We put in a baby gate between the carpetted living room/dining room and the linoleum kitchen origanlly to keep the muddy pawed dog off the carpet and to give the cats a refuge from the dog.

It's worked well keeping the kid (13 months) contained on the carpeted area. That was until he figured out how to open it. So we took to using the spring latch to lock it closed.

The spring latch was a little beyond his capacity to bypass. What does he do? He broke the gate down. Problem solved for him.

When my son figured out how to open the baby gates a few months ago, we figured it was time to take them down. No "child proof" lock was ever safe from him...