Wrangling llamas in the laundry, the scratchy bits and the bitey end, stockings for muzzles, and keeping out of the kicking zone!

The first Saturday in October saw an important event taking place for our Managing animals in disasters (MAiD) project, as we ran our first community seminar - Planning for animals in Emergencies - with Blue ARC Animal Ready Community.

Although we have concluded our MAiD research activities, we now have a strong utilisation focus. For the last three years we have been working closely with community-led group Blue ARC in the Blue Mountains to support community resilience in emergency events through greater awareness, preparedness, planning and response for companion animals, livestock, and native wildlife.

Rather fittingly, we chose to host the seminar at the Springwood Sports Centre which temporarily housed a number of pets and their owners during the peak of the October 2013 bushfires, a few weeks short of five years earlier, when it was used as an evacuation centre.

The seminar ran from 10am to 3pm, and entry was by gold coin donation to enable as many local people to attend as possible. The seminar schedule was divided into five sessions: household and property preparedness; managing domestic pets in emergencies; assisting injured and displaced wildlife; emergency first aid for domestic pets; and managing large animals in emergencies. We were supported by eight speakers on the day who provided a great mix of expertise from emergency preparedness and response and psychological preparedness, through to animal handling and understanding animal behaviour. Yours truly played the part of MC (and IT support) for the day!

We were able to make an extensive range of printed preparedness materials available to seminar attendees, due to all the established agencies in attendance bringing along resources, as well as the BNHCRC supporting the printing of resources prepared by Blue ARC and MAiD. The latter being informed by our MAiD research activities on identifying local animal owners’ planning and preparedness needs. We also had examples of evacuation kits on show – one I mocked-up for a cat, and another for a dog, with supplies donated by PetStock Penrith.

Our first session covered general household and property preparedness with some ‘animal-lite’ content. We had local speakers from NSW RFS (Andrew Kaye) and NSW SES (Michael Biber) start proceedings with an overview of their agencies’ roles and general advice, as well tales of experiences with animal owners during bushfires, including llamas in the laundry! This was followed by a great session on general and psychological preparedness from Liz Cater, Australian Red Cross, who had us all shut our eyes as we listened to the sounds of a storm whilst imagining we were unable to locate our pets. This session ended with an overview of animal emergency management from Leeanne Raines, Emergency Management Officer at NSW Department of Primary Industries. It was great to have Leeanne at the seminar to provide clear guidance to attendees about how emergency management, human services, and animal agencies work together.

After morning tea we reconvened with sessions on the management of domestic pets and assistance for wildlife. Both sessions were led by Dr Robert Johnson from South Penrith Vet Clinic. Robert was a local veterinarian in Springwood during the 2013 bushfires, and he is a well-renowned wildlife expert, as well as a recent past President of the Australian Veterinary Association. We were treated to a slide show of wonderful images of local wildlife, and pets, as well as humorous stories of juggling the scratchy bits and bitey ends of cats, and stories of handling wildlife and dealing with snake bites.

Following a short break for lunch, Caroline Outred, a Veterinary Nurse from nearby Richmond TAFE, gave a short presentation about emergency management and first aid for animals. This session outlined the importance of preparedness and key items to have in the home first aid kit for animals. We also learnt about how pets may behave differently in emergency situations and how important it is to manage their behaviour in these situations, as well as keep other people safe from our animals. We were also taught how to use stockings as a makeshift muzzle for a dog – and no, it doesn’t involve rolling them up over their nose!

The theme of innovative ways to use underwear to manage animals in emergencies continued in our final session. We had a presentation on equine emergency preparedness, behaviour and rescue, by Dr Christine Smith – an equine veterinarian from Agnes Banks Equine Clinic. We saw an example of how a bra was used as blinkers to calm a horse and move it onto a float, although I don’t think that was advocated as a genuine recommendation! Christine covered a wide range of issues from how horses think and behave, to the importance of preparedness and competent handling of larger animals to assist when emergencies strike – and how not to be in the kicking zone or strike zone when a horse is lying down in a rescue situation. We also had an excellent presentation in this session from Kate Carter, NSW RFS Macarthur District Assistant. Kate wrote the NSW RFS Prepare your Horse for Bushfire brochure and was able to give expert advice on property preparedness for owners of large animals.

We finished off the day with a few final remarks from our speakers, a brief Q&A, and drawing of the raffle for some prizes donated by Guardian Horse Products and TuffRock.

A total of 62 local people attended the seminar, most staying for the whole day. In addition to our small band of wonderful Blue ARC helpers (and with a special mention to Ron Fuller who videoed the whole event) we also had attendees from Greater Sydney Local Land Services and a local Pet Loss Counsellor. We also had NSW RFS personnel who travelled all the way down from Kempsey and a representative from Northern Beaches council – both keen to run similar events in their local areas. Our two local MPs – Trish Doyle, Blue Mountains, and Susan Templeman, Macquarie, dropped by, and news also came in during the day that the Mayor of the Blue Mountains, Mark Greenhill, had donated $1000 to Blue ARC. So, with additional local sponsorship from Katoomba Camera Club and a sizeable discount from Springwood Sports Centre on the venue hire, we just about pulled-off a cost-neutral community event!

And finally. What about evaluation? I hear you ask. Well, being a good researcher I had pre-prepared a survey for that…(and the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC supplied the pens!)