It is hard to believe that five years after Hurricane Katrina disaster responders are still being trained as if only humans are victims of disasters and that it is somehow permissible to NOT rescue four-legged family members. That, unfortunately, is still the case for a lot of "professional development" courses and other training opportunities for emergency responders, or for that matter: veterinarians or registered veterinary technicians.

Take for example, the CERT (Community Emergency Response Team - an initiative of FEMA) curriculum, which is still the same as it was before Hurricane Katrina. Even though the Pets Act requires that Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Security (the boss of FEMA), to make sure that domestic animals are included in disaster planning, until recently FEMA affiliates such as CERT were teaching a 'humans-only' curriculum.

FEMA recently announced two addditional CERT modules that address the issue of animals in disasters. Unfortunately, these modules are not part of the required CERT basic training. Even more unfortunate, FEMA is not working with animal rescue organizations to make sure that the new modules are delivered by people who know the subject matter and have real life experience rescuing animals in disasters.This is not surprising, most "Certified Instructors" in CERT are well-meaning, but uninformed volunteers who teach modules in areas where they have little or no experience in.

The Diaster Animal Response Team (DART) on the other hand is a group of experienced animal (and human) disaster responders who have taken dozens of hours of professional animal sheltering and animal handling training as well as advanced animal and human first aid and CPR training. Many of our members are also CERT graduates.

In its first year in existence (2009)  DART has  become an important resource for animals and their owners in Northern California. Our members know how to set up and manage an emergency animal shelter following guidelines laid out by FEMA and others (including the Amercian Veterinary Medical Association). The animal disaster responders of DART have been trained on the basis of best practices throughout the animal welfare industry, buyilding on the best elements of disaster response training from organizations such as Noah's Wish, Best Friends Rapid Response Team, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the Emergency Animal Rescue Service (EARS) and many others.

The DART team routinely deploys alongside Noah's Wish to fires in Northern California where it sets up and manages emergency animal shelters.They are the only first responders who in a disaster can Save The Whole Family.