Looking for some smart fire and electrical tips to keep your pets safe? If you’re having doubts about how well your home and pets are protected, read on!
Keep Your Pet Safe With These Fire And Electrical Tips
Whether you have indoor or outdoor pets, understanding how to keep them safe from lightning, fires, and other potential dangers is of paramount concern. This is especially true during warmer months of the year, when the weather can be unpredictable and wildfires are most likely to occur. Even the most watchful animal guardians can commit pet care mistakes. Don’t let your furry friend fall prey to preventable fire or electrical hazards. Read on for precautionary fire and electrical tips to keep your pets safe.
Fire Prevention At Home
Unfortunately, curious, unrestrained animals have been known to cause structure and property fires. However, there are steps that a responsible pet owner can take to reduce the chance of such mishaps. Pet-proofing by eliminating access to indoor and outdoor electrical wiring is important, as well as extinguishing candles and fires before leaving a room or outdoor living area. Another tip is removing stove knobs when the appliance is not in use. These are just three easy ways that you can take to prevent your pet from inadvertently starting a fire at home.
Additional smart steps include securing younger, active kittens and puppies in a safe area. You can also purchase simple surveillance equipment that offers fire and break-in alerts and visual monitoring of your property.
Surviving A Fire
According to the National Fire Protection Association, more than 1.2 million fires occurred in the United States in 2014 alone. This surprising statistic includes house fires, small brush fires, and large wildfires. These numbers emphasize the importance of knowing fire and electrical tips and looking out for your pet during any type of fire event.
A few of the ways that you can do that are:
- Fireproofing your home and yard by installing fire-resistant roofing and siding and cutting back grass, trees, and brush.
- Creating evacuation routes from your residence that allow your pets to escape whether you’re home or not.
- Applying stickers to your doors and windows that let firefighters and other first responders know the number and type of pets that are inside your home.
- Making arrangements to take your pets with you in the case of a fire-related evacuation. Some emergency shelters still don’t allow pets, so be sure to have a backup plan if you live in an area that’s prone to summer wildfires.
Lightning And Electrical Safety
Late summer storms and natural weather events can lead to a wide range of electrical safety risks. Lightning, floods, and downed power lines – as well as home consumer products – are electrocution hazards for curious animals at home. Taking the time to learn more information about the behavior of electricity and electrical currents under different circumstances will help you and pets stay out of harm’s way.
You can minimize your pet’s risk of electrical shock by taking the following precautions:
- Most dog houses don’t protect against lightning, so it’s important that your outside animals have a place of shelter indoors during summer storms.
- Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes also frequently lead to downed power lines. Dogs and cats may panic and run off during bad weather. This, coupled with the fact that animals simply aren’t aware of the dangers associated with a live electrical wire, puts pets at especially high risk for coming into contact with downed lines. People and pets should stay at least 10 feet away from any downed electrical lines due to the potential of electrical arcing. You should never attempt to move an electrical wire yourself.
- If you suspect that there might be downed power lines in your area, stay inside your home and keep your pets with you until the problem has been addressed.
Want some more pet fire safety tips? Watch this video from Veterinary Medical Center of Clayton:
Being prepared saves lives! Your pets depend on you to look out for them 24/7, so it’s critical to be ever-vigilant about these and other hazards. Taking heed of the above information just may help you and your pets to enjoy a worry-free summer whether you stay at home or head outside to enjoy the great outdoors.
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This post was originally published in September 2016 and has been updated for quality and relevancy.
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