Can I Use a Home Security System if I Have Pets?

A com­mon mis­con­cep­tion about home secu­ri­ty sys­tems is that they aren’t ide­al in homes with pets. Some peo­ple mis­tak­en­ly assume that their dogs or cats will acci­den­tal­ly trig­ger the alarm. But this is not true – for sev­er­al rea­sons.

Home secu­ri­ty sys­tems work in any home, whether you have a sin­gle pet or a house­ful of ani­mals. These sys­tems pro­vide an invalu­able lay­er of pro­tec­tion, keep­ing your fam­i­ly safe from var­i­ous secu­ri­ty dan­gers, such as bur­glary, home intru­sion, fire and oth­er threats. In addi­tion to ensur­ing a swift response to emer­gen­cies, these sys­tems also help to deter crim­i­nals from tar­get­ing your home. So there’s no rea­son you should bypass this pro­tec­tion just because you live with pets.

The mis­con­cep­tion about pets usu­al­ly stems from mis­un­der­stand­ing how home secu­ri­ty sys­tems work and the tech­nolo­gies avail­able today.

Here’s what you need to know.

1) Motion detection is not a required feature.

Right off the bat, it’s essen­tial to under­stand that your home secu­ri­ty sys­tem does not need motion detec­tion. It’s option­al. The foun­da­tion of your alarm sys­tem will like­ly be door and win­dow con­tacts, which will acti­vate the alarm if they’re opened while the sys­tem is armed. The con­nec­tions can go on every door and win­dow, if you pre­fer, to pro­tect every entry point. So hav­ing pets inside the home is irrel­e­vant. The door and win­dow con­tacts detect entry, not move inside the house.

Should you add motion detec­tion?

We do rec­om­mend it for fam­i­lies who want to have max­i­mum peace of mind that they’ll be alert­ed to any activ­i­ty in areas where there shouldn’t be. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant if the fam­i­ly trav­els fre­quent­ly or the home is often vacant. Addi­tion­al­ly, if there are many valu­ables inside the house or high­ly secure areas where there should rarely be move­ment, those would be good rea­sons to con­sid­er motion detec­tors.

But even with motion detec­tion, you still don’t have to wor­ry about pets. Here’s why…

2) You can bypass zones where your pets are.

If you want the added pro­tec­tion of motion detec­tion, you still have con­trol over the areas where move­ment is detect­ed.

Your home secu­ri­ty sys­tem can be con­fig­ured into “zones,” allow­ing you to enable motion detec­tion only in the rooms or spaces where it’s need­ed. For exam­ple, you can bypass these zones if your pets pri­mar­i­ly roam your liv­ing room or a base­ment area. This will turn off the motion detec­tion in these areas while pro­tect­ing the oth­er rooms.

How­ev­er, bypass­ing zones isn’t your only option regard­ing motion detec­tion …

3) Pet-friendly devices are available

Today’s motion detec­tion devices and secu­ri­ty cam­eras are more intel­li­gent than ever. You can install pet-friend­ly sen­sors that can dis­tin­guish between sus­pi­cious activ­i­ty and the move­ment of your pets.

This allows you to main­tain the high­est lev­el of secu­ri­ty through­out any area of your home with­out wor­ry­ing about your pets trig­ger­ing the alarm.

Learn more about our pet-friendly alarm systems.

Con­tact us at PROTECTION PLUS to request a no-oblig­a­tion secu­ri­ty sys­tem con­sul­ta­tion today.