dog and baby are safe and secure thanks to double sided tape

How To Safeguard Your Home For Pets Using Tape

If you’ve got a beloved four-legged friend in the family, chances are you’ve realized that you need to put certain precautions in your home. Safeguarding your home for your pets is similar to childproofing your home, in some respects. Both pets and children can be extremely curious, and get into places left unsecured.

Therefore, it’s critical that before you bring the newest member of your family home, you ensure that your home is safeguarded as best as possible. Even if you think that you will limit your pet to certain rooms of the house, it’s better to be safe than sorry. You will not be able to be on pet watch at every hour of every day.

Like childproofing your home, all exterior doors should be kept firmly shut and locked. Inside, baby gates are useful for blocking certain areas, but that doesn’t mean a particularly swift animal couldn’t fit through while you swing the gate open to cross a room.

For other areas of the house, when you have pets, it’s important to take precautions like these:

Keep your loose cables and cords away from curious paws.

Tape them up and away, keep them covered and only put out what’s strictly necessary. A chew-proof PVC tube is a popular way to prevent cord chewing.

gaffer tape for cords

Pets can gnaw through the coating easily, opening them up to the risk of electric shock, or worse. This advice goes for anything — whatever you leave out, a pet could chew it up. This means shoes, books, even your wallet.

Keep your garbage stashed away.

Some dogs, especially, will paw away at it, trying to follow their nose to an irresistible scent. Be warned — sometimes a lid is not enough! Try a cupboard with the latch. It might be a pain to use, but it’s better than coming home to a garbage-strewn kitchen.

A latched cupboard is also handy for other rooms in the home to keep from curious pets getting into cleaning supplies, medications and more.

Make the right flooring choice.

Rugs and carpets can be tricky with pets, especially if you’re trying to housetrain a new addition. You’ll want to find something that’s low-maintenance and easily cleaned. It’s also a good idea to secure any rug with carpet tape or double sided tape to ensure that any rambunctious activity doesn’t end with any accidents. However, it would be wise to make sure that the tape job isn’t too permanent so that the rug can be easily pulled away to be cleaned should an accident occur.

carpet tape

Additionally, make sure that the rug doesn’t have anything that could look appealing to pets, like fringes or tassels. Adding more potential targets for chewing may not help train your pet out of gnawing, either.

Stash away knick-knacks that can be easily swiped away with an errant paw, especially if they’re delicate or valuable.

Even when they’re high up, they’re not always safe — better to be safe than sorry!

Choose the right home office furniture.

Again, cords are a danger here, especially as you may have several electronics running at once. Use desks with cut outs in them for cord management, and tape away what you can to avoid dangling distractions.

As well, always make sure that your pet is nowhere near before moving back furniture like your swivel chair. While your beloved dog or cat might enjoy curling up at your feet while you work, tails and paws can get caught in the wheel well and could cause injury.

Looking for other safeguarding tips, check out these posts:

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