Emergency Training with Willie

Introducing Emergency Training with Willie G.

Hi fellow dogs and doggies, I’m Willie G. Dawg, the DIC (Dog In Charge), over at Family Disaster Dogs where my housemate, “Miss Daisy”, the Bloodhound, shows us dogs how to help our human people in case of an emergency.

Willie G. Dawg

Wendy asked me to stop by and share my experience with you so we can all learn how we can help our human families. 

Wendy and my mom feel dogs and their people can benefit from knowing what to do when earthquakes and tornadoes hit home. 

Plus if we dogs learn how to do these things then we will know how to act instead of being afraid, we will know what to do.

I’ll be bringing you updates pretty often as I learn more about this type of work.

We have tons of fun learning with our mom and teaching others by writing lessons and practicing at home. Daisy does more of the teaching then I do, she is a Bloodhound after all. 

Wrinkledpups Daisy Mayham
"Miss Daisy"

I ‘m only a short chunky terrier who use to work at keeping the geese out of the city park until Daisy and her family rescued me from some lady who dog napped me then threw me from her car right in front of mom. I sure was a lucky dog that day!

Now they tell me, I’m the dog who went from the streets to the drive through! We can’t drive past a McDonalds without me giving them the eye and point of the head in the right direction. I’ve been known to paw the arm if they forgot too. 

Us dogs deserve the best, woof, woof.

This week mom and Daisy have been showing me how to alert them when the emergency warning siren goes off! What fun this is! 

Mom says if the big one comes then us dogs will know before the people do and she hopes if we learn what the warning siren means then we’ll know what to do when we feel the earth shake or rubble and are scared too.

We don’t know what to do either when the weather gets bad or the earth shakes so we usually run and hide. Our parents find us already in the evacuation spot under the table or behind something.

Dogs know long before the people do what the weather will bring, that is what our ears are for. We hear and feel the changes in the air so we can get away before it gets rough.

We live on the Oregon coast where we take our walks on the beach facing Japan and when the earthquake hit Japan, the tsunami headed our way waking us up in the middle of the night with all kinds of noise and excitement.  I’m an inland dog and I sure didn’t understand what all the fuss was about.

I found out the emergency warning siren was blasting and the phone ringing with the fire department calling to tell us move to higher ground. Our town has an emergency phone system that calls every house in the event of an emergency to make sure we know.

My mom and Daisy know what to do so I wasn’t worried but I did fear for the other dogs and doggies with their families. They didn’t have anybody with them who knew what to do and that would be scary.

Mom and Daisy had our go-bags or bug out bags ready, my rain coat and leashes were laid by the door. After mom thought the situation over and planned out all the variables in our evacuation plan with relationship to the event that was actually happening she decided we were better off to stay put at our home because of the location.

We live on one of the highest points and inland a few miles with a view of the far off ocean. Mom joked if a big tsunami happened then we would wait for a boat to come floating by our second story deck and be ready to jump on. I did not think that sounded like much fun.

This Friday when our emergency warning siren testing sounds we dogs will be practicing waking up our family by them pretending to be asleep and calling us with little noises or toys to show us what to do. Some of us dogs already wake our people and this will be easy for them to learn to do.

This is not going to be easy for me because I’m a quite dog who would rather wait for my people to wake me in the mornings but they will be able to encourage me with toys and treats. Then I will dig at the covers or paw at my people if they play with me enough.

If your family wants to give this a try at home you can start by learning when the emergency warning sirens sound on the TV or Radio.

Plan ahead by preparing to have the time to pretend to be asleep and play with us dogs to get us to wake you by digging in the covers or pulling on the covers, jumping into bed with you works too. Any way you can think of to get us to get your attention when the noise of the siren goes off.

Also, plan to have a phone calls come in at the same time by having family members call each other as they are woke up.

After the family is awake, practice the evacuation plan or fire drill as usual.

I’m looking forward to Friday and will be back to let you know how it goes.

Willie G

DIC offamilydisaterdogs.com