The stand carries more than the tank's weight
A full aquarium is far heavier than it looks — water, glass, gravel and rock add up fast — and a boisterous dog adds sudden sideways force the stand was never asked about at the shop. Choose a stand built and rated for aquariums of your tank's size, level it carefully, and check that it has no wobble when you lean on it, because a stand that rocks an inch under your weight will rock worse under a forty-kilo shoulder-check. Position the tank pushed back on the stand so no rim overhangs for a jumping dog to catch, and keep the whole unit against a wall rather than as a room divider a dog can circle and cannon into from either side. Re-check the stand's screws and feet from time to time; joints loosened by years of small bumps are the quiet prelude to the big one.
Lids, cables and the paw problem
The lid is your real security system. Fit one that sits snugly with no gap a curious nose can lever, and weight or clip it if your dogs are the investigative kind — a paw through an open feeding hatch can splash water, trap itself, or haul out a fish in one swipe. Route every cable and airline down the back of the stand and bundle them out of sight, because a dangling filter cable reads to a dog exactly like a toy on a string, and a pulled cable can drag a heater or filter off its mountings. Keep the area in front of the tank clear of the dogs' own furniture; a bed or toy basket parked against the stand guarantees daily body contact you are trying to avoid.
Training and layout do the daily work
Hardware buys you time, but the household's habits keep the tank safe for years. Teach a solid 'leave it' around the aquarium and reward calm indifference near it, so the zone around the stand becomes boring rather than a stage. Use a freestanding gate or a closed door for the hours nobody is home if your dogs wrestle through the room — play-fighting pairs do not watch where a flying hip lands. Site the tank, if you have any choice, out of the main charge route between door, garden and favourite sofa; most collisions happen on the well-worn racetrack of the house. Feed and play with the dogs away from the aquarium end of the room so excitement and the tank never become associated.
A household that shares one set of rules
The weak point in most dog-and-tank homes is not the dogs — it is inconsistent humans. One person leaves the lid ajar after feeding, another lets a puppy 'say hello' at the glass, a guest lifts a child — or a dog — up for a better look. Write the tank's short rule list where the household actually keeps its shared information: lid always closed, cables never touched, dogs gated when unsupervised, who feeds the fish and who must never. A relative who wants to see the fish can start with its profile. With KinsLe Family Sharing, the relatives you choose get access to that profile themselves.