Pet Preregistration for Disaster Preparedness: How Shelterly Helps Communities Prepare Before an Emergency

September 12, 2026

Animal disaster preparedness starts long before an evacuation warning, wildfire, hurricane, flood, earthquake, or other emergency affects a community.

For animal services agencies, emergency managers, Community Animal Response Teams, shelters, and other organizations responsible for animals during disasters, one of the biggest challenges is information.

Who lives at an address? How many animals are there? What kind of animals? Does an animal require medication? Is there important behavior information responders should know? Who should be contacted? What does the animal look like?

Shelterly Preregistration gives communities and response agencies a way to collect important animal information before an emergency occurs.

What Is Shelterly Preregistration?

Shelterly Preregistration is part of Shelterly’s animal disaster planning and emergency response operating system.

The Preregistration portal allows organizations to work with community members to create animal profiles ahead of an emergency. Profiles can include owner contact information, animal photos, medical needs, feeding instructions, behavior considerations, special needs, and other care information.

That information is already available within Shelterly if an incident occurs.

Rather than beginning with an empty animal record during an emergency, responders can have important information available earlier in the response process. Shelterly

Preregistration supports continuity of information from preparedness through evacuation, shelter in place operations, emergency animal sheltering, and reunification.

Why Pet Preregistration Matters During a Disaster

Emergency animal response can involve hundreds or thousands of individual animals and service requests.

Each request brings information that responders need to collect, document, communicate, and maintain throughout the incident.

During an evacuation, a community member may be providing information to a hotline operator while field teams are responding to multiple locations. Animals may later enter an emergency shelter, receive veterinary care, move to another location, or need to be reunited with their families.

Accurate animal information matters at every stage.

Preregistration allows some of that information to be documented during preparedness, rather than gathering everything for the first time during an active emergency.

For response agencies, this can reduce the amount of information that needs to be entered when an incident begins while supporting more consistent animal records throughout the response.

Animal Identification Before an Emergency

Photographs are an important part of an animal profile.

Names alone are not enough to identify animals during a large incident, particularly when emergency shelters may be caring for many animals of similar breeds, colors, ages, or sizes.

A preregistered Shelterly profile can include photographs along with identifying and care information.

Animal identification also plays an important role in reunification. Having information connected to an animal record before an emergency can provide responders with another source of information when managing animals throughout an incident.

Supporting Pet Evacuation and Shelter in Place Operations

Not every animal emergency response results in an evacuation.

Depending on the incident, location, safety conditions, jurisdictional procedures, and direction from the appropriate authorities, animal response teams may be involved with evacuation requests or shelter in place operations.

Both require reliable information.

Shelterly is designed to manage animal information throughout the incident, including hotline requests, field response, animal evacuation, shelter in place visits, intake, emergency sheltering, veterinary care, and reunification.

Preregistration extends that information management into preparedness.

An agency using Shelterly can begin developing animal information before the community is facing an active emergency.

Helping Responders Understand an Animal's Needs

Emergency animal response involves more than identifying an animal and determining where the animal is located.

Responders may need information about medical conditions, medications, feeding requirements, behavior, mobility, or other special considerations.

Shelterly Preregistration allows these types of care notes to become part of the animal's profile.

This information can help support the people responsible for the animal at different stages of an incident, including field responders, shelter personnel, animal services staff, and veterinary teams.

It can also help maintain continuity when animals move between different parts of an emergency response operation.

Preregistration and Animal Reunification

Reunification is a critical part of animal disaster response.

Animals may become separated from their families during evacuations for many reasons. Some are evacuated by field teams. Some arrive at emergency animal shelters. Some may require veterinary treatment. Others may be found after an evacuation has already taken place.

Managing those animals requires clear records.

Shelterly is designed to track and manage animals throughout an incident, with Preregistration providing information that can begin before the emergency and continue through reunification.

For communities, having current contact information and animal photographs already documented can add valuable information to the reunification process.

Preregistration Is Also an Agency Preparedness Tool

Pet emergency preparedness is often discussed as something individuals and families should do.

Agencies also need to prepare.

Animal services departments, shelters, emergency management agencies, CARTs, and disaster response organizations need systems, procedures, trained personnel, partnerships, and information management plans in place before they are activated.

Shelterly Preregistration can become part of that larger animal disaster preparedness strategy.

Organizations can introduce Preregistration through community outreach, preparedness education, animal services programs, public events, disaster preparedness campaigns, and other opportunities to engage animal families before an emergency.

That creates an important connection between community preparedness and agency preparedness.

Building Animal Disaster Preparedness Into Everyday Operations

Disaster preparedness does not need to exist only during wildfire season or immediately before a major storm.

Preregistration gives organizations an opportunity to make animal preparedness an ongoing community activity.

A conversation about creating an animal profile can also encourage families to think about evacuation planning, transportation, carriers, medications, identification, emergency supplies, and where they would take their animals if they needed to leave home.

For agencies, Preregistration can support broader conversations about animal emergency planning while introducing the community to the systems that may be used during an actual response.

One Animal Record Across the Emergency Response

One of the most important aspects of Shelterly Preregistration is that it is part of a larger animal emergency response system.

Shelterly is designed to support the full animal disaster response cycle, including preparedness, hotline operations, field response, animal evacuation, shelter in place operations, intake, emergency animal sheltering, veterinary care, tracking, and reunification.

Preregistration brings the beginning of that cycle forward.

Instead of animal information beginning when someone calls for assistance during an emergency, agencies have the ability to start building that information during preparedness.

For organizations responsible for animal disaster preparedness and emergency response, that can mean important information is already available when their community needs them most.

Shelterly Preregistration helps connect community preparedness with animal emergency response, giving agencies another tool to prepare before an incident and manage information throughout the response.

Learn more about Shelterly Preregistration and how Shelterly can support animal disaster preparedness in your community at Shelterly.org.