If you also have a green thumb for growing plants inside your home while at the same time own a “plant-loving” cat, then your job is to make your plants as undesirable as you possibly can to that cat. Here are a few tips that can help you solve the battle between your cat and houseplants.

3 Ways You Could Stop Your Cat From Eating Houseplants

• Foul Condiments: Cats, in general, enjoy chewing on plants. One of the ways to get they off your houseplants is to make them taste or smell terrible. However, do avoid spraying any toxic material on your plants as it may also harm your cat. You don’t have to look far for those foul smelling products. A little vinegar with water or Tabasco sauce is good enough to do the trick—getting your cats off your houseplants. Do not underestimate these condiments; they are so potent that some cats won’t even need to take a taste test in order to be turned off. Just getting close and taking to a whiff of that spice and bitterness will be enough to send them running.
• Scar Tactics: This technique may not work for all cats but give it a go if you don’t want your plants to smell anything like Tabasco or vinegar. What you could do is to make your houseplants look as unattractive as scary as possible. One method is to run aluminum foil wrapped around the sides of the pots and then extend a couple lines of foil rolled up and coiled 3 feet out, like a big bird claw. To us, it looks awkward but to the cats—it’s scary. You can brainstorm and find other ways to scare off your cats that may suit you better.
• Go Up: If the above two methods—having a bitter aroma running through the house from Tabasco sauce or your living room looking like a science fiction movie with all the aluminum—aren’t your cup of tea. Then you have to use the “upgrade” version. Simply turn your houseplants into hanging plants. Unless your house or apartment is loaded with high levels that your cat can get to, turning your houseplants into ceiling plants is probably the most successful technique that can be used to keep your plant from becoming cat food.

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How To Keep Your Rabbit From Escaping?

1. Rabbits leap through amazingly small gaps in a flash. Small bunnies can jump through a single diamond-shaped gap of chain-link fencing as if the fence wasn’t there! We all want our rabbits to have plenty or room to romp around but unsupervised romp in the yard is definitely a no-no.
2. Rabbits are great diggers too, so if the hutch has a dirt-floor base, don’t be surprised to find them all over the garden or out on the road. Hutches should have wood or cement floors.
3. They also jump high, so open-topped enclosures or low fences are not enough. Besides, anything open-topped gives access to cats and large birds. Believe me, cats and crows, can and will kill adult and newborn rabbits respectively.

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How To Keep Your Rodents From Escaping?

• Rodents are escape artists extraordinaire. Many pet owners underestimate how crafted these rodents are. Those believed to be safe in their cages have been discovered wandering the roads or house, where they may be stepped on, run over and eaten by predators. Check on them regularly, or avoid leaving them unattended for long hours/days.
• Cage doors must be securely locked, not merely latched. The bars of the cage should be the narrowest possible. Hamsters may look roly-poly, but most of that bulk is all fur, easily compressed for squeezing between bars.
• Hamsters, mice, guinea pigs, chinchillas, and gerbils love to gnaw because their teeth are constantly growing. Always use cages made from metal or fiberglass that cannot be chewed through. Wood won’t hold them no matter how thick they are.

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The stereotypical picture of a dog happily gnawing on a bone is a dangerous one. Believing it could put your dog’s well-being at risk.

Most bones are bad for dogs, especially those that splinter easily, like chicken bones. These are carelessly tossed to strays, and may be devoured happily by dogs, but wreak internal havoc. I know of dogs that suffered and had to be put down because their stomachs and intestines were pierced by chicken bone splinters.

One sometimes hears people insisting that they have fed their dogs chicken bones for years and they remain healthy. This may be true for some lucky (and very hardy) pets, but it takes only one splinter to slowly kill. So don’t take the risk to know if your dog is the hardy ones.

Wolves may devour a carcass—bones and all—without harm, but your average domestic dog is hardly a wolf. Furthermore, those bones that the wolves devour are raw ones and usually larger than chicken bones.

Larger bones like those from cattle rarely splinter and could be safer. However, cattle bones carry their own health risks, and anyway, chewing on something as hard as bone over the long term could damage your pet’s teeth.

Never throw hard and heavy objects like large cattle bones, stones, metal bowls and so non to your dog to catch. A dog will eagerly leap up to catch the heavy item, only to crack its teeth or break its jaw. Throw that bouncy rubber ball instead!

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Here’s what you can do to protect innocent animals from harm and carelessness:

• Litter Appropriately: Do not leave fish or chicken bones in public places. Apart form the fact that you will be littering, you could also lead someone else’s dog or cat to pounce on your leftovers—even a dog being walked on leash may lunge aside to gulp food down. Dogs and cats can choke to death on bones, so do not allow your lack of consideration to result in some poor pet owner carrying a dead animal home from a walk.
• Trap Appropriately: If you have set out a sticky rat trap, please keep it covered during the day. Set it out only at night in a corner of the kitchen, not outdoors. Birds and other innocent animals like garden lizards sometimes land on such traps and get stuck. They usually have to be killed, because there is almost no way of freeing them from the sticky substance without breaking their fragile bodies.
• Poison Appropriately: Never leave pesticides, rat poison, or corrosive liquids where innocent animals can chance upon them.
• Drive Appropriately: Drive well within speed limits especially in residential areas. Not only It is not just for pets who are roaming around the neighborhood but also look out for kids. Slow down even more if you see a runaway dog or frightened cat dashing around on the road.

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How You Can Help Those Injured Birds

Common injuries birds suffer are to their wings or legs. If you find an injured bird that cannot fly, get expert help immediately.

If help is unavailable, do not try to pop it in a cage to transport it, as it may thrash around in panic and injure itself further. Instead, immobilize it very gently by carefully wrapping it from the shoulders down in a large handkerchief, if it is a small bird.

Larger birds (crow-size upwards) can be wrapped in an old T-shirt. Place the bird in a ventilated cardboard box lined with more old T-shirt for cushioning and keep it still.

If it is a migratory or rare species, your local authorized animal rescued will want to nurse it back to health and later release it, or keep it (if it is incapable of fending for itself). If it is a very common bird like a sparrow, mynah, or pigeon, take it to a vet. If you cannot afford a vet’s services, and the bird looks too injured to survive, do the humane thing and bring it to your local SPCA to have it put to sleep.

Unless you are a bird expert, do not try to treat a wild or migratory bird on your own, as these creatures need specialized diets and care.

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