Safety precautions for your pets

[paulinaaa]

I'm sure everyone has things that they do to ensure the safety of their pets. I don't want this thread to be about horrible things that have happened to an animal because then I couldn't read it. Having said all that, whenever I bring home a shopping bag with handles on it I always cut through the handles or cut them off so that my cats won't get stuck when they are playing hide n' seek in what they perceive is a new toy just for them.

So, share your safety tidbits here.....

[KaliLily]

Know where your cats are before you turn on the dryer! (She was only in there for a few seconds. She was fine...just extra fluffy!)

Keep shredders off and unpluged when not in use. (No story here, just a precaution I proactively took upon getting a shredder.)

[southerner]

I make eye contact with both cats before I leave the house. I just need reassurance that they're in the house.

I check all the doors to be sure they're open. If the windows are open, I put a door stop in the doors.

I keep drawers and cabinets closed and the lid on the garbage can.

I don't leave any cords to blinds or cutains hanging. I keep all electric cords wrapped up too.

[eli1126]

We keep the cords to the blinds up

Drawers are closed/garbage is in cabinent they can't get in

They aren't allowed in the laundry room....although they feel they should be :rolleyes:

We don't keep any holiday plants (poinsettias) or really any type of flowers or plants I'd rather be safe than sorry

I don't let them eat human food especially oinions which are not good for kitties. Very occassionally they will get a little plain tuna but usually only after a trip to the Vet.

We don't use harsh chemical cleaners that are harmful to pets and make sure that all cleaners are put away so they can't get into them anyway.

ETA: We always leave our paper shredder unplugged!!

[eli1126]

Sorry for the mulitple posts, I thought of 1 more:

Our cats are strictly indoor kitties! There are so many feral cats running around, I don't feel the need to add to the population. Also I would be devestated if they were run over, killed with outdoor chemicals, etc...There are plenty of things they can be just as naughty with inside even with all the precautions we take!

[gator97]

We have two labradors: ages 1 and 2:

-Keep the shredder unplugged
-Keep them contained when we aren't in the house (either crated or in our bathroom)
-Only put their collars on when they leave our home (or when company comes over)- we don't have escape issues
-do our best to keep things off of the tables/floor where they could get it (they like to eat things that they shouldn't)

I'm sure there is more. I'll come back when I think of it.

[Tonysweetie]

I have some that our repeats but here are mine for our kitties....

~ Unplug the shredder after using it
~ Make eye contact with both cats before I leave the house or turn on the dryer
~ Make sure cords to blinds are not in their reach
~ I keep precious breakables high up (even though I know cats can climb but there good about getting up that high)
~ When I get up in the middle of the night I scrub my feet if I can't see so I don't step on one of the them. ;)

[vwinkel]

The washer/dryer thing is my biggest fear. I count the cats before I turn either on.

The garage also seems to be a world of wonder for my kitties, since they are indoor only. I lead with my food when entering from the garage and while shutting the door hold my foot against the opening as it closes. Hopefully that makes sense. Therefore, they can't sneak out and I can't shut their heads in the door.

I always follow the rule that collars only have 2-3 fingers worth of space under them. Otherwise, they are too loose. I've seen too many cats get their collars stuck in their mouths or on other things around the house.

[jajacobsen]

Never feed them (dogs or cats) any type of candy so they don't develop a taste for it. Chocolate can be deadly to dogs and I worry about this in the Halloween season. We never leave any type of food or candy (nuts. etc) out around the house.

[greenbunny]

A friend of mine gave us this tip:

All our doors have post-and-bracket holders installed on them, so that when they are open, they can be latched into place. Open windows on a nice breezy day + loose doors + cats wandering around = possibility for a smushed cat.

It sounds overly cautious, but believe that a door caught by the wind will close hard and fast. The friend who told me this learned the hard way.


Another tip:

Our one cat was way too fascinated with doors and even managed to get past me and outside once while I was struggling with groceries. Now we keep a container of treats by the door and toss one across the room as soon as we come inside. Now whenever the door opens, both cats run away from it looking for their snack.

[diam124]

Our cat is more like a dog in that she will eat/chew on anything, so a lot of our safety precautions involve that.

-No houseplants (even non-poisonous ones because I know she'll eat them)
-No home decor with anything she can eat (pebbles, string etc.)
-Very rarely do I light candles and even then I never leave the room when they are lit
-No rubber bands (she just ate some 3 weeks ago and threw them up on our bed), hair bands, jewelry, etc. can be left out.
-I don't leave the stove unattended when I'm cooking
- We leave all bathroom doors shut at all times because she will either shred the toilet paper or try to eat the garbage (the worst is q-tips :rolleyes: )
-No Christmas trees/lights inside the house
-No food is left out or on dirty dishes in the sink
-I also am paranoid about the dryer
-When we have windows open in the house we prop the doors open (learned that the hard way when she was trapped in our bedroom for an entire day without food/water or litter box! She RAN out to use her litterbox when I got home!)

I'm sure there are more -those are just off the top of my head.

[Sazoo]

I have two cats. Here are some of the lessons I've learned over the years:

* Don't leave rubberbands or hair bands/scrunchies laying around (cat ate one once & it took 2 days for her to throw it back up. Vet warned me rubber bands can be very harmful if they get down into the stomach/intestines.)
*Keep toilet lid closed (one of our cats love to throw her toys into the bowl &/or fishout tissue, etc. that she finds in there...picture wet TP chunks all over the bathroom walls, ugh.)
*Don't leave plastic grocery bags or paper bags with handles laying around (one of my cats got her head caught in one of each type of bag when she was a kitten...man, did she ever freak!)
*Don't leave a plate or pot of food unattended, ever!
*When leaving the house, wait for the screen door to close behind you (or push it closed manually) so cats do not escape.
*Temporarily cover/remove litter boxes after bathing cats...wet kitty in clumping cat litter box = quite a mess!
*Look where you're walking (especially at night in the dark)...cats may be underfoot.
*Only light candles in areas where cats are not liable to get near them. Keep an eye on the candles & the cats, blow them out when leaving the room.
*Check the dryer for kitty stow-aways before turning it on.

[greenbunny]

I'd had luck with my plant-chewer by coating the leaves with Grannick's Bitter Apple spray. It's a fine mist, so I'll soak a rag or paper towel, then wipe the leaves with it. She will try it once, and then leave them alone. The only downside is that the spray smells funny, sort of like old deli meat. I only get a whiff every now and then, but if you have a ton of plants your house might smell weird.

[vwinkel]

Another vote to be careful with candles. I always know when DH has lit one in an area where Sassy can find it. She will have nubs for whiskers.

Be careful with string and spools of thread. Cats ingest the the thread and it gets tangled in their intestines so much so that it can't be taken out. A friend learned the hard way.

[diam124]

I'd had luck with my plant-chewer by coating the leaves with Grannick's Bitter Apple spray.

Would you believe our cat actually likes the taste of bitter apple?! I swear she's the anti-cat. :rolleyes:

[greenbunny]

LOL diam! And I thought mine were nuts!

[KaliLily]

Another vote to be careful with candles.

One of my cats, Lily, got her nose too close to a candle several years ago and had a little white dot on her little black nose for a little while. She hasn't gone near a lit candle since then. It's amazing considering she never learns any other lessons!

[KaliLily]

Another tip:

Our one cat was way too fascinated with doors and even managed to get past me and outside once while I was struggling with groceries. Now we keep a container of treats by the door and toss one across the room as soon as we come inside. Now whenever the door opens, both cats run away from it looking for their snack.

When Lily was a kitten we used to keep a bucket of "jingly" balls at the front door and throw them up the steps before leaving to distract her from the door. Worked like a charm!

[mgmhmj]

Our cat is more like a dog in that she will eat/chew on anything, so a lot of our safety precautions involve that.

- We leave all bathroom doors shut at all times because she will either shred the toilet paper or try to eat the garbage (the worst is q-tips :rolleyes: )

What's the deal with the q-tips?? My cat does it, too - he will dig through the trash can to get to them, and when you take them away from him, you would think you killed his best friend from the yowling. Everyone looks at me like I"m nuts when I say something about it, so I thought it was just a weird Eeyore thing, but I'm glad to know that maybe it isn't!

[Sazoo]

My cats both love cotton balls. I think it's the same thing as the q-tips...but I don't know WHY they love 'em so much. *shrug*

[keska]

In addition to the other things mentioned, we keep extra cat food, water and bowls in our earthquake kit. We also keep one cat carrier assembled and easily accessible at all times in case of an emergency.

[diam124]

About the q-tips - does your cat try to swallow them? I'm always afraid ours is going to choke on one.

That was a good tip about leaving the carrier assembled. We take the gate off of ours and keep it in the cats room so she can go in it if she wants but maybe we should put the gate back on.

I thought of another thing we do - we have those emergency pet alert stickers on our front window and back sliding door. It makes me feel better that if there were an emergency someone would know a pet was inside.

[eli1126]

Belle has an affinity for q-tips and cotton balls so the bathroom garbage is in the linen closet. She doesn't eat them though, she just likes to bat them around.

[mgmhmj]

Eeyore doesn't try to eat the q-tips... he gnaws at them a little, but mostly carries them to the other side of the house (where he thinks I won't find them) and swats them all over the place. When I moved last month, you wouldn't believe how many q-tips I found stuck under stuff and hidden in corners - guess he thought he was being really smart.

[meagle]

* DH and I enter and exit the house through our garage. The garage door is down when the house door is open. We try to be stealthy when we go out, but this way if a super-fast kitty slips by, we only have to get her out of the garage rather than who-knows-where-she'd-go. Distractions of toys and food don't work.
* Breakables are up super high and are secured with Museum Putty.
* I have an emergency pet sticker on my back window. I don't know why, but I'm paranoid about having it in the front of the house and having someone break-in and steal our Heinz-57 house cats.
* I keep the cats' medical records next to their assembles carriers, with tags and collars inside. (We also have a big emergency/evacuation kit that includes litter/box, food, bowls for the cats).
* I keep recent photos of the cats with the medical records.
* The cats are absolutely not permitted in the sewing room when I have a project going on - this eliminates pin dangers, string dangers, and the risk of one or both of them getting injured by the iron (even unplugged, they can push or pull it down on themselves/each other).
* We only light candles during power outages and then the candles are on the mantel, which is not reachable by any feline, even our acrobatic one.
* I always check cat toys for potential choking hazards and/or linear objects. I cut off long mouse tales and pull off removable eyes.

[southerner]

If your pets are microchipped, be sure to update the info when/if you move, change phone numbers, etc.

[Foley42]

If your pets are microchipped, be sure to update the info when/if you move, change phone numbers, etc.
What is a rough price estimate to microchip your pet?

[Peppy]

I put together a list of information I might want if she ever had an emergency. It includes the phone number, address, and office hours of her vet, the phone number and address of the 24 hour emergency vet, the phone number for ASPCA poison control, the information for her microchip (the phone number of the microchip place, her microchip number, their web address), and a list of the area shelters and rescue groups, with their phone numbers. I also have her carrier handy (it doesn't need to be assembled) and all of her vet records in one place. The idea of having some photos with her records is a great one--I need to do that.

Foley, the cost of a microchip can definitely vary. My vet charged me $60, but they are a little ridiculous with costs (they are in the middle of DC and I think they upcharge). I have seen free microchip offers from my local Humane Society. I have also seen it advertised for $30 or $40 at other local vets. I know you are in Georgia--I rescued a cat in Georgia once and the microchip cost at that vet was only $20.

My cat is an indoor-only cat, but I had her microchipped just in case she ever got out inadvertently (especially because she doesn't wear a collar since she is indoor, although collars can also get lost so even if she did, I would have had her microchipped).

[Foley42]

Thanks Peppy.

[acceptablerisk]

we keep the toilet lids down, but more because one of the cats likes to play in it, and then leaves little kitty foot prints everywhere.

we always do a cat count when we leave the house. once, we left our oldest cat locked in my son's bedroom for two days. she was okay, kinda mad at us, she used a laundry basket for a litter box and she was thirsty. my husband was more upset than she was though.

we don't have plants, and the fresh flowers we buy weekly go up where they cannot be accessed.

and definitely, all plastic bags are thrown away. we learned this one the hard [and expensive!] way, when our cat managed to get some of his body through the plastic bag, got stuck, struggled and then cut his hind leg very badly.

[greenbunny]

One we learned last night: if you're lazy and leave something lying out on the kitchen counter that you know they will go after (in this case, a ziplocked baggie of their dried fish treats) don't leave it near the knife block! Summer must have been on the island overnight, because the treat baggie was on the floor and the knife block was scooted over near the edge of the counter. If she'd knocked it down, the girls could have been cut badly. Now the block is in a cabinet.

[jajacobsen]

Foley: Our two dogs were microchipped for $25 each (which went to teh vet) plus the $12 each once in a lifetime registration (international company which tracks the numbers).

[Foley42]

we keep the toilet lids down, but more because one of the cats likes to play in it, and then leaves little kitty foot prints everywhere.
And also...some folks use the 2000 flushes (or something similar) that turns the water blue and probably contains bleach and what not...dangerous for an animal to ingest!

[imagirliegirl]

- Keep the blind cords up
- Child proof locks on all the cabinets in the kitchen because Houdini Griffin can open them
- Make sure all doors are closed when we leave because (yet again) Griffin will close them and lock them in a room with no food or water
- Basically we don't leave anything out. Griffin will eat everything so all rubber bands, bobby pins, anything small and dangerous is locked up