How To Protect Your Home If You Have Pets

We know you would never be without your pets, but we also know that you want to protect your home. For homes without pets – or at least without those pets that are able to roam freely through the house – it’s a simple matter of finding the right burglar alarm and setting it each time you leave the house, or go up to bed. With pets such as cats and dogs, it’s a different matter. If you set a standard alarm those pets are sure to set it off. So what can you do?

 

Pet-Friendly Alarms

The good news is that you don’t have to leave your home unprotected; there are pet-friendly alarms that can be installed that will protect your home and mean that your pets can still move around freely with no compromises to either your safety or their comfort. It also means that you’ll experience far fewer false alarms, keeping your burglar alarm system ready for what it is meant to do – alert you and others to intruders – rather than everyone becoming immune to the sound because they assume it’s just your dog or cat setting it off again.

 

How Does It Work?

When most modern alarms work on a motion detector system, how can pet-friendly devices work and not be set off by an animal roaming around the house? A lot of the time it comes down to calibration – the pet-friendly alarm can be set so that it only detects motion above a certain level, so only something taller than your tallest pet would set it off. The rest of the time, your pet can move around unhindered.

 

Of course, pets that can climb, like cats, or even fly, like birds, are more difficult to deal with. Unlike dogs who tend to stay at ground level, these creatures can easily set off a motion detector alarm even if it is calibrated to only pick up human-sized movement. If you have this kind of potential issue, don’t worry; there is a way around that too. In these cases, you can have dual (also known as active) technology alarms installed. These alarms require two separate sensors to be triggered before the alarm is sounded. This is a much more precise kind of detector system that can work brilliantly even if you have multiple animals of different sizes.

 

Retrofitting

If you already have a burglar alarm fitted and then you subsequently go on to get a pet, you may not want to remove the original alarm and have a new one installed. If this is your situation, you can buy PIRDs (passive infrared detectors) to combat the potential problems. These systems can detect the difference between a beloved pet and an intruder by looking at ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ areas as well as movement. Body heat from people is going to be a lot different to body heat from animals, so a determination can be made this way. However, this system can have problems due to radio interference, and unless they are installed by a professional and have an RFI stabiliser fitted as well to cut out this interference, they may not work that well.

 

What Next?

If you have pets and also want to have a burglar alarm fitted, we can help you. We have a range of options to help you with and can discuss your needs fully. You can phone on 01279 305922 or email enquiries@innov8security.co.uk and we’ll be happy to help you.