The Post-Disaster Exposure Log: What Your Animal Touched, When, and for How Long

After a disaster, the most useful thing to hand a veterinarian is a written record of what your animal was in: what it contacted, how (walked through it, swam in it, drank it, ate it, breathed it), when the exposure started and stopped, what the water looked like, and what you had already done to the animal. This page gives you one printable sheet for that. It is a record, not a triage tool. It does not tell you whether to go, and it works beside a phone call to your veterinarian or a poison control service, never in place of one.

Why write it down

The clinic may be a folding table in a fire station, your own practice with nine people ahead of you, or a strange hospital two counties inland. Someone with a clipboard asks what happened, and the answer that comes out is a shape: he was in the water for a while, sometime yesterday afternoon, that brown water, I hosed him off after. The person holding the clipboard cannot use “a while” or “that brown water,” and by the time someone asks again your memory of the timeline has smoothed into something tidier and less accurate.

Fill the sheet in and hand it across the counter, and the reader knows what your animal touched, by what route, when, for how long, what the water was, what you did before you arrived, and what you do not know.

This sheet records. It does not decide.

The pet medication log for an evacuation follows the same rule: it records and does not decide. So this sheet has no cell that resolves to serious or not serious. It has no severity scale, colour coding, score, threshold or rule beginning “call now if,” and no printed list of symptoms to tick. Whether an exposure warrants a visit belongs to a veterinarian who can examine the animal, or to a telephone poison control service. It does not belong to a web page that has never met your dog.

No veterinarian reviews this site, so every clinical judgment on this page would be one nobody qualified made, in a format that looks official, read by someone under pressure.

Every field on the sheet had to pass one test: an owner must be able to answer it from memory or from something they saw. “How long was the dog in the water” passes. “Was the exposure severe” fails. “What colour was the water” passes. “Was the water dangerous” fails.

What the published sources say a clinician wants

Several veterinary authorities do write down what a clinician wants to know after an exposure, and knowing which parts are published is the difference between a sheet you can defend and one that only looks official.

Merck publishes the field set. The Merck Veterinary Manual’s article Diagnosis of Toxicosis in Animals (Professional Version, Full Review Jun 2024) lists what to consider when assessing an exposure. For companion animals that is six items: the specific substance with its strength, form and amount; the route of exposure; the species and breed; the time since the exposure; current medical concerns and medications; and current clinical signs. Those six headings are the spine of the sheet below.

Two limits apply. The article is written for veterinarians, and it is about toxicosis, which is one of several things a dog that swam through floodwater may have faced (infection, chemical exposure, injury or ingestion). This page borrows the headings, not the scope.

The same article cautions: “Histories from animal owners can stress obvious factors and omit subtle, important details.” That is the argument for the sheet. A written form filled in field by field is the ordinary remedy for a history spoken from memory under pressure.

Merck also says what changes the answer. Its companion article, Factors Affecting the Activity of Toxic Agents in Animals (last updated Feb 2026), gives the reasons behind several fields:

• The article says the exact amount of an exposure is seldom known: “the exact amount of a toxic agent that an animal has been exposed to is seldom known”. That is the licence to write unknown.
• Duration and frequency of exposure are important, so the sheet asks when it started and stopped, and how many times.
• Route affects absorption, so route is its own field. Walking through something and drinking it are different exposures.
• Food in the stomach can increase absorption of some toxic agents, so the sheet asks when the animal last ate. Merck ties feeding or withholding food to a clinician’s decision. This page does not make that decision and does not tell you to feed or withhold anything.
• Age and size are primary factors in toxicosis, so the sheet asks for a real weight. Merck also says no single measurement is consistent for every situation, so weight settles nothing. A number from a bathroom scale simply beats an estimate at a counter.

The AVMA says the history is the owner’s to supply. Its owner page on leptospirosis in dogs says: “Because leptospirosis can look like other diseases, your veterinarian will need your help to make a diagnosis.” It adds that this includes sharing the dog’s lifestyle and travel history. It also says the disease may be suspected from the exposure history and signs, but many signs occur with other diseases. An exposure history feeds a suspicion. It does not settle anything, and neither does its absence.

The ACVIM sentence sets the ceiling on this sheet. The updated ACVIM consensus statement on leptospirosis in dogs (Sykes and colleagues, Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine, 2023) says, in the section for clinicians deciding on testing, that a history of potential exposure to other animal species or water sources should increase suspicion, but that “all dogs should be considered at risk, regardless of signalment, geographic region, and lifestyle.” A completed sheet adds information. A sheet with nothing alarming on it rules out nothing. If you catch yourself feeling reassured by your own completed sheet, put it down and make the call it was written to support.

Penn Vet tells you to carry the thing. The University of Pennsylvania’s Ryan Veterinary Hospital emergency service says: “If your pet has ingested a toxin, it is VERY important that you bring the packaging so that we can read the chemical name from the label.” The capital letters are Penn’s. Applying that to a disaster is this site’s own step: the equivalent objects include the label off a drum in the yard, the container the neighbor’s generator fuel came from, or a photograph of the water. Bring the physical thing where you safely can. Otherwise photograph it and write on the sheet where it still is.

The ASPCA publishes what a poison control call asks for. Its walkthrough of a call says you will be asked about your pet’s breed, age, weight and health history, then about the product package, the strength of the ingredients and the amount your pet was exposed to. It tells callers to mention any home treatments they tried. It names the exposure routes in plain words: “whether they ate it, it got on their skin, they inhaled it, or something got into their eyes”. The call ends with a case number and a call-back number, which you can give a clinic so it can call ASPCA Poison Control and pick up from there.

NASAAEP names the categories of thing an animal may have been in. The 2023 NASAAEP Disaster Veterinary Medical Response best practices say that after natural disasters animals may be exposed to household or agricultural chemicals, petroleum products, heavy metals, and harmful pathogens from disrupted manure pits or septic tanks. After agricultural or industrial accidents they may be exposed to chemical spills, radiological materials or gas leaks. That passage is addressed to responders and clinicians, so this page borrows its categories, not any duty it assigns. The AVMA’s post-disaster recovery list gives a shorter household version: survey inside and outside your home for sharp objects, dangerous materials, dangerous wildlife, contaminated water, downed power lines and other hazards.

Neither list is a hazard explainer. This sheet names categories so you can write in the box.

What nobody publishes

No published document opened for this page offers an owner-completed, post-disaster exposure form. That is narrower than saying nobody publishes what a clinician wants, which is false. It concerns one artifact.

• NASAAEP’s Appendix J, Field Assessment and Triage Form, is a clinician’s observation sheet: mentation, attitude, wounds, respiration rate and similar. It has no field for what the animal contacted, when the exposure happened, how long it lasted or in what water. Its intake process tells responders to “Review any information that may have been provided by the owner or finder” but never says what that information should contain.
• NASAAEP’s Appendix N has “exposed” in its title, but it is a shelter’s contact-tracing grid for infectious disease, completed by staff. It is not a record of what an animal contacted in the environment. The infectious side belongs to the co-located shelter page.
• UC Davis’s California Veterinary Emergency Team Generic Small Animal Record has two yes-or-no boxes (decontamination needed, potentially infectious) and an additional notes box. It has no exposure history, contact or water field.
• FEMA’s Key Planning Factors section 1.4, Veterinary Care, is addressed to emergency planners about veterinary stockpiles and technical assistance. It contains no documentation requirement.
• The AVMA’s Pets and disasters recovery list tells you to look at the animal and call a veterinarian if you see something. It does not tell you to write down what the animal was in.

That describes those documents, not every form anywhere. If your state agriculture department, county animal services agency or veterinary practice publishes an exposure form, use theirs. It is the one the receiving clinic expects.

What this site concludes. Assembling the published headings into one sheet an owner fills in and hands over is EmergencyPetPrep’s own work. It is not a protocol, none of the organizations quoted endorses it, and no clinic is obliged to accept it. Expect the clinician to ask questions off it and take their own history anyway. It has done its job if a clinician glances at it and asks you three questions from it.

None of the sources cited turns an exposure duration, a water description or a substance into an answer about whether to be seen. They route you to the veterinarian and to a poison control service.

The fields, one at a time

Each field carries its reason. Where the reason is a source, the source is named. Where it is this page’s own, the page says so.

1. Which animal. Name, species, breed, age or date of birth, sex, colour and markings, current weight with the date, and microchip number. Use one sheet per animal, not per household, so it can travel with the animal if the household splits.
2. What the animal contacted. Free text in the plainest words you have: floodwater in the street, standing water in the yard, mud, a sewage backup, ash, a spill, a container, a dead animal, an unknown liquid in the garage. If you have the product, copy its exact name, strength and form (powder, granule, liquid, gel, pellet, bait block, tablet) off the container.
3. Bring it, do not describe it. Note what physical object you are bringing, or where it is if you are not. A photograph is second best, and a written description of a label a distant third. If the object is unsafe to retrieve, write down where it is and stop. Nothing on this sheet is worth going back into a hazard for.
4. The route. Write in every one that happened, since more than one can be true: walked through it, stood in it, swam in it, was submerged, drank it, ate something, licked it off itself, breathed it, got it in the eyes, rolled in it, was bitten or scratched, or unknown. The route words describe something you saw. A symptom list would ask you to assess something, which is why only the first exists here.
5. The clock. When it started, when it stopped, how long that was, and how long ago that was. Add frequency: a dog that went into the water four times over two days is a different history from one that went in once. Write clock times, not “this morning,” and write two bounds where you did not see it all: last seen dry at about six, found soaked at about nine, so somewhere between a few minutes and three hours.
6. The water, in your own words. See the next section.
7. What was on the animal when it came in. Wet to the skin or belly, mud on the legs, ash in the coat, a film or sheen on the fur, an oily smell, something caught in the coat or between the pads, something around the mouth, and where. No source named here publishes this as a field. It is this page’s own addition, and it is the observation that fades fastest.
8. What you already did, and what you used. Washed, wiped, rinsed, hosed, bathed, brushed, eyes flushed, gave something, or nothing. Record the product name off the bottle, how long, how many times, and the clock times. Nothing is a real answer. The ASPCA tells callers to mention home treatments. What should go on an animal that came out of floodwater is worked through on the floodwater washing page, not here.
9. When it last ate and last drank. Clock time and what it was. This puts the fact in front of the clinician who decides about feeding.
10. Vaccination status, as known. What the animal has had, roughly when, and where the record is. Write unknown as an answer. NASAAEP’s shelter intake process treats animals that “have not been vaccinated or lack documentation of current vaccination status” alike. If the clinic that holds the record is gone, see reconstructing pet records when the clinic is gone.
11. Current medications, copied off the label on the container in your hand, not from memory. Penn Vet’s client checklist asks owners to bring all of them, and notes this matters especially when a medication is compounded. The regimen block on the medication log is this field, already filled in.
12. One line for what you have noticed, and when you first noticed it, in your own words. No tick boxes.
13. Who handled the animal, and whether they wore gloves. The AVMA says many mammals, including people, are susceptible to the Leptospira bacteria that cause leptospirosis. That is one disease, and this page does not widen it to everything in floodwater. It is enough to show that an animal’s exposure record sometimes records a person’s too.
14. Wildlife contact, bites and scratches. Species if known, what happened, date and time, where on the body, and who was involved.
15. Who else saw it, and what they said. A name and number beside their account, marked as theirs. That is the difference between a record and a rumor.
16. Case numbers and who you already called. The case number and call-back number from any poison control call, with the service’s name and the time.

The water line

Of every line on the sheet, the water line is the one owners write most vaguely and the one two authorities name directly. Write in your own words: moving or standing, how deep relative to the animal, colour, any scum, foam, sheen or film, any smell, where it came from, and what it was (a lake, pond, creek, river, storm drain, ditch, street floodwater, backed-up sewer, yard puddle or pool).

The ACVIM statement, quoted above, names water sources inside an exposure history. The AVMA’s owner page opens its risk list with “All dogs are at risk of leptospirosis, regardless of age, breed, lifestyle, geographic location, time of year, and other factors.” It then lists situations that can increase the risk: exposure to or drinking from slow-moving or stagnant water such as ponds, rivers, lakes or streams; roaming on rural properties; exposure to wild animals (especially rodents) or farm animals, even in the backyard; and contact with other dogs, such as in urban areas, dog parks, or boarding or training facilities. The list is about one disease, so treat those items as prompts, not a full account of what is in floodwater.

This page will not tell you which water is dangerous, because that depends on what happened upstream of you, and it does not explain the hazards. Algal blooms are in the state-by-state algal bloom advisories guide, floodwater contamination is on the flash flood and dam failure page, a municipal water advisory has its own playbook, and a chemical release is covered on the hazmat page. This sheet records which water. Those pages explain what water does.

Why there are no tick boxes for symptoms

A printed list of symptoms with boxes converts a record into a test. The owner reads down the list, ticks nothing, and walks away told by a piece of paper that the animal is fine. Nobody wrote that conclusion; the format wrote it. The sheet’s audience is people who are unsure, and a checklist with a natural all-clear state hands them the answer they hoped for from a source with no standing to give it.

So the sheet has one line instead: what you have noticed, and when you first noticed it. That is also what Merck’s list points at, since its sixth item is a heading, current clinical signs, not an enumeration for an owner. The ASPCA does ask callers to report any clinical signs, and gives vomiting, not eating and lethargy as examples. In its hands that is a prompt inside a live conversation with an expert. On a printed sheet with nobody attached to it, the same examples become a list the reader grades themselves against.

If you are unsure whether something counts, write it down and say it aloud on the phone. An overinclusive line costs nothing. A missed observation is not recoverable.

If the animal seems completely fine, the record is still worth writing. It costs a few minutes, and you will remember the timeline today in a way you will not in two weeks. This page will not tell you whether your animal needs to be seen, or that it does not.

The go-or-not sentences on this page belong to the AVMA. Its recovery list says: “Examine your animals closely, and contact your veterinarian immediately if you observe injuries or signs of illness.” Further down the same list it says: “If you notice any signs of stress, discomfort, or illness in your pets, contact your veterinarian to schedule a checkup.” Everything else routes to someone who makes that decision for a living.

Where every judgment on this page goes

As of September 29, 2026, these three numbers appeared on their operators’ own pages. Check each before you rely on it.

• For the animal: ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center, (888) 426-4435. The ASPCA’s page describes the service as available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and says a consultation fee may apply.
• For the animal: Pet Poison Helpline, (855) 764-7661. Its page describes it as open 24/7 with a per-incident fee. The page says staff gather information about the exposure and calculate whether the pet can be monitored from home or should be seen by your veterinarian. That is the decision this page keeps refusing to make, sent to the people who make it. This page prints only the number on the operator’s own homepage.
• For a person: America’s Poison Centers, Poison Help, 1-800-222-1222. Its site says: “If an individual has collapsed, had a seizure, has trouble breathing, or can’t be awakened, call 911 immediately.” Its first-aid block gives the same rule as a list: call 911 right away if a person is having difficulty breathing, collapses or is losing consciousness, or has a seizure.

The animal numbers are not the human number. A human wound, symptom or exposure goes to a health-care provider or to Poison Help.

Two lines that point off the sheet

Two entries record a fact whose consequence lives somewhere other than a veterinary exam room. Both joins are this site’s own reasoning rather than an instruction anybody publishes as one piece.

Wildlife contact, a bite or a scratch. Record the species if you know it, what happened, date and time, where on the body, who was involved, and whether a person was bitten or scratched. A bite or scratch involving a person is a public-health matter with a reporting chain, and it can have consequences for the animal as well as the person. Where the animal is held and who must report are state and local questions with different answers, so this page routes them instead of answering them. See what happens after a dog bite at an evacuation shelter and, from the finder’s side, you found a pet after a disaster. A person who has been bitten or scratched should see a health-care provider without waiting on this sheet.

Do not leave a bite off the sheet to protect the animal. A bite that surfaces later, from a household member or a clinic, surfaces stripped of every piece of context you could have supplied.

For the facts to capture, NASAAEP lists what a shelter’s bite report should contain at minimum: the date and time, contact details for the pet owner and the person bitten, the location of the bite on the body, the circumstances including whether it was provoked, the rabies immunization status of the human and the animal, and the animal’s name, breed and age. It also lists quarantine location and dates, which do not exist in your house. Treat it as a model of which facts get captured, not a duty assigned to you.

The person who handled the animal. Record who, when, and whether they wore gloves. The routing on the human side is different from the animal side, and this page keeps them apart on purpose. The two animal poison services take animal questions. A human wound, symptom or exposure goes to a health-care provider or to America’s Poison Centers at 1-800-222-1222, whose own 911 instruction is quoted above. Recording the handler is this site’s own addition to the field set. It is here for one narrow reason: if the animal’s exposure turns out to matter, the people who were wrist-deep in the same water will want the same dates.

Where this sheet stops

This is a narrow document by design, and this page is written for the United States.

• It is not your animal’s medical record. The standing per-animal record is the pet emergency binder, whose Top Sheet is the one-page intake summary a hospital reads first. Hand this sheet over alongside it. If the chart is gone, see reconstructing pet records when the clinic is gone.
• It is not the bag you pack. The pet vet hospital stay bag checklist covers what to carry to an emergency vet visit, and it already tells you to bring a short written history. This sheet goes in that bag.
• It is not the infectious-exposure record. If your animal spent time at a co-located pet shelter, the vulnerable-pet shelter page has a seven-line record of the animals your animal was near. This sheet covers the substances and water your animal was in. A household that had both kinds of week fills in both.
• It does not tell you what a new clinic must accept, and it is not about paying. See finding veterinary care mid-evacuation and paying a post-disaster vet bill.
• It is not a decontamination protocol. For what goes on an animal that came out of floodwater, see the washing page, or decontaminating a cat after ash or floodwater.

The printable

Print one copy per animal, now, in a calm week, and keep blank copies in the same sleeve as your other paperwork. Print it in one sitting with the medication log.

Write in pen, since pencil rubs off when paper gets wet in a bag. Photograph the completed sheet as a second copy; a photograph and a piece of paper fail in different weather, which is the subject of paper versus digital pet medical records.

Unknown is an answer. Write it in rather than leaving a line blank. A blank reads as a question nobody reached. Unknown reads as a fact somebody established.

Block A. This animal, and this sheet

Field	Fill in
Animal’s name	____
Species, breed, age or date of birth, sex	____
Colour and distinguishing markings	____
Current weight, and the date you weighed	____
Microchip number	____
Owner name and phone	____
Second contact name and phone	____
Regular veterinary practice, city, phone	____
Other animals in this household, and whether each has its own sheet	____
Date and time this sheet was started, and by whom	____
Where this animal is right now, and who holds this sheet	____

Block B. The exposure

One row per distinct exposure event. If the animal went into the water three times, that is three rows, not one.

#	What the animal contacted, in plain words	Where it happened	Date	Clock time it started	Clock time it stopped	How long, or two bounds	How many times
1	____	____	____	____	____	____	____
2	____	____	____	____	____	____	____
3	____	____	____	____	____	____	____
4	____	____	____	____	____	____	____

Category prompts for the contact column, to be written in rather than ticked. From NASAAEP: household or agricultural chemicals, petroleum products, heavy metals, pathogens from disrupted manure pits or septic tanks, chemical spills, radiological materials and gas leaks. NASAAEP publishes these as prose sentences, and splitting them into prompts is this page’s doing. From the AVMA’s hazard list: sharp objects, dangerous materials, dangerous wildlife, contaminated water, downed power lines. Plus the ones every flooded household meets: mud, sewage, ash, soot, debris, a dead animal, mold, an unlabelled container.

Block C. The route, per exposure row

Write in every route that happened. More than one can be true for a single exposure, and writing several is better than choosing the most dramatic. These record what you saw, not what you concluded.

The route words: walked through it · stood in it · swam in it · was submerged · drank it · ate something · licked it off itself · breathed it · got it in the eyes · rolled in it · was bitten or scratched · unknown

Exposure #	Every route that happened, in these words	Anything you saw that does not fit those words
1	____	____
2	____	____
3	____	____
4	____	____

Block D. The water

Fill this in for any exposure involving water of any kind, including a puddle.

Field	Fill in
What body of water or system (street floodwater, creek, pond, lake, river, storm drain, ditch, sewer backup, pool, yard puddle, unknown)	____
Moving or standing	____
Depth, relative to the animal	____
Colour	____
Visible scum, foam, sheen, film or floating material (what, and how much)	____
Smell, if any	____
Where it came from, as far as you know	____
Any posted advisory, closure or notice you saw, and what it said	____
Did the animal drink it (yes, no, unknown)	____

Block E. The product or object, if there is one

Field	Fill in
Product or substance name, exactly as printed	____
Active ingredient and strength, exactly as printed	____
Form (powder, granule, liquid, gel, pellet, bait block, tablet, other)	____
How much was there before, and how much is missing	____
Manufacturer, and any lot or batch number on the container	____
Are you bringing the container, a photograph, or neither	____
If you are not bringing it, exactly where it is now	____

Block F. The animal on arrival, and what you already did

Field	Fill in
What was on the animal when it came in, and where on the body	____
Washed, wiped, rinsed, hosed, bathed, brushed, eyes flushed, or nothing	____
What product or water you used, exactly as the label reads	____
How long, how many times, and at what clock times	____
Anything given by mouth, what it was, how much, and when	____
When the animal last ate, and what	____
When the animal last drank, and what	____
Where the animal has been since (indoors, crated, yard, vehicle, shelter)	____

Block G. Vaccination and medications, as known

Field	Fill in
Vaccinations the animal has had, and roughly when	____
Where the vaccination record is, or unknown	____
Rabies tag number, if the animal is wearing one	____
Current medications, copied from each label: name, strength, how given, how often	____
Known allergies or past drug reactions, or “none known”	____
Standing conditions the animal is treated for	____

Block H. One free-text line, and who else saw it

Field	Fill in
What you have noticed, and when you first noticed it, in your own words	____
Who else saw the exposure, their phone number, and what they told you (mark it as theirs)	____
Wildlife contact, bite or scratch: species, what happened, date, time, where on the body, who was involved	____
Was a person bitten or scratched (yes, no) and has a health-care provider been contacted	____
Who handled the animal, at what times, and whether they wore gloves	____

Block I. Calls already made

Date and time	Who you called	Case number	Call-back number	What they told you, in their words
____	____	____	____	____
____	____	____	____	____
____	____	____	____	____

Notice what is not on any block: no severity rating, symptom checklist, score, colour coding or threshold, and no cell that resolves to whether the exposure was bad. If the sheet ever grows one of those, it has stopped being a record and become a verdict issued by a page that has never seen your animal.

Filling it in under pressure: the order this page suggests

You will not fill this in top to bottom. Fill it in in the order things fade. This order is this page’s own reasoning, not a published protocol.

1. The clock. A weight can be re-measured and a medication re-read off its label, but nothing tells you what time the dog came out of the water. Write the times first, even as a scrawl in the margin.
2. What you can still see. What is on the animal right now, and what the water looks like. Both go quickly: you will towel the animal, and water recedes and clears.
3. Photographs of everything you are not bringing. The container including the small print, the water, the coat, the paw pads. The phone timestamps them.
4. The write-in blocks. Route, water description, what you already did.
5. Blocks A and G last. Identity, vaccination and medications do not change in the hours after an exposure.

If you only get one thing written before you leave the house, make it the clock. If you get two, make the second one what the animal contacted.

If you cannot reach a veterinarian

After a disaster your practice may be flooded, closed, evacuated or on a four-hour phone queue. In that case:

• Call a poison control service instead of waiting for your own clinic. Both operators publish their number as a direct call for an owner. The ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center is (888) 426-4435 and Pet Poison Helpline is (855) 764-7661; the fees are described above. Neither depends on your own practice being open.
• Write the case number on Block I immediately. It is what makes the advice portable. The ASPCA says to give the clinic the case number and call-back number if you then need to go in.
• If your own practice is gone, finding veterinary care mid-evacuation covers the emergency and specialty tier and what a strange clinic needs from you. This sheet is the document you carry into it.
• If the fee is the barrier rather than the phone line, paying a post-disaster vet bill covers funders for a veterinary bill, most of which pay a clinic directly rather than reimbursing you, and some of which will not consider a bill you have already paid. Using 2-1-1 to find pet help covers general routing and where its coverage thins out. Neither page is about a poison-control consultation fee.
• If a person is involved as well as the animal, call a health-care provider or America’s Poison Centers at 1-800-222-1222, and follow the operator’s own 911 instruction quoted above.
• If none of that is reachable, keep filling in the sheet. The most common way an exposure history is lost is that hours pass, then days, and the timeline is smoothed into a story. A record written while nobody was available is worth as much three days later.

Your post-disaster exposure log checklist

• One sheet per animal, printed before a season rather than during one, with Blocks A and G filled in during a calm week.
• A current weight with the date you took it.
• Clock times written first, with two bounds instead of one invented number wherever you did not see the whole thing, and unknown written in rather than a blank.
• Every route that happened written in, and the water described in your own words.
• The container brought if it is safe to fetch, photographed if not, and its location written down either way.
• What you already did recorded, including “nothing,” with the product name copied off the bottle.
• When the animal last ate and last drank, with clock times.
• One free-text line for what you have noticed, and no symptom checklist anywhere on the sheet.
• Any bite or scratch involving a person recorded, and that person taken to a health-care provider. Whoever handled the animal recorded, with the human poison route kept separate from the animal one.
• Case numbers and call-back numbers written on Block I as soon as you get them.
• The completed sheet photographed as a second copy, then handed across the counter rather than narrated.
• Every decision about the exposure left to a veterinarian, ASPCA Animal Poison Control at (888) 426-4435, or Pet Poison Helpline at (855) 764-7661.

The version you do on a quiet afternoon

Three things, one afternoon.

Print it and pre-fill Blocks A and G. They mean reading small print off a microchip certificate and medication labels, and small print is the first casualty of a hurry.

Weigh the animal and write the date next to the number. It takes ten seconds on a bathroom scale. Merck says the amount of a toxic agent needed to cause harm generally correlates with body weight, though greater body weight is often accompanied by a disproportionate increase in toxicity per unit of weight, and no measurement is consistent for every situation. A number from last year on a growing puppy is worse than useless.

Put the three phone numbers on the sheet in ink, and check them yourself. The ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center, Pet Poison Helpline and, for a person, America’s Poison Centers. Look each up on the organization’s own website rather than copying it from here, because a number on a preparedness page is only as fresh as the day someone checked it. Then add your own veterinary practice, its after-hours arrangement and the nearest emergency hospital.

Put the blank sheets in the same sleeve as the pet emergency binder and the medication log, and tell whoever else might be holding the leash where that sleeve is.

Where to go next

This page is a records spoke of our pet emergency playbooks hub.

• The exposure has already happened. Washing floodwater off a dog, decontaminating a cat after ash or floodwater, the dam failure and flash flood page, and, for lake or pond water, the algal bloom advisories page.
• You need a clinic or a way to pay. Finding veterinary care mid-evacuation, the pet vet hospital stay bag checklist and paying a post-disaster vet bill.
• The paperwork is the problem. The pet emergency binder, reconstructing pet records when the clinic is gone, the medication log and paper versus digital pet medical records.
• The exposure was to other animals. Protecting a vulnerable pet at a co-located shelter. If a bite is involved, see dog bite at an evacuation shelter and you found a pet after a disaster.

Then take a blank copy of this sheet to your next routine appointment and ask your veterinary practice whether there is anything they would want on it that is not there.