larger one stays home for sheltering in place, and a lighter go-bag stays packed for evacuation. Both cover the same six categories: food, water, medicine, documents, a carrier, and sanitation supplies. Ready.gov, the ASPCA, AVMA, the CDC and the Red Cross all organize a pet kit around that core, even where their quantities differ.

A kit is a system, not a bag. It is staged in the right places and checked often enough that nothing in it has quietly expired. Where this hub links to gear, we are reader-supported through disclosed Amazon links, and commissions never touch what is recommended.

This page is the map. It teaches the structure once, so the spoke guides linked throughout and at the bottom can go narrow on species, duration math, records, written authority and the medication clock.

Want a ready-made starting point? Our pre-made kit picks are sorted by household: single cat, large dog, mixed cat-and-dog, and a kit with water purification.

Ready America, Pet Evac Pak, ER (Emergency Ready), and DryFur are trademarks of their respective owners; EmergencyPetPrep is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them.

The FEMA/Ready.gov Kit Structure, Category by Category

Ready.gov’s framing is the cleanest starting point: build two kits, not one. A larger kit stays home for sheltering in place. A lighter version stays packed and ready to grab for evacuation. Ready.gov says to review both regularly so food and medicine do not go stale. To turn the checklist below into one tailored to your animals and your biggest local hazard, run the pet emergency kit builder; it filters this list to your pets and routes each item to the right calculator or template.

Inside either kit, the categories are consistent across the authorities:

• Food: several days’ supply per pet, in an airtight, waterproof container (Ready.gov). The ASPCA and CDC name longer figures (see the table below), and the CDC lists a manual can opener as its own line.
• Water: a bowl plus several days’ supply (Ready.gov, which attaches no container specification). The ASPCA adds cool, dry storage and replacement every 2 months (a kit with water purification).
• Medicine: an extra supply of any medication your pet takes, in a waterproof container (Ready.gov). The ASPCA, the CDC and AVMA’s kit checklist each specify a 2-week supply. The CDC adds a 1-month supply of flea/tick/heartworm preventive as a separate line.
• Documents: vaccination and rabies records, medical summary, prescriptions, proof of ownership, and a recent photo (CDC, AVMA). Waterproof the physical copies; a digital or USB backup is a second layer.
• Carrier or crate: one per pet. Ready.gov and the ASPCA publish nearly the same line: a traveling bag, crate or sturdy carrier, ideally one for each pet. AVMA states it without the hedge and gives the reason: enough carriers for each pet is what facilitates a quick evacuation.
• Sanitation: disposable litter trays (the ASPCA notes that aluminum roasting pans work), litter or paper toweling, liquid dish soap and disinfectant, and disposable garbage bags.
• First aid and comfort items: a basic first aid kit (Ready.gov, AVMA, Red Cross), plus a backup collar, ID tag, harness and leash, and comfort items like a toy or familiar bedding to reduce stress during an already stressful move.

Medication: if any pet takes a regular medication, ask your veterinarian what extra supply and storage make sense for that prescription. This page teaches kit structure, not dosing or treatment decisions; that call belongs to your vet.

How many of everything? The carrier line is per pet, not per household (Ready.gov, ASPCA and AVMA all frame it that way), and food, water, medicine and documents multiply per animal too. A three-pet household is building three of most of this list. The pre-made kits later on this page are each sized for a fixed number of animals, so check the capacity line before assuming one box covers everyone. For the worked per-animal math, see our multi-pet emergency planning hub.

Kit vs. Go-Bag: What the Terms Mean

Ready.gov does not use the word go-bag. Its language is simply two kits: one for sheltering in place, one lightweight version for evacuation. On this page, go-bag is our label for the second, lighter kit. It is not an official FEMA term.

On this hub, kit is the larger shelter-in-place build (bulkier food and water, a full first aid kit, sanitation supplies) and go-bag is the lightweight, evacuation-sized version of the same categories, built to be carried out the door in under a minute. The go-bag is a scaled-down, grab-ready subset of the kit, not a different checklist.

How Much Food and Water: Reading the Duration Numbers

The authorities do not agree on one number. Here is the spread:

Source	Food per pet	Water per pet	Framing
Ready.gov	Several days, airtight, waterproof container	Bowl + several days	Go-bag / evacuation framing
AVMA	3-7 days’ worth	At least 7 days’ supply	Evacuation kit, stored near an exit
American Red Cross	No day count on the pet page or its PDF checklist	No day count on the pet page or its PDF checklist	Evacuation framing
ASPCA	7-10 days, rotate every ~2 months	At least 7 days, rotate every ~2 months	Can apply to either kit
CDC	2-week supply	2-week supply	Shelter-in-place framing

Sources: Ready.gov Prepare Your Pets for Disasters; AVMA Pets and Disasters; American Red Cross Pet Disaster Preparedness; ASPCA Disaster Preparedness; CDC Build a Pet Disaster Preparedness Kit.

Read this as two jobs, not five opinions. Ready.gov, AVMA and the Red Cross largely describe the lightweight go-bag: enough to get through the trip and the first stretch afterward. The CDC and ASPCA numbers lean toward the fuller shelter-in-place kit, where storage space is not limited by what you can carry. If you have the budget and shelf space, build your at-home kit to the CDC’s 2-week figure and keep your go-bag to several days.

Where to Stage Each Kit

A kit in the wrong place when the order comes is the same as no kit. AVMA recommends storing the evacuation kit in an easy-to-carry waterproof container near an exit, not in a closet and not in the garage behind the holiday boxes.

For most households, three staging points cover the real scenarios:

1. Home, near an exit. The full shelter-in-place kit plus the evacuation go-bag, both reachable without digging, per AVMA’s near-an-exit guidance.
2. Vehicle. A lightweight duplicate of the go-bag essentials (food, water, a spare leash, a copy of key documents) for when you are not home as an order comes, or need supplies mid-evacuation before reaching a shelter. None of these authorities publishes a car-specific standard; this is the same two-kit logic applied to a second location.
3. Grab point inside the home, by the door you would actually use. Even a fully staged kit does no good if it is not where your feet go first during a fast exit.

Maintenance and Rotation

Ready.gov says to review your kits regularly and names no interval. The ASPCA is more specific on one part: rotate food and water every 2 months so it does not go stale or expire unnoticed.

A common habit, borrowed from the twice-yearly smoke-detector battery reminder, is a full kit review every 6 months: check expiration dates, confirm medications are current (not ones your vet discontinued last spring), verify documents are up to date, and make sure any pet added since the last check has their own carrier and supplies. None of the agencies listed here publishes that 6-month cadence, so treat it as a reminder trigger, not an official rule.

One rotation check is not optional: confirm your pet’s microchip registry contact information is current. Ready.gov’s instruction is to have your pet microchipped and to “keep your address and phone number up-to-date” on it, including contact information for an emergency contact outside your immediate area. AVMA’s is to “Ensure your pet has proper identification and that microchip and other ID information is up to date.” The ASPCA and the Red Cross both recommend microchipping, but neither publishes that follow-up step, which is why it gets its own line here. A chip that was never registered, or is registered with an old phone number, will not reunite you with a lost pet during an evacuation. It belongs on the same 6-month reminder as the physical kit review.

Records, Authority, and Medical Consumables

Every complete pre-made kit listed in the products section handles food, water and basic first aid. None handles the paperwork, and none handles the part of the kit that has a clock running on it. That gap is what gets tested at a shelter intake desk, a boarding counter or an unfamiliar emergency vet.

This branch splits three ways, and the three fail differently:

• Records prove who the animal is and what it needs. They fail by being illegible, incomplete, or still at home.
• Authority is the written permission that lets somebody else act for the animal when you are not there. It fails by never having been created.
• Medical consumables expire, run out, or cannot legally be stockpiled on short notice. They fail on a date.

Keep them separate. A perfect folder of records still leaves an emergency vet unable to treat, and a signed authorization is no help if the medication ran out days ago.

Records: What Proves the Animal Is Yours and What It Needs

Per the CDC’s structure, the document set should include:

• Photocopied vet records
• Rabies certificate
• Vaccination and medical summary
• Current prescriptions
• Heartworm test results (dogs) or FeLV/FIV test results (cats)
• Copies of registration
• A written description of the pet

AVMA’s checklist files the same set under important documents and adds four lines owners routinely skip: identification papers including proof of ownership and the microchip number, medical records and medication instructions as separate items, an emergency contact list that names the veterinarian and the pharmacy, and maps of the local area and evacuation routes. On its pets-and-disasters page AVMA says to include addresses and 24-hour contact numbers on that list, if available. Keep the list with the kit itself, not only in a phone that might be dead or lost.

Waterproof the physical copies and keep a digital or USB backup as a second layer. Our waterproof pet document kits guide covers containers and setup, paper versus digital records covers which layer to trust when, and the pet emergency binder covers organizing the set one animal at a time. For versions smaller than a binder, the pet travel document organizer and the fill-in pet emergency wallet card carry the same fields in a pouch and a pocket. The crate and kennel ID card is the copy that rides with the animal rather than with you.

Records also cross a state line differently than you do. If an evacuation takes you into another state, the destination state sets the requirement, and USDA APHIS does not publish a standard interstate health certificate you can print ahead. Our long-distance move guide carries the sourced version, including the instruction to call the destination state’s veterinary office directly.

Authority: Who Can Act for Your Animal When You Are Not There

No pre-made kit sells this, and most households have never assembled it. AVMA names three separate pieces of paper, and they do different jobs:

1. A signed veterinary medical treatment authorization. AVMA says to consider including one with your evacuation kit, to help your veterinarian provide care if your pet must be treated during your absence.
2. A designated caregiver. AVMA says to designate a friend or neighbor to care for your pets if a disaster occurs when you are not at home.
3. A signed release for that caregiver. AVMA says to give that person a letter, signed by you, that releases them from responsibility if a pet is injured during an evacuation and tells them where your evacuation kit is. The release letter is also where the kit’s location gets written down, which makes it the one document that tells a helper where everything else is.

A fourth piece is about telling responders the animal exists. AVMA’s preparedness tip is that before a disaster you can post notices on entrances to your home that detail the number of animals inside, and that apartment residents should make sure their animals are on record with management. That is the rescue alert sticker and the fridge pet alert card; our guide on making sure firefighters know pets are inside covers what a sticker can and cannot do once a crew is working the building.

What this page will not tell you is whether your particular form is enforceable. Which wording a veterinarian will accept, and who may consent to treatment for an animal that is not theirs, sits in state veterinary practice law and varies by state. We do not publish our own reading of any state’s statute. Ask your veterinarian, at a routine appointment, which form they will honor, and take the question to your state veterinary licensing board if you want the rule itself. The pet emergency binder covers the AVMA fields to fill in with your vet, the pet sitter emergency instructions sheet is the short-horizon handoff naming who can approve care this weekend, and the pet guardian directive covers the long-horizon version: who takes the animal if you do not come back.

Authority gets tested at an intake desk, not at your kitchen table. Our emergency boarding checklist covers what a facility asks for and why a written spending limit needs a second named approver. Pet daycare emergency intake covers the same fields for a facility that already has your animal when the order comes. The dog walker emergency card and the holiday sitter plan cover the people holding your key on an ordinary week. The foster pet emergency checklist covers the case where the animal legally belongs to a rescue, whose rule governs the veterinary decision. The vet hospital stay bag covers the handoff where the animal stays and you leave.

Medical Consumables: The Part of the Kit With a Clock on It

Food and water expire slowly and visibly. Medication fails quietly, in three ways.

It expires in the bag. AVMA’s evacuation-kit checklist marks the food and medicine lines, and resolves the asterisk in a footnote: “*These items must be rotated and replaced to ensure they don’t expire”. Our kit rotation checklist covers the cadence and what to check at each interval.

It is not in the bag at all. Anything refrigerated cannot live in a go-bag by the door, and AVMA publishes a fix: if medications must be stored outside the kit because of temperature requirements, such as refrigeration, write down the name of the medication and its location and include that note in the kit. A note in the bag keeps a fast exit from leaving the insulin in the fridge. Insulin cooler cases covers carrying it once it is out, pet medication and refrigeration in a power outage covers the case where the fridge itself is the failure, and our asthma inhaler go-bag guide works the same spare-canister-and-records problem for a cat’s chronic inhaler prescription. Heat-sensitive medication has the mirror problem: a bag staged in a car has a temperature ceiling too, so read the storage line on the label before deciding where the bag lives.

You cannot simply order more the week of the storm. For controlled substances the limit is federal, not a pharmacy’s discretion.

• Under 21 CFR 1306.22(a), a Schedule III or IV prescription cannot be filled or refilled more than six months after it was issued, and one authorized to be refilled cannot be refilled more than five times.
• Under 21 CFR 1306.12(a), refilling a Schedule II prescription is prohibited.
• That is half of 1306.12. Under 1306.12(b)(1), an individual practitioner may issue multiple prescriptions authorizing a total of up to a 90-day supply of a Schedule II controlled substance when conditions are met, including a written earliest fill date on each, the practitioner’s conclusion that this creates no undue risk of diversion or abuse, and permission under state law. Paragraph (b)(2) says nothing in it mandates or encourages a practitioner to prescribe that way, so it is a question for your veterinarian, not an entitlement.
• These limits reach veterinarians, because 21 CFR 1300.01 defines an individual practitioner to include a veterinarian.

If any animal in your household takes a controlled substance, how large a buffer you may hold is settled at a routine appointment, not in a phone queue during a warning. Ask which schedule the drug falls in, ask what quantity your veterinarian is willing to write, and write the answer somewhere you will find it. For a drug that is not a controlled substance, the ceiling is whatever your vet will authorize, which is a shorter conversation but still worth having before hurricane season. Our seizure-prone dog kit works this problem in the most detail on the site, including how state emergency-refill rules treat controlled and noncontrolled drugs differently and the gap in whether those rules reach a veterinary prescription at all. The pet medication refill calculator keeps the reorder date from arriving unannounced.

Two consumables get forgotten because owners do not file them as medication. Preventives are the first: AVMA’s checklist puts flea and tick prevention inside the first aid kit, and the CDC’s separate preventive line runs on a monthly calendar that does not pause because you are displaced. The second is everything needed to give a dose: syringes, needles, lancets, test strips, a pill splitter, a sharps container. No pre-made kit on this page includes any of it. Count those per animal, for the same number of days as the doses. Our medical consumables count for an evacuation runs that count item by item.

Pre-Made Kits vs. Building Your Own

The products above are purchasable starting points, not the only path. Single cat: Ready America. Large dog: Pet Evac Pak Big Dog. Cat and dog together: Pet Evac Pak Cat & Dog. Our best pet emergency kits roundup has them compared kit by kit. A pre-made kit buys speed and consistency: every category addressed at once, with a stated shelf life on the food and water. It costs you fit: a fixed weight capacity, a fixed species assumption, and usually no real documents solution.

Building your own from the checklist in this hub takes more time up front but lets you size food and water to your pet, add the medications your vet has you managing, and choose a carrier that fits your pet’s crate training. Most households land in between: a pre-made kit as the base, with documents, medication and species-specific gaps filled separately. Our DIY pet go-bag checklist walks through the from-scratch build with quantities shown per animal.

Multi-Pet Households: Multiply, Don’t Share

Every pre-made kit above is sized for a fixed number of animals: most for one pet, one for a cat-and-dog pair. If your household has more animals than the kit is built for, do not stretch one kit across everyone. Food, water, medication and documents scale per animal, not per household, because a shelter or emergency vet processing several pets from one family still needs each animal’s supplies individually.

Our multi-pet go-bag math guide shows the per-animal calculation, and which pet to evacuate first covers grab-order when you cannot move every animal in one trip.

The kit itself cannot solve one version of this: the animals may not all end up in the same place. A shelter that takes dogs and cats may not take a bird, hotels commonly cap animals per room, and a boarding kennel may accept one species and decline another. The records and the signed authorization then have to be duplicated per destination. Our multi-pet emergency planning hub carries that two-destination branch. A pet that lives at two addresses has a version of this problem that has nothing to do with a disaster: our two-address pet guide covers what to buy twice, what travels with the animal, and what exists only once and has to be located before either household can act.

Species-Specific Gear

The kit structure holds for every species, but the right container differs by animal. For dogs, see best dog go-bags. For cats, carrier choice matters even more, since cats bolt and hide differently under stress: see best cat evacuation carriers.

Smaller and less mobile animals need their own coverage. Our rabbit and small pet emergency prep guide covers heat thresholds for rabbits and GI stasis risk, which is specific to rabbits. Our horse and livestock evacuation basics guide covers trailer readiness and warning-stage timing for animals that cannot fit in any go-bag. Fish and reptiles depend on power in ways a go-bag cannot fix: see aquariums and reptiles in a power outage.

For a head-to-head look at complete pre-made kits scored against the Ready.gov checklist, see best pet emergency kits.

Food and Water Storage, Long-Term

The duration table shows real disagreement between a several-day go-bag and a 2-week shelter kit. Storing for the longer figure (containers, rotation, keeping it edible and drinkable for weeks) is its own topic. Our long-term pet food and water storage guide reconciles the CDC’s 2-week standard against the ASPCA, Ready.gov and AVMA figures. For the go-bag-scale version, see emergency food and water storage for pets. Once a household is inside a flood or an outage, is pet food safe after a flood or outage covers the FDA-published can-and-pouch procedure and the bleach ratios for cleaning what floodwater touched. A therapeutic or veterinary-diet food adds its own storage ceiling: our prescription diet authorizations, expiry and evacuation guide covers why FDA’s own document never uses the word prescription, and why the real gate at checkout is manufacturer and retailer policy running through one clinic.

If Something Goes Wrong: Poison Exposure

A kit does not prevent every emergency it is built for. If you suspect your pet has ingested something toxic, during an evacuation or at any other time, call the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center at (888) 426-4435, available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, staffed by veterinary toxicology experts. A consultation fee may apply.

Pet Poison Helpline’s emergency instructions say not to give any home antidotes and not to induce vomiting without consulting a vet or the helpline, and to call the helpline at 855-764-7661. Call first, then follow the guidance you are given.

Every Guide in This Section

This page teaches the structure once. Below is every guide filed under it, grouped by the part of the kit it covers.

Complete Kits and Budget Builds

• Best pet emergency kits: pre-made kits compared against the Ready.gov, ASPCA and AVMA checklists.
• DIY pet go-bag checklist: a printable checklist with per-animal quantities.
• Cheap pet emergency kit ideas: budget swaps category by category.
• Dollar store pet emergency kit: what to buy there and what not to skimp on.
• Minimalist kit for a small apartment: compact gear and a realistic carry weight.
• Kit for renters, and where to store it: under-bed storage, carry-out weight and deposit-safe staging.

Dog and Cat Go-Bags

• Best dog go-bags: compared by size tier and carry method.
• Best cat go-bags: what a cat’s bag needs beyond the carrier.

Carriers and Crates

• Best cat evacuation carriers: carriers compared on published specs.
• Soft-sided versus hard-sided: speed, crash protection, stacking and cleanup.
• Wire versus plastic crate: storage, airflow, IATA acceptance and the crash-test gap.
• Airline-approved carriers: in-cabin carriers compared on published dimensions.
• Airline carrier versus car crate: what IATA requires and when each one wins.
• Sleepypod versus Sherpa: crash certification, airline fit and weight limits.
• Gunner versus Ruffland: construction, weight, airline fit and certification.
• Seatbelt harness versus crash-tested crate: which restraint to pick, judged on the certification evidence.
• Weatherproof crate cover: what a cover does and does not do, including the ventilation rule.
• Backpack versus sling for evacuating on foot: how each carries a stressed pet.
• Is a secondhand carrier safe?: what to inspect before an evacuation depends on it.
• How long a cat can stay in a carrier: heat, airflow, water, litter and stress set the limit.
• Muzzle versus carrier for a stressed pet: they are not substitutes.

Harnesses and Restraint

• Crash-tested harness for a bug-out drive: harnesses with independent certification.
• Escape-proof harness for a panicked dog: geometry and fit.

Lifting, Carrying, and Mobility Gear

• Aging pet mobility gear: ramps, slings, mats, steps and wagons.
• Dog ramp for fast loading: choosing a ramp that deploys in one motion.
• Sled or sling for a large injured dog: load ratings, cautions and carries.
• Stroller versus carrier for a mobility-limited pet: when each wins.
• Tripod pet evacuation gear: gear sorted by front-leg versus rear-leg amputee needs.
• Fire escape sling for a multi-story building: load ratings, and why a window lower is a last resort.

Food and Water

• Emergency food and water storage: how many days to store and the water math.
• Long-term storage and the 2-week standard: the CDC figure against ASPCA, Ready.gov and AVMA numbers.
• Freeze-dried versus canned versus kibble: shelf life, weight and heat tolerance.
• How much water to store per dog: the ounce-per-pound rule and worked math.
• Purification tablets versus a filter: what each removes and wait times.
• Portable water filter for a dog bug-out bag: what hollow-fiber membranes remove and flow-rate math.

Records and Proof of Ownership

• Waterproof document kits: which documents to keep, plus pouches and digital backup.
• Paper versus digital records: the belt-and-suspenders answer.
• Crate and kennel ID card: the record copy that rides with the animal.

Authority: Who Can Approve Care Without You

• Emergency boarding checklist: what a facility requires at intake.
• Vet hospital stay bag: records, comfort items and discharge questions.

Medical Consumables and the Refill Clock

• Kit rotation checklist: rotation intervals and a monthly, seasonal and yearly schedule.
• Seizure-prone dog kit: a medication buffer counted in doses and a one-page sheet for a strange vet.

First Aid and Sanitation

• Best pet first-aid kits: dog and cat kits compared by contents.
• DIY cat first-aid kit on a budget: what a cat kit needs that a dog kit skips.
• Litter box options for shelter in place: disposable and collapsible boxes and litter math.

Puppies, Kittens, and Senior Pets

• Puppy emergency kit: unfinished vaccine series, crate sizing, potty logistics.
• Kitten evacuation go-bag: incomplete vaccine records, carrier sizing, warmth.
• Senior dog kit additions: joint support, medication volume, lifting logistics.
• Senior cat kit additions: hydration gear, a low-entry litter box, warmth.

Blind Pets and Flat-Faced Breeds

• Blind cat carrier setup: a carrier the cat knows by smell.
• Blind dog harness and halo: halos, a lift-handle harness and an ID tag.
• Cooling gear for brachycephalic dogs: vests, mats, fans and ventilation for flat-faced breeds.
• Flat-faced dog carrier ventilation: why these dogs overheat in transit.

Birds, Small Pets, and Exotics

• Bird and parrot preparedness: a familiar carrier, a fume-free kitchen, ID.
• Rabbits and small pets: heat-stress thresholds and GI stasis warning signs.
• Guinea pig evacuation kit: carrier downsizing, hay, heat limits, pair bonding.
• Hamster and gerbil kit: tank-to-carrier transfer and temperature limits.
• Ferret emergency kit: escape-proof carriers, harness fit, heat limits.
• Chinchilla emergency kit: heat thresholds, dust-bath logistics, GI stasis recognition.
• Hedgehog preparedness kit: temperature limits and a warm evacuation carrier.

Where to Go Next

The single best thing to do this week, before buying anything: confirm your pet’s microchip registry contact information is current, and check whether your existing kit still has fresh food, current medication and up-to-date documents. Most kit failures are not a missing item; they are an old one nobody rotated.

The second best thing, and the one nearly every household is missing: ask your veterinarian at your next routine appointment for a signed treatment authorization, and ask which schedule any prescription your pet takes falls in. Both answers are free, both take a single visit, and neither is obtainable in the hour you actually need them.