Fire drill training..

borzoimom

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#1
I have posted this on other forums, and its always been something people have not thought of to do. In the event of a fire, most pets get lost or so scared from the noise, they do not know what to do. I fire drill train my dogs. This is how I do it.
This takes two people obviously. One person to press the smoke alarm, the other to call in a happy voice to a certain door with a reallllllly great treat. ( Mine like hot dogs). Start with only a short blast from the alarm. Lots of praise and pets as well. Do it again- going to the same door.. Again- treats and praise. Then later do it but go to a different door calling the dogs again. At this point- the dogs just think this is some weird game, but when the alarm is pressed again- listen for you to figure out which door is the special treat game. Also I advance this by putting a slip lead on the dogs and walk out the door.
Several things need to be noted here- remember in a real fire your voice would be highly panicked- so you need to make a mental note of that to try to control your voice.
Slip leads should be at every door. I even have slip leads in back bedrooms as you might have to exit out a window as well.
Another thing I teach done independantly at first is " CAR". My dogs when I say that will run to the car. Hide spare keys somewhere safe outside that would be a house key if you have reenter in another door that might be locked, as well as a set of car keys if you had to move the car with them in it. Another thing we do with keys here is that one slip lead at each door has a house key and a car key attached to it.
 

borzoimom

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#2
This is also training you can use for like a tornado- ie hit the alarm follow me to the basement- same thing..
 

bubbatd

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#3
I've thought of this many times ...........if I had a fire at night , the only way out would be through my bedroom window . Haven't tried it with Ollie , but I think I could roll my bed ( twin , on wheels ) to the window ( 1sr floor ) and shove him out .... I don't think I could from the floor .
 

borzoimom

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#4
Its not just even fire- its any real reason " I need you NOW" type thing. I used it last month when we had a tornado warning and the storm hit- I hit the button- all the dogs jumped up like " where are we going????"
 
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#7
Thanks for this excellent reminder. Another good reason to train a really reliable recall, to use trainer Leslie Nelson's term.
 

Cessena

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#8
Man I wish you could teach this to Cats too!!! (I may actually try.)

We had a fire in the apartment above ours a little over a year ago, and we literally had to move the entire bed and drag one of the cats out by her tail. (Fortunately we heard the people upstairs running so we had lots of time and everyone got out okay.)

Thank you for this! It never really occured to me that this would be something to train for. Though since our dog is always with one of us (Velcro dog much?) I think we'd have an easy time grabbing him on the way out. Terrified cats were much more difficult.
 

borzoimom

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#9
For cats a friend of mine used canned food or tuna- hit the alarm and go to a door.. It works very well.
 

Phoenixangelwyngs

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#10
Wow! The stuff you DON'T think about. I can get just about all my cats to the front door by opening the "food closet". They all come running. My puppies are currently kenneled in the basement until the house is fully puppy-proofed and I can trust them not to eat anything and everything under the sun.

I'll have to work on this. Thanks for sharing!
 

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