Can I have a burglar alarm with pets?
Yes. Pet-tolerant PIR sensors are designed to ignore the movement of animals below a certain size while still detecting a person. Where each sensor points matters as much as the sensor itself: aimed away from stairs, cat trees and furniture pets climb on, they cause fewer false alarms. The quote visit looks at your home and your pets and decides the right setup.
How do pet-tolerant PIR sensors work?
A PIR sensor detects the heat and movement of a body crossing its field of view. Pet-tolerant versions shape that field and process the signal so that a small animal at floor level is ignored while a person-sized target is not. They are a standard option from most alarm manufacturers, not a specialist add-on.
No sensor is a guarantee against every pet in every room. A large dog, or two animals moving together, presents a bigger signature than a single small one. That is why the sensor itself is only half of the answer.
Why does sensor placement matter so much?
A pet-tolerant sensor assumes the animal stays near the floor. A cat on a bookshelf or a dog on the stairs can appear at the height and size of a person, so sensors are aimed away from staircases, window sills and furniture that pets climb. Rooms pets roam at night get particular attention.
Placement can also mean zoning: leaving some rooms without motion sensors and protecting them with door contacts or glass-break detectors instead, so pets move freely while entry points stay covered.
What will the quote visit check?
The visit looks at your home and your animals together: where pets sleep, which rooms they can reach when the alarm is set, and where a sensor can watch an entry point without watching a cat tree. The right mix of sensors, contacts and zones is decided at that visit, along with the quote.
Engineers who work in homes with animals plan around them on the day too. A Checkatrade reviewer in DA7 wrote that the engineers "took time to make friends with my kitten" while servicing an alarm.
Related service: Intruder Alarms