Pet Care Routines for Teens: Feeding, Walking and Noticing

What is included

• •3 visual routines with a photograph for every step: feeding a dog, feeding a cat and walking a dog, each ending in hand washing with the 20-second standard
• •The feeding rule that the amount is read off the filled-in feeding card and never guessed, with a stop-and-ask line when the card is missing
• •The Is My Pet Okay card: 3 tiers, 19 signs in all, with the emergency signs where hours matter, and a filled-in block for the adult, the backup adult, the vet and the emergency clinic
• •The walking trouble card, 5 situations including a loose dog and a dropped leash, plus the check-with-an-adult-first line at the top of the walk
• •The 7-day tracker: feeding morning and evening, a daily water-bowl row, and a weekly task with a blank label the adult fills in
• •The family and teacher setup sheet, filled in before a student uses the routine: the pet, the food, the amount, the feeding times, and who to ask, with a cut-out feeding card that is kept by the food
• •The litter-box card with daily scooping and the weekly wash, a card for a small pet that is not a dog or a cat, a data sheet, and 2 copy-paste IEP goals
• •US Letter and A4 print files, everything single-sided

Questions from teachers

Who is this pack for?

Teens and young adults from about 13 to 22 in special education, life skills and transition programs, and families teaching the same routines at home. It works with a family pet, a classroom pet, or a practice run with no animal at all, since the first page of every routine has a fill-in for which pet it is about.

How does a student know how much food to give?

They read it. The amount lives on a feeding card an adult fills in before the student uses the routine, taken from the veterinarian or, as a starting point, the food label, and the setup sheet asks for it in grams or as a line marked on a specific cup. The student measures that exact amount and levels it off. If the card is missing or the amount is unclear, the card tells them to stop and ask a named person rather than guess, because a portion is not a property of the scoop.

What is on the Is My Pet Okay card, and is it veterinary advice?

It is not advice about what to do for an animal, and it says so: the student notices, an adult decides. The card sorts signs into three tiers. Tell an adult right now covers the emergencies where hours matter, including a swollen belly with unproductive retching, collapse, a seizure, and a cat straining in the litter box passing little or no urine. Tell an adult today covers a skipped meal, repeated vomiting, limping and hiding. Probably normal covers the things that worry a new carer and should not. Two rules sit at the foot: do not give the animal medicine, food or water to fix a problem, and if you are not sure, tell someone anyway.

Is it safe for a teen to walk a dog alone using this?

That is an adult's call, and the pack puts it in print rather than assuming: the walking card starts with a check-with-an-adult-first line, because no printed pack can know a particular dog's size and strength against a particular student. What the pack does teach is the leash hold handlers are trained to use, with a thumb through the loop and slack in the line and never wrapped around a wrist, along with what to do when a dog pulls, when another dog approaches, when a loose dog reaches you, and when the leash gets dropped.

What if our pet is not a dog or a cat?

There is a card for that. A small-pet card covers the shape every routine shares, fresh water, a measured amount of food, clean bedding and washing your hands, and the small-pet card and the first page of every routine have a fill-in for the pet's name so the sheets read as this student's animal rather than a generic one.

Does it cover the litter box safely?

Yes, on the student card and in the teacher guide, split on purpose. The student card teaches scooping every day, which is the frequency public health guidance gives, and washing hands for twenty seconds afterwards even though a scoop was used. The guidance about who should not clean a litter box at all is in the teacher guide and the family setup sheet rather than on a card a whole class handles, and the pack does not print gloves as a requirement, because the sourcing does not support that.