The Poor Woman's Survival Guide

PETS
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Most American families, and many immigrant families, consider their pets to be family members.  You should provide for them in an emergency.

You should provide for your pets during any emergency.  I have a small dog and I keep an extra 44 lb bag of dog food for her.  For my cat I have a larger than necessary supply of cat food available and an extra bag in storage.  My bunny and two guinea pigs also have an extra supply of pellets available for them.
 
Pellets have a short storage life and you should rotate them every time you buy a new supply.
 
Pets should be fed table scraps to augument their diet.  No food should be wasted.
 
During long term emergencies people do all kinds of strange things.  Your neighbor may decide to kill and eat your pets on the first day of the emergency figuring that he has a greater right to survive than your pet.
 
If the police are called in they may side with your neighbor.  Better to tell the neighbor and the police that you are keeping the pet as an emergency food source.  Wether this is true or not.
 
Some years ago a friend of mine advocated killing all of the pets in America because people were starving in (you fill in the blank) ____________ .
 
In reality, if we killed off all of our pets then there would be a surplus of food in America that would hurt our farmers and very little of the surplus food would go to the needy overseas.
 
Why wouldn't this surplus food go to the needy overseas.  For one thing nothing is shipped out of this country unless the shipping is paid for.
 
For another thing, most problems with long lasting famines are political.  The politicians and their bureaucrats do not care if the population starves to death.  They may make it impossible for food aid to be imported into their country.
 
Did this friend donate to save the dying on this other continent.  No she did not.  She was a complainer not a do-er.
 
In nearly all situations where people are starving, canabilism is practiced.  Two of the most notable instances are the Donner Party who were trapped by a snow storm (1846-1847) in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the survival of the Uruguayan soccer team (1972) in the Andes.  The 16 members of the soccer team and the Donner Party survived by eating the dead
 
The law has always sided with the survivors in such cases as long as the people who were eaten were not killed for such purposes.
 
You will not find it mentioned in most reports on famines as the people who report on famines are not prone to write about canablism.
 
If the famine lasts more than 5 to 10 days you must begin to conserve and expand your food supply.  Otherwise if you have a years supply of food stored and the famine lasts more than one year then you will be short on food.
 
If there is a diaster comming your way protect your pets for two reasons.
1.  Your pets should be an extension of your family.
2.  It would be better to eat your pet rather than your children.  Some people may argue otherwise.
 
Store food for your pet because some pet food is of a higher quality than human food.  When feeding Fido he may have to move over as your family may need to share his dog food.
 
In all of the famines during the twentieth century when people ran out of regular food the first thing eaten were the pets, followed by canabilism of the elderly and the children.  In some countries parents traded children so that they would not have to eat family members.
 
If a long lasting emergency erupted tomorrow could I eat my pets.  No, of course not.  How would I feel about my pets if my ribs were showing because of starvation, I would probably change my mind.
 
In case of an emergency provide for your pets as their food as well as the pets themselves may end up on your dinner table.
 
This may sound cruel to you but it is reality.

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