When the Power Goes Out: A Storm Plan for Your Dog
Lillian Ruff Pet Spa
A storm plan for a dog comes down to one decision made early: if this house loses power for days, does the dog stay or does the dog go? Answer that on a calm afternoon and you have choices. Answer it at eleven at night with the lights out and a tree across the driveway and you get whatever is left.
Most of the work in that plan is not dramatic. It is a vaccination record, a feeding schedule written down, and knowing in advance whether your dog is a candidate for boarding at all. Here is how we would set it up if it were our dog.
Boarding at our Ronkonkoma location can be a fallback — but realistically only for a dog we already know. A first visit needs a 30-minute meet and greet, and Suffolk County requires a current vet health certificate before any dog is accepted at a boarding kennel. Both take time you will not have during a storm. Do them now, while nothing is wrong.
Heat, cold and a house with no power
A powered house does a lot of quiet work for a dog. It holds a temperature. It runs a fan. It keeps a refrigerator cold for medication. If your water comes from an electric pump, it fills the bowl. Take the power away and all of that becomes something a person has to do by hand, usually while dealing with everything else the storm caused.
The cold side is easy to underestimate because the numbers sound mild. At Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma — the closest official weather station to East Northport — the 1991–2020 normals put the mean daily minimum below freezing in December (29.8°F), January (24.6°F) and February (25.5°F), with normal monthly snowfall of 10.3 inches in January, 9.4 in February and 6.5 in March. A healthy adult dog in a thick coat handles a chilly house. A twelve-year-old with arthritis, a whippet-thin small breed, a puppy, or a dog recovering from surgery loses its margin much faster, and so does the person trying to keep them warm on hour sixty.
Summer outages are the other half. No air conditioning and no fans in a closed-up house is a different problem, and it lands hardest on flat-faced breeds, heavy-coated dogs, overweight dogs and seniors. Heavy panting that will not settle, drooling, weakness, vomiting or collapse are not things to manage at home with a wet towel and hope — call your veterinarian or an emergency clinic straight away. We are groomers. We notice things and we refer; we do not treat.
A summer strip-off looks like a heat plan and is not one. A double coat insulates against heat as well as cold, and on many double-coated dogs it does not come back the same after a shave-down. If the worry is your dog in a summer outage, the answer is moving the dog to a cool building — not removing the coat as a substitute.
Boarding as a short-notice fallback
Boarding and daycare are at the Ronkonkoma location, 835 Portion Rd. Our East Northport salon at 16 Laurel Rd is grooming only, Tuesday to Saturday, so if you are in East Northport, Commack, Greenlawn or Northport, the overnight option is the short drive to Ronkonkoma rather than the salon down the road.
What a night looks like, from our published boarding rates: $60 for a regular 4x4 private kennel or $75 for a premium 4x6, and every stay includes full-day daycare at no extra charge. Feeding is at 8am, 1pm and 6pm, with custom schedules available for puppies, seniors or medical diets. Check-in runs 2:00pm to 7:00pm and check-out 7:00am to 11:00am. If you would rather not carry a bag of food through a storm, we can provide food at $5 per day per dog.
The honest part: we cannot promise a same-day space, and nobody can promise anyone a kennel on the night of a storm. Check-in also runs on a clock — 2:00pm to 7:00pm — so any plan that depends on getting here at nine at night is not really a plan. What preparation buys you is simple: if there is room, and you can reach us inside that window, nothing else is standing in the way.
Boarding is likely a good fit if
- Your dog settles in a kennel and is comfortable around other dogs
- All medication doses fall between 7am and 10pm
- You can get there inside the 2–7pm check-in window
- You have already done the meet and greet
- Vaccinations and the health certificate are current
Look at another plan if
- Your dog needs a dose overnight — timing outside 7am to 10pm is a real limitation for us
- Kennels genuinely panic your dog
- You cannot travel between 2:00pm and 7:00pm
- Family, a friend's house or a pet-friendly hotel is closer and calmer for your dog
Pet must be non-aggressive, comfortable in a kennel, able to socialize, and free from bite history.
That is our published boarding requirement, and it is worth reading twice before an emergency rather than during one. If it does not describe your dog, the storm plan is a person's spare room, not a kennel — and it is better to know that in August.
Why your paperwork has to be current before the storm, not after
This is the part almost nobody has ready, and it is not our rule. Suffolk County Code § 302-13 says no dog may be accepted at a boarding kennel unless the owner provides the facility with a current health certificate from a licensed veterinarian covering a specific list of vaccinations. The facility must then keep records for each dog for 12 months from the last day of use.
| Requirement | Suffolk County window |
|---|---|
| Rabies | Within the previous year, unless an approved three-year vaccine certified by your vet |
| Distemper, hepatitis, parainfluenza, parvovirus, coronavirus | Within the previous year, same three-year exception |
| Bordetella | Within the previous six months |
| Health certificate | Current, from a licensed veterinarian |
The bordetella line is the one that catches people. Everything else runs on an annual rhythm most owners already keep; bordetella runs on a six-month clock and lapses quietly. Check today's date against your dog's last one. Requesting records from a vet's office is a five-minute job on a normal Tuesday and a much less certain one the morning after a storm, when that office is dealing with the same weather you are.
One thing to keep in perspective: bordetella vaccination does not fully prevent kennel cough. What people call kennel cough is properly canine infectious respiratory disease complex, and the AVMA counts roughly eleven contributing pathogens. The vaccine is a county requirement and a sensible precaution, not a force field. Confirm current requirements with your vet and with us before you rely on anything here.
If you use the Town of Huntington off-leash dog run at the Animal Shelter, 106 Deposit Rd, your dog already has to be licensed and rabies-current for the permit. That gets you part of the way — but the county boarding requirement is a separate, longer list, and being a regular grooming client at 16 Laurel Rd does not put a health certificate on file for boarding.
The go-bag: food, medication and the vaccination record
Pack it once, keep it where you keep the flashlights, and check it when the clocks change.
The vet health certificate and vaccination record
Paper copy in the bag, photo of it on your phone. Your phone may be the only thing with a charge, and a photo does not need a signal.
Food, measured, sealed
Portion it per meal so nobody has to guess. Write the schedule on the container. If carrying food is one thing too many, we can provide it at $5 per day.
Medication in its original labeled packaging
With the dose and the times written out plainly. If anything your dog takes needs refrigeration, ask your vet now what happens to it in an outage — that answer alone sometimes decides whether the dog stays or goes.
Contact details, including a backup
Your number, a second person who can make a decision if you cannot, and your vet's number. Add a current photo of your dog to your phone.
Ask about comfort items in advance
What we can keep with your dog varies. Ask us on a quiet day rather than at a rushed drop-off, and pack accordingly.
What we already need on file, and how to get it there
There are three things standing between a phone call and a kennel, and all three can be cleared in an ordinary week.
If you would rather not board at all, that is a perfectly good plan too — a friend inland with power, a relative's house, a pet-friendly hotel. The point is that the decision exists somewhere other than your head, and the dog's paperwork is current either way. Kennels are not the only places that ask for it.
Questions people actually ask
Can I sort boarding out on the day the power goes out?
Sometimes, but do not build the plan on it. Check-in runs 2:00pm to 7:00pm, and we cannot promise same-day space to anyone. Call and ask — then plan as though the answer might be no, and have a second option ready.
My dog has never boarded. Can we do it in an emergency?
Not cleanly. A first visit needs a 30-minute meet and greet, and the county paperwork has to be in hand. Book the meet and greet on a normal day and the emergency version becomes a phone call instead of a project.
Exactly what does Suffolk County require?
A current health certificate from a licensed veterinarian showing rabies, distemper, hepatitis, parainfluenza, parvovirus and coronavirus within the previous year — unless an approved three-year vaccine is certified by the vet — and bordetella within the previous six months. That is Suffolk County Code § 302-13, not salon policy. Confirm the current requirements with your vet.
Is my dog better off staying home?
Often, yes, if the house stays safe and you are there. The tipping points are usually temperature, medication that needs refrigeration or overnight timing, water supply, and whether an owner is actually going to be home. If two or more of those are shaky, move the dog.
Can you give medication overnight?
We handle doses between 7am and 10pm. Anything needing timing outside that window is a genuine limitation for us — tell us before you book so we can be straight with you about whether we are the right place.
What does a night cost?
$60 for a regular 4x4 private kennel, $75 for a premium 4x6. Full-day daycare is included in every stay, and food can be provided at $5 per day per dog if you would rather not bring your own.
Get the meet and greet done while the weather is boring.
Book online, send over your dog's health certificate, and the storm plan is already written.
See pricing & book ›835 Portion Rd, Ronkonkoma, NY 11779 · Boarding check-in 2–7pm, check-out 7–11am
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