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The Kitchen Table

Be mindful of pets, collars and floor vents

last year

This would be tragic.

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Comments (11)

arkansas girl
last year
OH terrible! I had not thought of floor vents!!!!! Also, if your dog uses a crate, you should take their collars/tags off. There have been deaths associated with the crates!
dedtired
last year
That happened to my old husky. He was big enough and strong enough to yank it off when hestood up. I would thinkmthey would come with a breakaway feature.
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Your funniest pet memories.
Q
Comments (27)
What funny stories! Two of my personal favorites involve my cat. When she first adopted me, I was single and living in a "no cats allowed" apartment building. For obvious reasons, I wanted to keep her a secret. She, however, invented what she thought was a very fun game. When I would come home from work or wherever, she would make a break for the door to "escape." Once out of the door, she would run like crazy to the door at the end of the hall that led to the outside. Then she would wait for me to run after her, dodge me and then run as fast as she could back to my apartment. This game used to drive me crazy. One day, tho, she took off as per usual. Just as she reached the outer door, it opened and a person who lived down the hall came in. Scared my kitty half to death! She ran as fast as she could to me, crying all the way. Never bolted out the door again. My other memory is when we brought our 1st sheltie home. Same cat, now 12 years of spoiling later, had become quite used to being the "only." Dogs had come to visit before, but always with someone else and she never really minded, as long as they left her alone. This was different and she knew it instantly! She was lying on the couch and as soon as she saw the dog, she arched up, started screaming and hopped sideways across the living room floor. Scared our poor sheltie . . . and us . . . half to death! 5 years and another sheltie later she's quite used to the idea of sharing her house. She's still the queen bee and never lets them forget it.
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cat collars
Q
Comments (8)
Although your cats can get the safety collars off, you are doing your pets a great service by using that type of collar. SIL lost 1 yr. old lab this past summer while she and her brother were playing in the yard. She caught her jaw under his collar, he drug her around the yard and asphixiated her. The surviving dog is permanently scarred from the experience of watching his sibling die. The dogs were in a fenced yard playing. Outside for no more than 5 minutes before it happened. Too sickening to think about, let alone experience. My dogs haven't worn collars on since that day, July 25, 2006. I can't ever burn the memory of it out of my mind. I have sent out so many PSA on safety collars to friends, colleagues, family, everyone that I know for that matter. I would never want to see that happen to anyone's pet. I think I would microchip the cats.
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Pets and fireworks....just a small vent
Q
Comments (29)
the hospitals are swamped with burns and accidents of all kinds due to fireworks. And yes, pets take off which is why you make sure all cats and dogs too have their ids and their collars on and also make sure they have chips and up to date ones as if they have the chance will take off. Our toy manchester dog when we were kids, he was terrified of noise and thunder storms just freaked him out. One time we went out and one started up and we came home and poor dog was freaking out under the bed, I feel so bad for them and wish they didn't have them allowed and let them go off in neighbourhoods. My last dog we would hear butchard gardens fireworks that go off in the summer on saturday and all we would hear where the house was boom, boom, boom and he would look at me and start shaking and I stayed calm and he would too. When we first moved to that house in the country, one of the neigbhours lit off fireworks and our springer spaniel was freaking out bad and the neighbours phoned us on other side and asked us to stop them as their two dogs were freaking out. I said I'm not setting them off and our springer spaniel dog is freaking out, she said she will take care of it and soon quiet. kathy
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How did you deal with pets during the remodel?
Q
Comments (39)
I am the OP, figured since this was brought back to life and we are on the other side of the remodel I would report back. One of the cats stayed downstairs with my mom the whole time, being locked in her bedroom if workers were coming and going through the garage. He got pretty stressed, hid under her bed a lot, lost some weight and ended up dying shortly after the remodel finished, but he was old (17) and was already in poor health (kidney disease) so I am not sure that the remodel had much to do with it. The plan For the other cat was for her to be upstairs during the day when the workers were there and have free access at night and when they weren’t. Because the walls were open a good part of the time and we realized she could fall straight through to the basement (and is also old, 17), she had to be upstairs for a couple months. She complained loudly, but I put some plywood and a large picture across the stairs to block her so she had the whole upstairs instead of one room, so it made it better. That wouldn’t have worked with a younger cat but she doesn’t jump much at that height anymore so it worked. She is a pretty laid back cat and was more annoyed than upset by the whole thing. Below is a picture of her trying to figure out what was going on. The noises and people didn’t phase her a bit. Cody ended up barking every day when the workers came in, but typically settling down when they were in the house actively working. The days they were going in and out a lot were hard on him and he was either crated or taken to daycare. He went to daycare about 2 days a week throughout the project, which helped even on the off days because he was tired. We did work with him on a “quite” command and it helped, but still isn’t a strong command for him.
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chloebud
last year
OMG, Jasdip, good warning!

Sad story. Our daughter’s wedding in 2008 was outside here in SoCal at my inlaw’s home. There were several dogs that had been moved to a large fenced area at the back of the property with plenty of room for them to run around. People kept going back to check on them. Later in the evening our son came to me with a horrible expression. One of the dogs tried to jump the fence. His collar got caught and he hanged himself. It was horrible and I still think about it. If only it had been a breakaway collar!!!
Annie Deighnaugh
last year
Our girls typically don't have collars on inside, but if they do, if they got in a grate, the grates are not screwed into the floor and their collars are break away.
dedtired
last year
Chloe, what a sad story. I remember my secretery coming to work, shaking. A cat had caught its collar on her fence and died.
lily316
last year
My cats have never had collars . Too dangerous and besides they're house cats.
chloebud
last year
dedtired, that’s another sad story showing the need for breakaway collars.
OutsidePlaying
last year
last modified: last year
Yes, to breakaway collars, but another thing i noted in the photo. Our floor vents are not screwed in place. They can be easily lifted out for cleaning. Unless the dog is very small perhaps, one would likely come out when tugged. Maybe not with a really small lightweight dog or cat.
roxsolid
last year
last modified: last year
Another place to be aware of, is on decks or porches where your pet might lie down. The tags can get caught between the boards and result in strangulation if the pet starts twisting and turning trying to get free.
chloebud
last year
roxsol, thank goodness he was okay. Yikes!!!
Ninapearl
last year
the only time my dogs wear collars is if they are going somewhere with me where they will be getting out of the van to go in (vet, pet store, etc.). otherwise, they are naked!

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