Keeping your pet safe can be a daunting task. Just like baby-proofing your home, dog owners need to ensure that their surroundings are safe for their four legged friends. This recent article by Vanessa Rene Casavant of the Seattle Times, entitled How To Pet-Proof Your Home, is an excellent primer for those that wish to make their environment safer for their pet.

Some of the best tips in the article:

- Survey your household plants and remove any that could be toxic.
- Lock up all medications. Common painkillers such as aspirin and ibuprofen can be lethal.
- Use safety latches on all cabinets that hold anything toxic.

The safety latch idea is one that we have first hand experience with. We have child proof locks on our cabinets, as Scoutie loves to forage into them looking for anything to eat! We also have taken the knobs off our gas burning stove and placed them in a little bowl on the counter. A dog that loves to counter surf (as Scout used to) can jump on the knobs and ignite the gas quite easily.

As most of you know, Scoutie is full of energy, and he loves to play outdoors pretty much all of the time. That means that somehow he seems to come up with scratches and/or small cuts every week or so. He just likes to play at full speed all the time, and for some reason, like all little boys do, that means he comes up with the occasional scrape on the knee or rib cage.

The Bow Ow Dog First Aid Kit has been a wonderful helper for us. There are cheaper first aid kits out there, and believe me, we have examined all of them. When it comes to first aid kits, you really get what you pay for. First aid is not something that is wise to skimp on, and the deluxe Bow Ow First Aid Kit is really the best out there. Of course, the first aid kit is just one of the many Dog Safety & First Aid products we carry at Pup Life.

Dog-proofing your home is really a simple process and it can literally save your dog’s life. It also brings you great peace of mind. So, by all means, make your house or apartment dog safe, get a first aid kit for the house and/or car, and then go out and have some fun!