How to Prepare for a Veterinary Emergency

I always thought of myself as a great cat mom. I had emergency phone numbers and a signed blank check made out to my emergency veterinarian on my refrigerator. The cat carriers were always prepped with blankets and ready to go. I drilled a routine into my roommates, just in case something happened while I wasn't home. If any sort of veterinary emergency arose, I was prepared. Fortunately for me, we never had any veterinary emergency. Then the unthinkable happened: I was caught unprepared.

About six months ago, I moved to Chicago. The cat carriers are still in the front hall closet, ready to go. I have pet chauffer service number on my fridge. But somehow, I'd never gotten around to locating the nearest 24-hour emergency veterinary hospital. When my cat Ben, who is on prescription blood thinners for his heart problem, cut his leg and started bleeding all over the floor earlier tonight, I had no idea where to take him.

After wiping the blood from his wound with a damp cloth, I realized that although he bled enough to scare the crap out of me, his cut had clotted pretty quickly. It was just a surface wound. If he licks it regularly, he'll be just fine in no time. But should Ben have needed emergency veterinary care, I would have wasted precious minutes flipping open the Yellow Pages for a phone number and an address to give the cab driver. (There are always at least five cabs tooling around my block looking for someone to pick up, so that's one less thing I need to worry about.)

Hopefully, the checklist that follows will help you prepare for any sort of veterinary emergency you may encounter. If I've learned anything from this experience, it's that veterinary emergencies occur when you least expect them, and the best thing you can do for your pet is be completely prepared.

General Preparedness

Let's get cover the basics first. To prepare for any type of veterinary emergency, you'll need:

a. Phone numbers and addresses of your main veterinarian and the closest 24-hour emergency animal hospital. If your veterinarian does not board pets overnight, also have the number of a reliable boarding facility.