If you’re a homeowner, you know there’s no greater priority than security—after all, it’s not only your valuables that are at stake, it’s the safety of yourself and your family. However, like many Bay Area homes, yours may contain unknown deficiencies that pose an increased vulnerability to break-ins. To help you avoid this, we’ve asked four Diamond Certified Expert Contributors to provide some helpful hints for home security.

  Read more

Owning a pet is a big responsibility—after all, whether it’s a dog, cat or other kind of animal, a pet has the distinction of being a living entity (unlike your car or house). That’s why, when you’re out of town or otherwise unable to care for yours, a pet boarding facility can be an invaluable resource. To help you prepare for bringing your pet for its boarding stay, we’ve curated the following collection of information about pet boarding, including key terms, useful tips and answers to frequently asked questions.

Types of Pet Supervision Services

Since there are several types of pet supervision services available, it’s good to know the full extent of your options. Read more

I’ll never forget the time I was walking my dog the day after Thanksgiving and she got into a neighbor’s garbage bag that was full of turkey bones. First she started chomping and then she started choking. Luckily, the mail carrier was passing by and knew exactly what to do: the Heimlich maneuver. The partially chewed and splintered bones popped right out. We avoided an emergency trip to the veterinary hospital on a holiday weekend.

According to Dr. Howard Schutzman, owner of Antioch Veterinary Hospital, a Diamond Certified practice, we were fortunate. “The main problem with bones, especially turkey bones and chicken bones, is they splinter easily,” he explains. Read more

Your home may have a high-end alarm system, but if your doors are second-rate, you’re running an unnecessary security risk. Exteriors doors are a home’s first line of defense, which is why a weak one represents a major point of vulnerability. Use the following checklist to make sure your doors have what it takes.

Door
Door hardening starts with the door itself. While interior doors are typically 1 3/8-inch thick, exterior doors should be 1 3/4 inches of solid wood. Read more

A lifelong animal lover, David Weiss has been serving Sonoma County residents and their pets at Four Paws Pet Ranch in Santa Rosa since 2009. We asked David some common questions about pet boarding in order to gain a better understanding of the field.

Q: Why should I bring my dog to a boarding facility when I can just leave it at home?
A: To put it in a nutshell, leaving your dog at a boarding facility will keep it active and engaged. Not everyone realizes that most dogs are pack animals by nature, which means they’re social. When you leave your dog home alone, he’ll generally spend the whole day lying there, Read more

It’s often said that a person’s home is their castle, but try telling that to a burglar—not to mention the fact that our modern edifices lack the thick stone walls, turrets and drawbridges that secured those specimens of medieval architecture from intrusion. That’s why ensuring security in modern homes takes a lot more than a pot of boiling oil…or, more pertinent, a standard front door deadbolt. Read on to learn a few essential aspects of home protection.

Get a lock on things. While any exterior door should have a lock, simply having one isn’t enough. The reality is that most standard locks do little to deter burglars, who are able to circumvent subpar hardware by lock-picking or simply kicking in the door. Read more

Have you ever come back home after a long vacation to just find ugly rings in your toilet bowls just below water lines? You’re tidy and you left everything immaculate as usual. What happened while you and the family were away?

You should not blame your toilet flushing system, its valves and flappers, or anyone else for that matter. The culprit is evaporation. When water evaporates, it leaves these unsightly discolored rings. How can you prevent this from happening next time? Before going away, if you know the toilets will not be used, lift the toilet seat and cover the bowl tightly with a plastic wrap like Saran Wrap. This way, you can avoid the hassle of having to scrub off theses ugly water spots when you get back home. Read more