Pet Friendly Shades & Blinds

Pets are hard on window coverings. A cat wants the sill, a dog wants to see who is at the door, and a dangling cord or a row of thin slats rarely lasts once a paw or a nose pushes through it. Pet friendly shades and blinds take that pressure off the window. They lift fully clear of the glass when you want them to, they leave nothing loose to chew or tangle in, and they present a single panel of fabric rather than a stack of parts that can bend.

Which shades and blinds suit a home with pets

Start with the lift. Our cordless lift has no loose cords, which is why we describe it as both child and pet safe. Motorized shades go one step further: the shade moves by remote, wall switch or app, works with Alexa, Google Home and Apple HomePod, and leaves nothing at all within reach of paws.

Light filtering and blackout roller shades are 100 percent polyester fabric on an aluminum bottom bar, and they roll up into a closed cassette at the top of the window. Ordered with a reverse roll, the fabric hangs off the front of the tube instead of the back, which moves it forward to clear a deep sill. That leaves room for a cat to keep its favorite spot with the shade down. Solar shades are rollers in a polyester and PVC screen fabric, sold by openness, and suit a sunny window where you want the room bright.

Cellular shades ordered cordless start at just 12 inches wide. A top down bottom up version lets you lower the top for daylight while the bottom stays covered, or raise the bottom a little so a pet can look out. Zebra shades alternate sheer and solid bands, so you can shift between view and privacy without lifting the shade off the sill at all.

We have left woven wood off this page. It looks lovely, but many natural weaves are loose or prone to fraying at the cut edge, which is a poor match for claws.

Sizes and lift options to check

Each lift has its own minimum width. A cordless roller needs 19 3/4 inches on our 2 15/16 inch cassettes and 23 5/8 inches on the 3 1/2 inch cassette, because the spring sits inside the tube. A motorized roller needs between 20 1/8 and 21 1/4 inches. Zebra starts at 18.8 inches. For a narrow window, cordless cellular at 12 inches is the simplest way to keep cords out of the picture.

Cordless cellular reaches 94 inches wide and 94 inches high. Motorized cellular in the 38 mm and 45 mm cells needs 23 inches of width and stops at 79 inches high. Blackout rollers reach 94 1/2 inches wide on our squared cassette, while light filtering reaches 98 3/8.

Our motors are rechargeable. A full charge takes about four hours, and a battery motor can also run from a solar panel, which saves taking the shade down to charge it.

Measuring and installing it yourself

Choose an inside mount within the window recess or an outside mount on the wall or casing. For cellular, an inside mount is built about 1/4 inch narrower than the opening, and an outside mount adds about 3 7/8 inches to both width and height.

Roller, zebra and solar shades hang from a cassette bracket. You need a 6 mm drill bit, and two anchor types come in the box, one for drywall and one for masonry. Each bracket has four pre-drilled holes; use the extra two if the wall is weak or the shade is wide. Hook the valance groove onto the bracket latch and press back until it clicks. Check that both the top and rear have locked. A bracket caught only on the top latch can hold at first and then drop the first time the shade is raised.

If you also have little ones at home, our cordless collection covers the same safe lifts across more rooms. Every shade here is made to the measurements you send and shipped direct to your door.