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  1. #1
    Senior Dog MontananDakota's Avatar
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    Second Floor Fire Safety For Labs Revisited

    I posted about this quite some time ago. Wondered if anyone since has gotten any new ideas about how to get a Lab out of a second story window in case of fire. I have seen those bag type things where you may be able to fit a lab inside but what about lifting these dogs to get them out the window? Both my girls are light weights as far as Labs go ( 67 lbs.), but still heavy for me to lift UP to get them out of a window. I don't even know if they'd fit through the windows. My house windows are not really the big beautiful ones... if I could get them through the window ( and I guess during fire I would just squish them through to save them) how in the heck to get them to the ground?? I can certainly trust my dd would follow my directions to get down those fire ladders you can buy in Loews..but what about Dakota & China?

  2. #2
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    https://www.x-itproducts.com/how-it-...-escape-sling/

    This is the only "thing" I've seen for this purpose.

    Me? I have no idea what I'd do. We have a ladder stored under the bed for ourselves...I guess I'd grab a dog and hope for the best unless it looked like we could get downstairs in the house and then those dogs just better decide that that was the best time of all to obey me. We do have fire extinguishers at various places in the house but I doubt that they'd be any good for anything but a smaller isolated patch of flames.

    Now you've got me thinking.....(thank you).

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  4. #3
    Best Friend Retriever SoapySophie's Avatar
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    Thanks for the link to the pet sling. Never heard of them and they're a great idea!
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  5. #4
    Senior Dog Mr Kleb's Avatar
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    What came to my mind (I have to think it through) is: If you have Kurgos or a similar travelling harness, get two lengths of sturdy rope or cable. Fasten a snap hook to one end of each length. Get them into their harnesses, clip one line to the d-ring on one harness and the other line to the other harness and carefully lower away one at a time. Then evacuate. There are concerns - would hanging by the harness be OK (that is not injure Dakota or China) for the time it takes to lower each one, how to keep them from running before you get down, how to maintain control of them while you evacuate and not lose control or fall yourself.

    Whatever you choose to do it might be worth practicing.

    ETA: Neat to see that someone has come up with a safer way than my idea.
    Last edited by Mr Kleb; 01-20-2017 at 05:56 PM. Reason: Add comment about evacuation system
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  6. #5
    Senior Dog TuMicks's Avatar
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    A very interesting post... just as a thought exercise. (I live in a single story, so not an issue for me.) I clicked on the pet-sling link. It should work.

    But here's what occurred to me. In the event of a fire and the chaos and fear, the dog is probably going to go a little crazy... because his people are alarmed, if nothing else. I think you'd need to have the product and actually teach the dog how to act with it on. All positive stuff. Reward him for getting in it. Then connect sturdy rope from upstairs window, have someone put tension on the rope. Give a big reward for that. I'd teach it in reverse... going up into the window. Then, when both of you are good at that... teach it the way it would go in the event of an evacuation.

    I think you'd have to go very incrementally. Dogs don't like to have their feet off the ground.

    In terms of lifting the dog to the window... you'd have to teach him to jump onto a step stool and maybe put his paws on the window sill. All of this would have to be taught as a fun game.

  7. #6
    Senior Dog arentspowell's Avatar
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    Yea I'm thinking one of us is going to stand on the roof and carefully throw the dog down to the person on the ground and pray for the best (kidding!!! kind of, maybe, not really)

  8. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by arentspowell View Post
    Yea I'm thinking one of us is going to stand on the roof and carefully throw the dog down to the person on the ground and pray for the best (kidding!!! kind of, maybe, not really)


    My husband suggested that we put them out the window that opens to the top of the roof over one end of our deck (slight tilt)....and then leave them there alone while we get out of the house, up on the deck, get an extension ladder out of the garage (have to move one of the cars first to get to the wall) and around to the deck, go up the ladder and fetch the dogs one by one. He was serious.
    That wouldn't work even if one of us (me) stayed up there on the roof with them while the other (have to be Bob...I can't carry one of those ladders) got the ladder.

    Your way would actually work better for us...we have bushes in front of our house...we could drop the dogs out of my bedroom window and hope they land a bit softly.

 



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