Pet emergency card for your wallet

What’s inside

• Page 1, the fridge sheet: two emergency contacts, your name and address, who has a spare key, your vet, the nearest 24-hour emergency clinic and your pet insurance.
• A table for up to four pets: name, species and breed, sex and age, color and markings, microchip number, health notes and medicines.
• Where to find the food, the leash and carrier, the medicines and the vet records, and a box for food, routine and behavior.
• Page 2: fold-over wallet cards that say “My pets are home alone”, with your two contacts on the front and your pets, address and vet on the back. Three fit on US Letter, four on A4.
• On screen, the contacts, address and vet you type on page 1 appear on every card.

How to use it

1. Ask two people first, and list them only once they agree. RSPCA Australia suggests local contacts, neighbors if possible, who can get to your home quickly and let others in.
2. Give one of them a spare key, and write down who has it.
3. Fill in page 1 on screen or by hand. By hand, copy the contacts onto the cards.
4. Print at actual size (100%), cut each card out along the dashed lines and fold it on the dotted line. It comes out the size of a bank card.
5. Keep one card in your wallet and give the others to family. Put the sheet where it’s easy to see, such as on the fridge or inside the front door.
6. Update the card and the sheet when a phone number, a medicine or your vet changes.

Why carry a card

If you’re in an accident or end up in hospital, nobody may know that a dog or cat is waiting at home. The ASPCA suggests a wallet card that says you have a pet at home and lists two emergency contacts, plus a clearly visible emergency contact sheet at home, so all your pets are accounted for. RSPCA Australia’s preparedness plan adds the details a helper needs: your vet, each animal’s description and microchip, medicines, food and where the supplies are.

It doesn’t replace ID on your pet

Ready.gov and the CDC advise a collar with an up-to-date ID tag and a microchip. Keep your address and phone number current with the microchip registry too: a card in your wallet helps only if someone finds you, and a chip helps if someone finds your pet.