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Don't Make Families Choose Between Safety and Their Pets
Final signature count: 1,873
1,873 signatures toward our 30,000 goal
Sponsor: The Animal Rescue Site
Every disaster season, families stay in danger zones because emergency shelters won't take their pets.
When evacuation orders go out, most families move fast. But millions of Americans with companion animals hit a wall: the nearest emergency shelter won't accept their pets. The choice that follows — leave the animal behind or stay in a dangerous situation — is one no family in a crisis should have to make. Yet it happens every disaster season, in every part of the country.
The consequences are real and measurable. Studies and emergency response experience have consistently shown that pet owners, especially elderly residents and people with disabilities who depend on animals for daily support, delay or refuse evacuation when they can't bring their animals.1 When those families stay behind, they put themselves, first responders, and their pets at far greater risk.
A National Gap With No Consistent Fix
Tens of millions of U.S. households include at least one pet. Emergency shelter policy, however, remains a patchwork. Some counties offer co-located pet sheltering. Many offer nothing. Families in adjacent areas during the same disaster can face completely different realities — not because of local resources, but simply because no federal floor exists to guarantee consistent options.
That gap has a human and animal cost. When wildfires swept through parts of Colorado in 2026, the ASPCA deployed emergency response teams to assist dogs, cats, horses, and other companion animals separated from their families during evacuation.3 The burden absorbed by rescue organizations during that response reflected a structural failure in federal emergency infrastructure.
Congress Has a Solution in Front of It
In February 2026, the 119th Congress introduced H.R. 7438 — the Providing Essential Temporary Shelter Assistance for Emergencies Act, or the PETSAFE Act of 2026.2 The bill would direct federally supported emergency shelters to accommodate companion animals alongside their families. Three months later, Senators Adam Schiff and Thom Tillis introduced a bipartisan Senate companion bill, signaling cross-aisle support for the measure.4
The ASPCA has publicly backed the legislation, pointing to a direct connection between pet-inclusive sheltering policies and evacuation compliance: when families know they can bring their animals, they are far more likely to leave when ordered to do so.1
A Federal Standard Is Within Reach
State and local progress exists, but it's uneven and insufficient. A federal requirement tied to emergency shelter funding would create a consistent baseline — not a ceiling — so that no community is left without options during a crisis. The PETSAFE Act is designed to do exactly that. Bipartisan support in both chambers exists. What moves this forward is public pressure on the people with the authority to act.
FEMA sets the standards that shape how emergency shelters operate nationwide. The agency has the authority to make pet-inclusive sheltering a requirement, not an afterthought.
Sign the petition to urge the FEMA Administrator to expand pet-friendly disaster shelters nationwide. Keeping families and their companion animals together in a crisis is a basic standard of emergency preparedness — and it's time to make it the law.
