Records and Logs
A Pet Medication Log for an Evacuation: Doses Given, Missed Doses, and the Cold-Chain Record
By EmergencyPetPrep Editorial · Updated
Short answer: Keep one sheet per pet recording each dose given or missed, who gave it and when. For refrigerated meds, log times and temperatures so your vet, pharmacist or the maker can judge if it is usable.
Researched and written with AI assistance from the published sources listed at the end of this page. We are not veterinarians, no veterinarian has reviewed this page, and we do not test products by hand, so check those sources and talk to your own vet about your animal. How we work →
Read this first
Some pet emergencies outrun any checklist. If an animal is collapsing, struggling to breathe, or was exposed to something toxic, stop reading and call your veterinarian or the nearest emergency animal hospital now. When officials order an evacuation, go; nothing on this page is worth delaying your own exit. This article is spec-and-evidence analysis of published guidance, not veterinary care for your specific animal. Where your vet's instructions or an official order differ from anything here, they win.
Key takeaways
- This log records facts and decides nothing: no safe-to-use cell, no temperature range, no still-usable-if rule. FDA's pages send that question to the label, a pharmacist or healthcare provider, or the manufacturer. For a pet, ask your veterinarian.
- The cold-chain half follows an FDA record-keeping instruction written for human biological products: note when power failed, record temperatures at intervals once it returns, and record how long the product ran warm. The manufacturer does the calculation, not you.
- Every regimen field on the printable is blank on purpose. FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine says a missed dose depends on the medicine and your veterinarian will tell you when to give the next one. Copy each line from the pharmacy label.
- Write the schedule in words, not clinic shorthand. FDA found once-daily (SID) misread as twice daily (BID) and four times daily (QID), resulting in overdoses. Keep one sheet per animal, and each animal's medications in their own labeled containers.
- The diabetic section is a page your veterinarian fills in. Current AAHA guidance for cats and dogs tells clinicians to encourage a daily owner log of appetite, thirst, urinary habits, feeding and insulin dose given. The numbers in it are your veterinarian's to write.
Want it on paper? Get the free printable go-bag checklist.
Keep one paper sheet per animal that records every dose given or missed, who gave it and the clock time. If a refrigerated product loses power, add a separate time-and-temperature record, then call your veterinarian, pharmacist or the manufacturer. The log holds facts. It does not tell you a dose, a schedule for a missed dose, or whether a product is still usable. Those answers belong to the people who prescribed, dispensed or made the medicine.
The dose that goes wrong in an evacuation is often not the one nobody remembered. It is the one two people both remembered. Picture handing the carrier to your sister at a rest stop. She gives the cat a tablet because it is the time written on the bottle, and you gave it forty minutes earlier while she was inside. Nobody was careless. No object held the fact “this animal has had this drug today,” phones were low on battery, and you were in different vehicles.
A paper log is that object. It is not a reminder system or a schedule. It is a shared record of what already happened to one animal, readable by whoever holds the leash and later by a veterinarian who has never met your dog.
It has two halves: the administration log (what was given, when, by whom, what was missed) and the cold-chain block, which a clinician will ask about if a refrigerated product spent a night in a cooler. A diabetic mode lets an owner carry one sheet rather than two.
This log records. It does not decide.
There is no cell on this sheet that resolves to “safe to use” or “discard,” and no temperature range, hour count or traffic-light coloring. The sources below send that question to other people.
FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) covers medicines after a power outage on its Safe Drug Use After a Natural Disaster page (content current as of 09/01/2026). The page is written for people and their own medicines, not for pets. It says that if a medicine that needs refrigeration, such as insulin, has not been kept at the recommended temperature during a power outage, you should check its storage instructions, if available, or contact a pharmacist, health care provider or the manufacturer to find out if it can still be used. It then adds that if the medicine is needed to sustain life, insulin being its example, and a replacement is not readily available, it may be used until you can get a new supply.
That is human-medicine guidance. Whether it applies to your pet’s insulin or any other pet medicine is a question for your veterinarian, so call before you decide and do not settle it from this page or any other website. What carries over to pets is the routing: the answer comes from the prescriber, the dispenser or the maker.
FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) says the same for pets on its medication storage page: “FDA cannot give veterinary medical advice.” Call your veterinarian for a sick pet or emergency, and if yours is unavailable, call your local emergency animal hospital or an animal poison control center.
CVM’s owner article, Medications for Your Pet … Questions for Your Vet (content current as of 02/20/2024), covers the two questions owners most want a printable to answer. If a pet vomits a dose, it says the answer depends on the medicine. Some break down in the stomach faster than others, so a pet that immediately vomits one that breaks down quickly may already have absorbed it, and another dose could cause too much medicine to be absorbed and lead to side effects. Your veterinarian will guide you. On a missed dose it opens with “Again, it depends on the medicine.” Your veterinarian can tell you when to give the next one. If you accidentally gave too much, call your veterinarian right away.
So the useful printable captures the facts those answers depend on. At two in the morning in an unfamiliar town, “the 8 p.m. dose on the ninth was not given, initials KM” is a decision-ready fact, and “she might have missed one yesterday” is a guess. The only judgment field is the last row of the cold-chain block, for the clinician or manufacturer to fill in with a date and a name.
The regimen block is blank on purpose
Nothing on this page pre-fills a drug name, strength, route, frequency or timing, not even as an example. A sample row looks like a template row once the sheet is photocopied in June and pulled out in October, and the example becomes the default. Copy each line from the pharmacy label on the container in your hand.
FDA points at the label for the same reason. Its Questions for Your Vet article says medicines have an optimum storage temperature range, that storing them too hot or too cold can affect effectiveness, and that some need the refrigerator, some room temperature, and some to be kept away from sunlight. It gives no number, because the number is on your product. It also says the label tells you how to give the medicine, when to give it and how much.
Two databases hold the underlying FDA-approved labeling. Animal Drugs @ FDA is CVM’s searchable database of FDA-approved animal drug products. DailyMed, run by the National Library of Medicine, carries labeling submitted to FDA and describes its contents as including “Prescription and nonprescription drugs for animal use.” A storage statement for a specific product comes from one of those or from the manufacturer.
Write the schedule in words, not clinic shorthand
This is the most useful formatting rule on the sheet, and it comes from FDA casework. In CVM’s article A Microgram of Prevention is Worth a Milligram of Cure (content current as of 05/21/2024), CVM reports it found the abbreviation SID (once daily) in prescriptions misinterpreted as BID (twice daily) and QID (four times daily), “resulting in drug overdoses for the patients.”
The article publishes two of the underlying reports. In one, a verbal once-daily prescription for a dog was transcribed as twice daily, the dog received the drug twice daily for 10 days and died. The abbreviation was unfamiliar to the pharmacist, and although the cause of death is unknown, FDA says the overdose may have contributed. In the other, a written once-daily instruction for a cat was read as four times daily. The cat received an overdose for two days and, fortunately, only had diarrhea. These are FDA’s investigated cases for two patients, not regimens for any other animal.
FDA lists more collisions in a table. “U” for units is read as a zero, and “mcg” or “µg” is read as “mg”. Decimal points collide too. CVM’s Veterinary Medication Errors page says a trailing zero can make 5.0 read as 50, and a missing leading zero can make .5 read as 5.
FDA’s remedy is addressed to prescribers. Its Microgram article lists as its first way to avoid errors: “Completely write out the prescription, including the drug name and dosage regimen.” The Veterinary Medication Errors page says to avoid trailing zeros and that leading zeros make the decimal point clearer. Applying that habit to a household log is our extension; FDA did not publish it for owners. It costs nothing: write “once daily, morning” rather than SID, “units” rather than U, and copy the strength character for character from the label.
The administration log: five columns
The running log is deliberately narrow. Anything you add is something someone has to write while holding a leash.
Date and time. Clock time, not “morning.” A clinician asking when the last dose was given wants a number.
Which drug. Written in full as in the regimen block. Not “the white one,” not an initial.
Given or not given. A tick is not enough, because a blank row is ambiguous: the dose may have been skipped, or the giver may never have returned to the sheet. Mark both states.
Given by. Printed name the first time each person appears, initials after. Whoever is holding the animal gives the medication, including people outside the household: a sister at a rest stop, a kennel worker, a shelter volunteer.
What happened. One short line for events the veterinarian will want to know about: brought straight back up, spat out, part of the dose recovered, refused, dropped. Do not write what you did about it. Write what happened, then call.
That last distinction is the ethic of the sheet. The log is upstream of the decision. Something written at a rest stop that reads like a decision is a decision nobody qualified made.
Why the drug name gets written out in full
FDA’s Veterinary Medication Errors page lists, among its case examples, two brand-name animal drugs a veterinary pharmacist flagged, Convenia and Cerenia, which can look alike on written orders. Convenia is for skin infections in dogs and cats, and Cerenia is for preventing or treating vomiting in dogs and cats. Both are injectable and dosed by the patient’s body weight. The transcription error put the wrong drug name on a prescription label, and the pharmacist caught it before anything was dispensed. As of September 29, 2026, DailyMed listed both CONVENIA (cefovecin sodium) and CERENIA (maropitant citrate) under Zoetis Inc.
For human drugs there is a dated compilation: the ISMP List of Confused Drug Names, distributed by ECRI, which states it is “Updated through June 2024.” It is a human-medication list, not a veterinary document. It matters here because FDA says human drugs are commonly used to treat animals, and that human drugs known to cause name errors can also cause errors in veterinary medication use. Pairs printed on the list include hydrOXYzine and hydrALAZINE, predniSONE and prednisoLONE, methIMAzole and methazolAMIDE, metroNIDAZOLE and metFORMIN, traZODone and traMADol, and cycloSPORINE and cycloSPORINE modified.
The practical consequence is one line: write the full name from the label every time, and if the log goes to someone outside your household, write what the drug is for next to it. FDA’s consumer guidance tells owners to ask “What is the name of the drug? What is it supposed to do?” and to bring a written list of what the animal takes.
Our seizure-dog emergency kit covers the packing side, including what happens when tablets leave their labeled vial for a pill organizer. This page assumes you have made that decision and are now writing down what got given.
Multi-animal mode: one sheet per animal
Do not build a household log with a column per animal. A per-animal sheet can be handed off with the animal. When the collie goes to a friend’s house because the shelter took the cats and not the dog, the collie’s sheet goes with the collie and the cats’ sheets stay with you. A combined grid cannot be split without copying it.
Mark each sheet three ways, because each survives a different failure: the animal’s name large at the top, a color (a highlighter stripe, a sticky tab, a colored pen) and, if there is more than one of a species, one distinguishing feature in words. Color survives a glance. Words survive a photocopy and a phone photo taken in a dark room.
The storage rules under the sheets are FDA’s, from Properly Store Medications to Keep Your Pet Safe (content current as of 06/14/2024): “Keep pet medications in their original containers with intact labels. It’s important that the directions for use and the pet’s name are legible.” FDA also says to store pet medications away from people medications to prevent a mix-up, and notes it sometimes receives calls from panicked owners who took their pet’s medication or gave their own to their pet. Its instruction for a hotel room where everything sits on one nightstand: “To prevent mix-ups, store medications for each person and each pet in your household separately.”
The medication-errors page adds a rule for when two animals are on similar-looking drugs and one bottle runs out: “Do not share one animal’s drug with another unless your veterinarian says it’s OK to do so.”
Two more design notes.
Give every sheet a household strip. One line at the top listing the names of all the animals and the color of each one’s sheet. It answers the question a caregiver cannot otherwise answer: how many sheets should I have, and am I missing one.
Log the animals that are not with you. If two animals went to boarding and one is in the car, the boarded animals’ sheets still get filled by whoever has them, or carry a line saying where the animal is and who has the sheet. The AVMA’s Save the Whole Family brochure (2023 edition) makes the parallel point about the medication itself: if a medication must be stored outside the kit for temperature reasons, such as refrigeration, write down its name and location and put that note in the kit. A kit that does not say where the refrigerated item is has a hole in it that only shows at the door.
Our multi-pet go-bag math covers how much of each supply to carry per animal, and multi-pet emergency planning covers the grab order and per-animal documents. This page is the running record that sits inside both.
The cold-chain block: what to write, and who reads it
If a product in your kit needs refrigeration, the question after the power fails is what the person who can tell you what to do needs from you. FDA has published an answer, though not for pet owners.
FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) maintains Impact of Severe Weather Conditions on Biological Products (content current as of 03/23/2018). It addresses human biological products, named on the page as bacterial and viral vaccines, allergenic extracts, plasma derivatives and other products requiring refrigeration or frozen storage. It is addressed to clinics, facilities, carriers and in-home users. It is not veterinary guidance and publishes no stability data for any veterinary drug. What it publishes is a record-keeping procedure, and this block is built from it.
During the outage, CBER says to note the time of the power outage and not to open freezers and refrigerators until power is restored, which helps keep the temperature low longer. Once power is back, it says to record the temperature “as soon as possible after power is restored,” keep recording at periodic intervals until it reaches the range on the product labeling, and “Record the duration of increased temperature exposure.” It explains why: that time and temperature information can enable calculations by the product manufacturer, in consultation with FDA as necessary, about the continued potency of the products.
The record enables a calculation, and the manufacturer makes it. Not the owner, and not a chart on a website.
CBER also recommends thermometers in the refrigerator and freezer sections so temperatures can be read when power resumes, points to the product label’s How Supplied/Storage and Handling section for storage information, and says to call the supplier or the manufacturer’s customer service department if you are concerned about the effect of temperature and time on stability.
We borrow only the record-keeping procedure and apply it to a pet owner writing on paper. The page publishes no stability figure for any veterinary product, and none is borrowed. Your product’s storage answer is on its own labeling and with its manufacturer.
The fields, and why each one exists
Time cold storage stopped. The clock hour, following CBER’s instruction to note the time of the outage. If you did not see it happen, write the last time you know it was cold and the first time you know it was not, and label both as bounds. An honest range beats a confident invention.
Time cold storage resumed. Same discipline.
Thermometer readings, with the time of each. One row per reading, because a single reading at an unknown point in the curve tells a manufacturer far less than three readings with times.
Minimum and maximum since the last reset. A minimum-maximum thermometer answers how far the temperature went while you slept or drove. Write down when you last reset it, because a maximum with no start time is a number without a window.
Ice and gel-pack changes. Time and what was changed. This explains a jagged temperature trace to whoever reads it, and tells whether the cooler was opened, which CBER’s advice treats as significant.
Did it freeze. Observed, not inferred: ice crystals, the product visibly solid, a reading below freezing at a recorded time. Write what you saw, not what you think freezing means for this product. That is a question for the manufacturer and prescriber.
Did it contact water. CDER’s page says, about human medicines, that those which have come into contact with floodwater or unsafe water should be discarded, even in original containers with screw-top caps, snap lids or droppers. It makes one narrow exception: a medicine needed to treat a life-threatening condition, with no replacement readily available, may be used if it appears unchanged, and should be replaced as soon as possible. A medicine that is wet or otherwise altered should not be used. That is human-medicine guidance. Record the contact and ask your veterinarian and pharmacy about it as its own question, separate from the temperature question, before you give the product.
Product identity. Name, strength, lot number and expiry, copied from the label or carton. A customer service line cannot calculate anything about a product it cannot identify, and the lot number is the field owners most often leave behind with the box.
The decision row. One row at the bottom, the only outcome field on the sheet: the date, the name and role of the person who gave the instruction, their clinic or company and phone number, and the instruction in their words. Fill it in after the call, not before.
This block has no range, hour count or “if under X” rule. It is a record, not a verdict.
How long a closed refrigerator or packed cooler holds temperature is a different question: pet medication and refrigeration in a power outage covers what labels require and how to think about the hours. Which cooler to buy and how far ahead to freeze what belongs to the insulin cooler travel case guide. This page documents what those two produce.
What the sources do not give you
None of the FDA pages above, Ready.gov’s pets page or the AVMA brochure gives a rule that turns an elapsed time and a temperature into a use-or-discard answer for a veterinary product. CDER’s life-sustaining exception is human-medicine guidance and states no time or temperature. What the pages give, repeatedly, is routing: to the prescriber, the dispensing pharmacy and the manufacturer’s customer service department, with the owner supplying the time and temperature record.
A specific product’s FDA-approved labeling or its manufacturer’s technical line may hold a statement for that product, and that is where FDA points you. If your manufacturer gives you one in writing, write it on your sheet in their words.
Diabetic mode: the section your veterinarian fills in
An owner of a diabetic dog or cat should not carry two documents. This section folds the daily diabetic record into the same sheet, built to be filled in by a veterinarian, not by us.
An owner-kept daily record is not something this site invented. The 2026 AAHA Diabetes Management Guidelines for Cats (J Am Anim Hosp Assoc 2026;62:65-93), under Home Monitoring of Clinical Signs, tell clinicians to encourage clients to keep a daily log of the pet’s appetite, thirst, urinary habits, feeding and insulin dose administered, to bring to each in-clinic recheck. The 2018 AAHA guidelines for dogs and cats, on the PDF that carries a note that it includes updates made in 2022, say owners should be encouraged to keep a daily log of appetite, thirst and insulin dose administered. Their home monitoring list includes logging food and water intake and appetite daily and logging insulin doses daily, and their clinic-side monitoring list opens with reviewing the owner log.
Editions. The 2026 feline guidelines are the current AAHA guidance for cats and state that they retain clinically relevant information from the 2018 guidelines. For dogs, an AVMA news item dated May 19, 2026 reported that the guidelines were being divided by species and that a canine-focused release was scheduled for that fall. AAHA’s website now lists a separate 2026 AAHA Diabetes Management Guidelines for Dogs, published August 31, 2026. As of September 29, 2026, its section on other methods of monitoring glycemic status also tells clinicians to encourage clients to keep a daily log of appetite, thirst, urinary habits, feeding and insulin dose administered. Treat your own veterinarian’s instructions as the ones that govern.
What goes in the two halves
Half one: the contingency block, completed and signed by your veterinarian. Take the sheet to a routine appointment before a storm season, not during one, and ask whether they are willing to fill it in. It has blank lines for what they want recorded, what they want you to do about problems they name, how to reach them or a backup clinic when the usual number does not answer, a date, and a signature.
That block is not a standing order, and this site has no authority to issue one. A veterinarian may decline or replace it with their own document, and a completed sheet does not authorize anybody to do anything. It is a communication aid that survives a dead phone.
The AVMA publishes a related but separate item: it suggests including a “signed veterinary medical treatment authorization” in your evacuation kit, to help your veterinarian provide care if your pet must be treated during your absence. Our pet authority documents guide covers that family of paperwork.
Half two: the daily record. Fields mirroring what current AAHA guidance asks clients to log, each with a date and time: appetite, thirst, urinary habits, what was fed and how much, and the insulin dose administered. If your veterinarian asks you to record a glucose reading or anything from a monitoring device, there is a blank column and the heading is theirs to write.
This site prints no glucose target, no insulin adjustment scale, no sliding scale, no ketone threshold and no rule for holding a dose. Those are parameters for one animal, set by the clinician who knows its history. If you have them, they belong here in your veterinarian’s handwriting or on their letterhead. If you do not, ask your veterinarian, not a search engine.
The printable
Print one copy per animal, and a spare of the cold-chain block, since it fills fastest. Write in pen, because pencil disappears when a sheet gets wet, and put the sheets in a sleeve or bag before they go in the kit. Ready.gov’s pets page (last updated 03/20/2026) tells owners to keep an extra supply of the regular medicine in a waterproof container.
Block A. This animal
| Field | Fill in |
|---|---|
| Animal’s name | ____ |
| Species, breed, age, sex, color, distinguishing features | ____ |
| Sheet color or marking for this animal | ____ |
| Other animals in this household, and their sheet colors | ____ |
| Microchip number | ____ |
| Owner name and phone | ____ |
| Second contact name and phone | ____ |
| Veterinarian, clinic, phone | ____ |
| Backup or emergency clinic, phone | ____ |
| Dispensing pharmacy, phone | ____ |
| Known allergies or past drug reactions | ____ |
| Where this animal is right now, and who holds this sheet | ____ |
Block B. Regimen, copied from your own labels
Copy every line from the container. Write frequency in words, not abbreviations. Do not fill this from memory or from any website.
| Drug name exactly as the label reads | Strength as the label reads | How it is given | When it is given, in words | Storage words on the label | What it is for, in your words |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
Block C. Administration log
| Date | Clock time | Drug, as written in Block B | Given / Not given | Given by (name, then initials) | What happened (vomited, spat out, refused, partial, none) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
Names on this sheet. Print each person’s full name once against their initials, so a stranger can tell KM from KMcD: ____
Block D. Cold-chain event header
Fill this once per event, at the top of the temperature rows.
| Field | Fill in |
|---|---|
| Product name, strength, lot number, expiry (from the label or carton) | ____ |
| Storage words printed on that product’s label | ____ |
| Where the product was kept during the event (home fridge, cooler, vehicle, other) | ____ |
| Time cold storage stopped, or the two bounds if unobserved | ____ |
| Time cold storage resumed, or the two bounds if unobserved | ____ |
| Was the product observed frozen at any point (what was seen, and when) | ____ |
| Did the product contact flood water or water of unknown origin (what, when) | ____ |
| Manufacturer customer service number, from the carton or insert | ____ |
Block E. Temperature and ice record
| Date and time | Reading now | Minimum since last reset | Maximum since last reset | Time thermometer was last reset | Ice or gel packs changed (what, when) | Recorded by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
Block F. The one decision row, filled in by the clinician or manufacturer
| Field | Fill in |
|---|---|
| Date and time of the call | ____ |
| Name and role of the person giving the instruction | ____ |
| Clinic or company, and phone number | ____ |
| Instruction as given, in their words | ____ |
Block G. Diabetic mode, part one: contingency block for your veterinarian
Blank on purpose. Ask your veterinarian, at a routine appointment before a season starts, whether they are willing to complete it. They may decline or hand you their own document.
| Field | For the veterinarian to complete |
|---|---|
| What you want me to record, and how often | ____ |
| What you want me to do about the problems you name below | ____ |
| Problems you want me to watch for | ____ |
| Who to call first when your clinic is closed or unreachable | ____ |
| Second number, and after-hours instructions | ____ |
| Anything specific to this animal a strange clinic should know | ____ |
| Veterinarian’s name, signature and date | ____ |
Block H. Diabetic mode, part two: daily record
| Date | Time | Appetite | Thirst | Urinary habits | Food given (type, amount) | Insulin dose administered | Anything your vet asked you to record | Recorded by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
The quiet afternoon version
The sheet fails if the first time anyone touches it is on an evacuation route. Four steps, one afternoon, before a season.
Fill Blocks A and B now, off the labels, at the kitchen table. These require reading small print, the first casualty of a hurry. Everything else is written under pressure by design.
Photograph every label, front and back, including the carton. Lot number and expiry live on the parts people throw away. FDA’s consumer suggestions tell owners to keep a list of the drugs the animal takes, including over-the-counter drugs, supplements and prescriptions, and show it to the veterinarian. The AVMA’s brochure asks for the same in its records list: each pet’s medications, with drug name, dosage and frequency of dosing.
Put a thermometer in with the cold item now, and learn to reset it. CBER’s instruction assumes a thermometer is already there when the power fails, and a minimum and maximum reading is worth many single spot readings. A device you have never reset will hand you a number from last March.
Ask your veterinarian the questions FDA publishes, at a routine appointment. CVM’s consumer list includes several that should be answered before an emergency: “How should I store it and how do I dispose of any unused medication?”, “What should I do if I forget to give a dose to my animal?”, “What should I do if my animal vomits or spits it out?” and “What if I accidentally give too much?” Write the answers on your sheet, in their words, dated. That is the version of this page that is about your animal.
If you are taking a sheet to a veterinarian anyway, reconstructing pet records when the clinic is gone covers the failure this record quietly insures against.
Your medication log checklist
- One sheet per animal, marked with the animal’s name, a color and one distinguishing feature in words.
- Blocks A and B filled in from your own labels, before a season, at a table.
- Frequency written in words on every regimen line, with no clinic abbreviations, no trailing zeros and a leading zero before every decimal point.
- Every person who might give a dose has their full name printed once against their initials.
- Not-given rows marked explicitly, so a blank never has to be interpreted.
- What happened recorded as an event, with the decision left to the phone call.
- A thermometer already living with any refrigerated product, and the last reset time written down.
- Lot number and expiry captured from the carton, not just the bottle, and photographed.
- Manufacturer customer service number copied onto Block D before you need it.
- Cold-chain rows filled as readings happen, with times, not reconstructed afterward.
- The decision row left empty until a named clinician or manufacturer fills it.
- Diabetic households: the contingency block taken to a routine appointment and offered to the veterinarian, with no numbers pre-filled by anyone else.
- Refrigerated items that live outside the kit noted in the kit, by name and location, as the AVMA brochure asks.
- The whole sheet in a sleeve or bag, and a photograph of it on a phone as a second copy.
Where to go next
This page is the record-keeping spoke of our pet evacuation kits hub.
The refrigeration question itself. Pet medication and refrigeration in a power outage covers what labels require and how the hours run, and the insulin cooler travel case guide covers the hardware that produces the numbers this log records.
The rest of the paperwork. The pet emergency binder is the per-animal build this sheet slots into, paper versus digital pet medical records explains why the paper copy exists, and the free pet medication refill calculator handles the supply question upstream of every row. If someone else will give the doses, the pet sitter emergency instructions builder is the handoff document that goes with this log.
The household versions. Multi-pet go-bag math sets how much of everything to carry, multi-pet emergency planning covers the grab order, and the seizure-dog emergency kit is the condition-specific build. If boarding is part of your plan, the emergency pet boarding checklist covers what a facility asks for at the counter, and this sheet is what you hand across it.
Then take the blank sheet to your next routine appointment and ask your veterinarian to answer FDA’s four questions on it, in their handwriting, dated. That version is the only one about your animal.
Frequently asked questions
What should a pet medication log record during an evacuation?
Facts only: which animal the sheet belongs to; each medication copied word for word from the pharmacy label; the date and clock time of each dose; whether it was given or not given; who gave it; and anything that happened around it, such as vomiting or spitting it out. Refrigerated products also get a time-and-temperature block. Write schedules out in words, not abbreviations. The log contains no dose, interval or usability rule, because your veterinarian, pharmacy or manufacturer decides those.
My pet's refrigerated medication or insulin got warm during a power outage. What do I do?
Write down what happened, then call your veterinarian, the dispensing pharmacy or the manufacturer's number on the package. Record when cold storage stopped and resumed, each thermometer reading with its time, whether the product froze or touched floodwater, and its name, strength, lot number and expiry. FDA's guidance for human medicines says a life-sustaining one such as insulin may be used until a new supply arrives if no replacement is available. Whether that fits your pet is your veterinarian's call, not a website's.
What should I do if I miss a dose of my pet's medication during an evacuation?
Write down that the dose was missed and when it was due, then ask your veterinarian. FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine says a missed dose depends on the medicine and your veterinarian will tell you when to give the next one. If your pet vomits a dose, the same article says the answer depends on the medicine: for one that breaks down quickly, another dose could lead to side effects. Ask your veterinarian. Do not double up, skip or shift the schedule on your own.
How do I keep two pets' medications from getting mixed up in an evacuation?
Use one sheet per animal, keep each animal's drugs in their own labeled containers, and store them apart from each other and from human medicines. FDA tells owners to keep pet medications in their original containers with legible labels, and not to share one animal's drug with another unless the veterinarian says it is OK. Copy each drug name in full from the label, and write schedules in words.
Does any veterinary body require a medication log, or specify a format for one?
These sources encourage a log; none requires one. Current AAHA diabetes guidance for cats and dogs tells clinicians to encourage owners to keep a daily log, the 2018 AAHA guidelines say the same in fewer fields, FDA's consumer suggestions say to keep a list of the drugs an animal takes and show it to the veterinarian, and the AVMA lists each pet's medications among records to copy. None sets a format or guarantees a clinic will act on your sheet.
What goes in the diabetic section of the log, and where do the numbers come from?
The fields are blank, and the numbers come from your own veterinarian in writing before a storm season, not from this site. Part one is a contingency block your veterinarian may complete and sign. Part two is a daily record of appetite, thirst, urinary habits, feeding and insulin dose administered. This site publishes no glucose target, insulin adjustment scale, ketone threshold or hold-the-dose rule, because those are prescriber parameters for one animal.
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Sources
We are not veterinarians, and we would rather you check these than take our word for anything. These are the sources this page relies on. For your own animal, your vet is the expert, not this page.
- FDA (CDER), Safe Drug Use After a Natural Disaster (content current as of 09/01/2026) (opens in a new tab)
- FDA (CBER), Impact of Severe Weather Conditions on Biological Products (content current as of 03/23/2018) (opens in a new tab)
- FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Medication Errors, including the For Consumers section (content current as of 05/21/2024) (opens in a new tab)
- FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine, A Microgram of Prevention is Worth a Milligram of Cure: Preventing Medication Errors in Animals (content current as of 05/21/2024) (opens in a new tab)
- FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine, Medications for Your Pet ... Questions for Your Vet (content current as of 02/20/2024) (opens in a new tab)
- FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine, Properly Store Medications to Keep Your Pet Safe (content current as of 06/14/2024) (opens in a new tab)
- Animal Drugs @ FDA: searchable database of FDA-approved animal drug products (opens in a new tab)
- DailyMed (US National Library of Medicine): drug labeling database that includes drugs for animal use; a search by name lists Convenia and Cerenia (opens in a new tab)
- AAHA, 2026 AAHA Diabetes Management Guidelines for Cats (J Am Anim Hosp Assoc 2026;62:65-93, DOI 10.5326/JAAHA-MS-7572) (opens in a new tab)
- AAHA, 2026 AAHA Diabetes Management Guidelines for Dogs (published August 31, 2026) (opens in a new tab)
- AAHA, 2018 AAHA Diabetes Management Guidelines for Dogs and Cats (J Am Anim Hosp Assoc 2018;54:1-19; the PDF carries the note that the guidelines include updates made in 2022) (opens in a new tab)
- AVMA, Updated AAHA diabetes management guidelines focuses on cats (news item dated May 19, 2026, reporting a canine-focused release scheduled for fall) (opens in a new tab)
- AVMA, Save the Whole Family: Disaster preparedness for households with pets (2023 edition; document code aph-0923) (opens in a new tab)
- ECRI/ISMP, List of Confused Drug Names (updated through June 2024; a human-medication list) (opens in a new tab)
- Ready.gov, Prepare Your Pets for Disasters (page last updated 03/20/2026) (opens in a new tab)
Related reading
How-To
Keeping Pet Medication Cold When the Power Goes Out
Buying Guide
Insulin Cooler Travel Cases for a Diabetic Pet's Go-Bag
Checklist
Multi-Pet Go-Bag Math: How Much Food, Water, and Meds Per Animal
Checklist
The Pet Emergency Binder: Build It Once
How-To
Seizure-Prone Dog: The Emergency Kit and Evacuation Plan