Nearly a year after Randy and I lost the pet store, I went over to a friend's house one evening. Randy was out of town with his job, so the dogs were crated while I was gone. No sooner had I pulled up to my friend's house, than their neighbor (who I barely knew at that time; but would later go on to be one of my best friends - Joyce (D.O.)) came running out to tell me that my house was on FIRE! A mutual friend had driven past my house, seen the flames, and called around trying to locate me.
I rushed home, running through three red lights, in a driving rain. As I pulled into our parking lot, tires squealing, I nearly ran into a stack of animal crates. A fireman came up to me, informing me that they had rescued my 5 dogs but could not find my cat anywhere. Thankfully, the dogs, although sooty and gray from the smoke, were all okay. I soon found my cat behind the waterbed headboard, in the only room undamaged from the smoke or fire.
How did those firemen know they had all my dogs and should still be looking for a cat? Quite simply, because I had a "Save-My-Animals" sticker on each of my doors.
I highly recommend that, for the sake of YOUR pets, that you place similar stickers on the doors (and perhaps windows) of your house. Heaven forbid that something like a fire should happen to your house; but it's always better to be safe than sorry - especially when our pets are so very dependent upon us to care for them and save them in times of disaster. Simply download the appropriate sticker below.
Each of these is a .bmp file, so that you can easily save and open the file to edit it, adding the number of pets that are in your house. After you edit the file, print it out, and cut it out. I suggest that you laminate your sticker (to prevent any moisture from smearing the sticker; depending on where you place the sticker, rain or condensation could be a problem) and use tape, or even suction cups to hang the stickers. Make sure to print out enough to, at the very least, put one sticker on your front door and one on your back door. If you have a garage, or a large window elsewhere, you may want to hang additional stickers. Try to imagine where rescue personnel might have to go to enter your home in a time of crisis, and make sure to hang a sticker there.
(Right-click over a sticker and choose "Save Target As")
I sincerely hope that you never NEED to use these stickers; but accidents and disasters can happen at any time. Rescue personnel will need all the information they can about your pets; and your pets will need all the help that you can give.