Pet ownership has been associated with increased vulnerability to natural hazards. Owners’ willingness to take risks to protect their pets can result in evacuation failure or unsuccessful co-evacuation. This behaviour has been explained as a result of a strong human-animal bond (or ‘attachment’). Given high levels of pet ownership in Australia, Thompson¹ proposes that this bond could be reconfigured from a risk factor to a protective factor. She suggests that bond-centered communications in disaster resilience campaigns would highly resonate with the 63% of Australians who own pets. Countering current research, which is restricted to companion animals in urban locations, Thompson notes that such strategies would need to be dimensionalised according to type of animal (pet, livestock, wildlife), location (urban, peri-urban, rural) and type of disaster (fire, flood). However, these dimensions are not mutually exclusive. Attempting to develop campaigns which address all of these dimensions could result in information flooding. This presentation attempts to refine the application of Thompson’s proposition in a way that is easily and effectively deployed. Specifically, it recommends that information campaigns would be more effective, and ecologically valid, if segmented not by the type of animals, or where they are kept, but by the strength and nature of human-animal attachment dimensions. Psychometric assessment of multiple theory-based dimensions of this bond can be used to develop archetypes of animal owners according to the strength and nature of their human-animal attachment and associated risk propensities. Disaster-resilience communication initiatives could then be tailored according to these. This could benefit emergency responders by providing recognisable ‘types’ of vulnerable animal guardians that they can immediately associate with communication strategies to support responders’ objectives. Motivating the disaster preparedness of pet owners through their animal attachment – operationalised through archetypes – has the potential to increase disaster resilience and survival of pet owners, emergency services personnel, and animals.