Would you die with your pets of they could not be rescued by you or others?

No. That is fucking stupid.

I would probably stay, but I would be expecting to endure and survive, not die with them.

No.

Everything is 20/20 in hindsight, but man. Owning a pet is a big responsibility, and hurricanes aren’t uncommon in Florida. “They had too many dogs, and had no place to take them.” You can’t anticipate every curveball, but why didn’t they have some sort of emergency plan for this?

Would I die with them? No. I mean if that was a sure thing to happen.
But like @jaytkay said, I would stay and hope for all of us to survive. That’s my gut reaction anyway.
However, thinking with my head and not my heart tells me that we’d all be better off if I left. That way I could come back and see if they were still around. I could retrieve them and care for them if they were found.

Nope but that is because I would leave with them. Or I should say my one and only dog. I suppose if I had a lot of them I would make a road trip and find hotels before I leave that would accept dogs, or a kennel away from the storm that would take the dogs in. I would even call shelters far away and ask them if they could offer some place for my dogs to stay.

The only way I would stay is if I had no where to go myself. I did that once during a horrible hurricane headed towards SC. No pet but my kids and I were stuck with no car. I did stay at a friends home who lived on higher ground. I was living near a river at the time. Luckily it missed us and went further north. We only got the outer winds. That was Hugo.

@all The question stipulates that the pet cannot be saved. Obviously, if there was a way to save the pet, we would all do that.

The question is about whether you would give up your life if your pet could not be saved.

Nope. Sorry kitties, you’re toast.

No, but your hurricane example I think a lot of people might stay and not evacuate. If the same person was caught in a house fire with no way to get to her dogs she would probably run out of the building and the dogs would perish. In immediate danger she would save her own life. A hurricane is different most of the time, assuming it was not a cat 5, there are usually very few deaths from hurricanes in FL. Part of that is probably due to the fact that we do evacuate areas, but also most of our housing stands up to cat 3 and 4 pretty well. The woman has probably been through many hurricanes, and she knows it might be difficult to get back to the house after the hurricane if she did evacuate. I think she should have left her house, but I can understand why some people don’t.

Would I die for my pets? No.

I’d go pretty far to try to save my cats, but my intentions would not likely be concentrated on dying with them however.

Nope. Sorry fluffy.

That being said, the example you give is a bit extreme. @Haleth makes a good point, with that many dogs, a plan B should have been in place.

In my case, we have one Maltese. I could shove her in a small duffel bag if I had to.

I’d never have “too many” animals that I couldn’t take them with me. I’d carry my 40 lb dog wherever I needed to go if I had to, and the kitty, too. I wouldn’t leave them, but I wouldn’t stay with the intention of going down with them. This ain’t the Titanic!

I don’t think I have to worry about it, though. A hurricane hasn’t hit my town since Hugo, and that was the year I was born.

@livelaughlove21 Usually shelters don’t allow pets. If a person lives in an evacuation zone or in what would be considered an unsafe structure like a mobile home, and has nowhere to go but a designated shelter, there is a good chance they must leave their pets behind. Although, in recent years I have heard there is more consideration for pets, I am not sure what they are doing differently now regarding shelter for animals during a storm, if they are doing anything differently.

@JLeslie They couldn’t flee to another state? If I knew a huge hurricane would hit, I’d pack my shit and stay elsewhere until it passed – with my pets.

@livelaughlove21 You don’t have to go to another state, you can get a hotel in your own state. If you can afford it. If you have the transportation. You also can stay with friends or family, which is what most people do. Most people don’t evacuate hours away, they just go inland a little or away from the counties in the target area of the hurricane. If the woman’s other option was a shelter, I am going to assume she didn’t have the ability to go to a hotel or to stay with people she knew. Shelters are usually considered last resorts. Many times people are told to bring their own water and some food. It is really roughing it. Cots in school gyms, things like that.

During our Severe ice storm years ago we had to go two dif places & I left the two birds, took my two dogs.

I’m with @Paradox25 and @jaytkay , I’d do my best to save them, or anticipate we would survive. I had a plan for years to evacuate my animals in the event of a wildfire which is common in this area. Had kennels on standby at all times for my cats and geese.

In my area there is lots of livestock and horses, most people have trailers and evacuation plans in the event something catastrophic happened.
At one time in my life about 15 years ago I would have had to evacuate 4 cats, a dog, 3 geese, 4 rabbits, 20 chickens, a Macaw, Cockatiel, 2 pet rats and a tank of madagascar hissing cockroaches. lol

It’s hard to say. I might. That’s not something I’m proud of. I don’t think it makes me a good person or a more dedicated pet owner. I think it’s more a reflection of the fact that I might not make good decisions in a crisis where the pets are involved, and I would do the wrong thing for the right reasons, costing me my life.

No. I have a human family that counts on me being alive for them.

I remember one time not too long ago there was a tornado warning in our area. I was on the 2nd floor when it happened. One of our cats (we have three) was upstairs too. I was trying to nab her to get her to the first floor. She would have none of it and hid.
My ‘mothering’ instinct kicked in and I continued to try to get her.

Luckily no tornado hit us. But if it had, my cat and I could have been blown away together.

No. But to be fair, they are my kids’ pets, not mine. And I certainly wouldn’t give my kids the option to die with lizard and the guinea pig. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’re the last things I’d think of in an emergency and odds would be high the guinea pig would escape and run off as we were trying to rescue it or shortly afterwards and the lizard would not survive well outside of his temperature controlled tank.

In any situation I would do what I could to save a pet but not at the risk of my own life or my family.

@Haleth You can’t anticipate every curveball, but why didn’t they have some sort of emergency plan for this?
As with a lot of things, they never expected it to happen to them. People build houses in tornado alley, why, because they think a tornado will somehow never get them.