Pets & Animals

K&R Small Animal Rescue helps with rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs and other small pets affected by the storm — whether you were displaced, lost a pet, found one, or need supplies while your home is being repaired.

Reach out through their website to ask about food, bedding, carriers, temporary care or other small-animal needs.

Frightened animals bolt during a storm and then hide rather than run far. Most are recovered close to home, often days later once the noise settles.

If your pet is missing:

• Search at dawn and dusk, quietly, calling normally rather than shouting. Terrified animals hide from loud voices, including familiar ones
• Check under decks, porches, sheds, in culverts and under debris piles before those piles are hauled away — this is urgent
• Visit the shelter in person, repeatedly. Staff descriptions rarely match how you would describe your own animal. Do not rely on a phone call or a website
• Leave familiar-smelling items outside — their bed, your unwashed clothing, their litter box for cats
• Post to community and lost-pet Facebook groups with a clear photo and the cross streets
• Contact veterinary clinics — good samaritans often take found animals straight to a vet
• Update your microchip registration if your phone number has changed

If you found a pet: check for a collar, get it scanned for a microchip free at any vet or shelter, and post it. Please do not assume an animal in the damage path is a stray — its family may be searching frantically.

County guidance for the emergency shelter explicitly includes pets among the things to bring — the four P's are Pets, Pills, Purses and Phones.

Bring if you can: a carrier or leash, food, medications, vaccination records, and a familiar blanket or toy.

Several hotels offering disaster relief rates also accept pets — the Best Western Plus Paper Valley in Appleton allows pets, and the Best Western Premier Bridgewood in Neenah is waiving its pet fee for the relief rate. See the Shelter section.

Please do not stay in a damaged house because you are worried about your animals. That is exactly the situation these arrangements exist to prevent.