October is National Animal Safety and Protection month. Most American homes have a pet and many Americans consider pets a family member. It’s worth a couple of minutes to consider how we keep our pets reasonably safe without becoming obsessive about safety.
Why pets get into trouble
Pets, such as dogs, cats, and ferrets get in trouble because they are curious. Most of us don’t see the world as our pets do, especially our exotic pets such as birds or reptiles. Also, most pets are unsupervised while we’re at work.
None of us can keep our pets 100% safe. Accidents can and do happen, but I think about preventing the most common accidents in my home by thinking about “The Four P’s” — perimeter, people, poison, and paraphernalia.
Perimeter
Perimeter is your pet’s safe boundary, your pet’s habitat, his home range. If your pet is a cat and the perimeter is the house, then you need to have a strategy for opening and closing doors without the cat slipping outside. That’s perimeter. Outside the perimeter, the cat’s not safe.
If you are a two pet household and your second pet is a gerbil, the gerbil is never safe outside his gerbil enclosure. For the gerbil, you need a strategy for changing his bedding and water that does not allow him to escape into the cat’s territory. In the cat’s territory, the gerbil is not safe. For my home, it’s parrots and dogs. Same thing. I keep a demilitarized zone between the birds and the dogs at all times.
People
When I say people I mean small children or visitors who don’t understand your rules for keeping pets safe. For example, safety for a kitten means that you must keep the toilet lids down. Accidental drowning is leading cause of kitten death. Visitors to your home may not know this.
Another example involves small children. Children may not be able to change the gerbil’s bedding without having the gerbil escape into a zone that’s not safe for him. A solution that keeps the children involved and the gerbil safe is for the adult to move the gerbil to a temporary “holding box” while the children make the gerbil’s cage a pristine gerbil heaven. The adult then moves the gerbil back into his regular habitat.
Poison
Poison includes anything that pets can eat or lick that will make them ill. Many people don’t realize that avocado, chocolate, alcohol, and caffeine are poisonous to dogs, cats. I wouldn’t feed those things to a pet tarantula either.
I was surprised to learn that one common cat poison is motor oil. Cats allowed into a garage walk through oil and grease. As part of their daily cleaning, cats lick the oil and grease off their paws, and become ill.
Paraphernalia
Paraphernalia is the best noun beginning with “p” I could think of for our belongings such as yarn (a leading cause of kittens’ emergency surgery or death) electrical cords for computer ( a cause of puppy and kitten injury from chewing) window blind cords that pose (a hazard when they become wrapped around a pet’s neck and the pet struggles to free itself). Craft or hobby projects and children’s toys are sources of things with small parts that are intriguing and can be swallowed by pets.
What about the car or the yard?
Think about your yard or your car, if your pet is allowed in those areas, as boundaries of your pet’s range and apply the Four P’s.
Perimeter: How will you assure that when you open the door that your pet won’t bolt into traffic?
People: Does grandma know the rule about holding Spot’s collar before opening the car door?
Poison: Is the chocolate bar Junior dropped still on the floor of the back seat where the puppy can eat it?
Paraphernalia: Is the set of hand tied flies that you bought for your brother’s birthday on your back seat where your ferret swallow them?
Think ahead
If you’ve taken care of children, you already know how to think about pet safety. Close off the exits. Cover the outlets. Secure the cabinet doors. No time unsupervised. No harmful items left unsecured. Of course, it all depends on the type of pet, the individual species, and your individual pet. Each one is unique. That’s why we love them.
