What belongs on your pet's emergency card, and why it matters at 2am

By PawNest Team

The worst time to look for your vet's out-of-hours number is the night you need it. Here is the short list of things worth writing down while nothing is wrong.

The night this is for

Something is wrong. It is late. You are holding a phone in one hand and trying to keep your dog still with the other, and a calm stranger at an emergency clinic is asking you questions you have never had to answer out loud before.

How much does he weigh? What medication is she on, and what dose? When did he last eat? Has this happened before? Who is your usual vet?

Every one of those is easy to answer on a quiet Tuesday afternoon. None of them is easy at two in the morning with your hands shaking.

The six things worth writing down

Your vet's name and number, and separately the out-of-hours or emergency clinic. These are often different numbers, and the second one is the one you will actually need. Find it now. Save it in your phone under a name you can find while panicking.

Your pet's weight, and the date you last checked it. Almost every emergency medication is dosed by weight. A guess is better than nothing, but a real number from the last few months is much better.

Current medications and doses, including flea and worm treatment. This is the one owners most often get wrong under pressure, and it is the one that most changes what a vet can safely give.

Known allergies and reactions. Including reactions to previous medications or anaesthetic, which matter enormously and which nobody remembers to mention.

Existing conditions, and the vet who diagnosed them. Heart murmur, kidney disease, epilepsy, previous surgeries.

Microchip number and the registry it is with. If your pet has bolted rather than fallen ill, this is the first thing anyone will ask for, and it is the one thing most owners cannot produce.

Two more that people forget

Your own emergency contact. If something happens to you, someone needs to know your pet is at home alone and who can get in.

And the address of the emergency clinic, not just the number. Typing an address into a map while driving at night is not a plan.

Keep it where it works without signal

This is the part that catches people out. A note in a cloud document is a note you cannot read in a basement car park, or when your phone is on two percent, or when the surgery's carpark has no bars.

Whatever you use, it needs to work offline. A printed card in your wallet and one in the glovebox costs nothing and never fails. A screenshot in your camera roll works too.

While you are at it: the poison numbers

Keep the animal poison control number written down next to your vet's. In an actual poisoning, the two most useful things you can do are call immediately and be able to say what, how much and when. Do not wait for symptoms, and do not try to make your pet sick unless a professional has told you to — for some substances that causes more damage on the way back up than it did going down.

The kit, briefly

A pet first-aid box is worth twenty minutes of your weekend. Gauze, self-adhesive bandage, blunt-ended scissors, tweezers, disposable gloves, a digital thermometer, a torch, and a spare copy of the card above taped to the inside of the lid.

What it is not for is treating things yourself. It is for keeping a situation stable for the twenty minutes it takes to get to someone qualified.

Where PawNest comes in

PawNest keeps an Emergency Card for each of your pets — vet, out-of-hours number, weight, medications, allergies, conditions, microchip — and it works offline, because the app caches it on your phone. You can open it in a car park with no signal.

Setting it up takes about two minutes on a quiet afternoon, which is exactly when it should be done.

One honest note: PawNest is not a vet and does not diagnose anything. In an emergency, call your veterinarian or your nearest emergency animal hospital. Never delay that call because of something an app told you.