dec 5

chair problem solved-- with borrowed brains.-- nick... with meghans help---- (or meghan with nicks help depending on which gender is reading this.)..but clearly it was the thought process that fascinated me...... with over 10 failures.. myself included..... meghan looked at it ..... failed to get it at 90 degrees.. and called for nick.. who failed...but then meghan said she knew her grandfather did not get stuck because it had a 9 volt battery which was good for one "straightening" before you had to replace the battery... i chimed in with "we tried unplugging it to reset and got no where..." nick put those 2 comments together....... "that is a expensive chair so if a battery was necessary they must have put one on this model.....which would not have allowed the chair to reset."  so he crawled under my desk and un plugged-- but followed the cord to the chair and found a rechargeable battery "in line"-- so he unplugged that and BINGO... it could be reset to factory details. ?90 degrees?? no problem-- all buttons work logically now... like up with the opposite, down.. i got a good nights sleep. thank you!

that is the biggest reason to drink coffee with people who's brains are loose enough to wander thru ideas....

With that in mind.... time to pay attention to...... why I built the kennels the way they are... and how can we achieve the same goals with the remodeling.

 This may go on for days......

 

the design of these kennels is not a totally random thing I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out the pluses and minuses of which there are many...... one thing I did do and Betty can verify this because I do have a photograph somewhere of her.. when I was building these kennels with cardboard and duct tape to see what would fit where and why things had to be made a certain way ------that's long before I got into it with wood and nails and things like that I have a picture of the cardboard loft system.

because of that and because purina will be delivering food today which does have great big pieces of cardboard involved in the palettes. I'm going to hopefully ask that the cardboard be saved and that we try and design these kennels with cardboard before we spend any money on it which is what I did to begin with to come up with things that must happen..

 

My first  concern is the safety and comfort of the dogs..... and I never wanted to worry about a dog being locked out of their kennel..... that is no problem in the summer but it would be misery and death in the cold of our winters... . as in.... it's impossible for a dog to get locked out.  or a second very important one it's impossible for a dog to have to sleep on the cold floor when it's 20 degrees warmer up 42 inches in a loft..

 

Fact number one.. occasionally a dog will be locked out ---it has happened over the past six months.. we try all kinds of things to prevent it from happening but it will happen--- which is why I insist that any door we put on the kennels is a door that can be opened from the outside which is the way I had the kennel doors years ago when I built these kennels----- I have never wanted to lock a dog out and I really don't want to lock them in either but at least I had doors that would allow a dog to get back into the warm area of the kennel and also gave us teh option of opening the kennels from the outside.... in case of fire. I would insist any new door have that capability.

 

you would think we could legislate around it but you cannot legislate common sense. I initiated a system where an evening person or the last person out of the barn was supposed to fill out the overnight report which listed all the kennels and who was in them.. sounds simple enough but in the past six months the two times it has been critical to know which dog was exactly where I found the overnight report was wrong.. because I find that when people have a fairly routine job to do that they eventually will fill out the paperwork without regard for the reason they're having to fill it out ----as in which dog is where.

The last person out of the barn filling out that overnight report is supposed to check the water which should be fresh and clean but hopefully there's not a bird floating in it.. the water is supposed to be placed right next to the door of the kennel so people can see it as they walk around and make sure it's clean

I've tried everything to make that overnight report be accurate.. and the next thing I think I will do is instead of listing the kennels by number and having them write the name of the dog in there I think I list  the name of the dogs and they make them write in the number of the kennel to see if that improves their accuracy. more effort but maybe it's necessary.

 

A few other details

Kennel 8 has always had an easier ramp for the geriatric dogs.. kennels  don’t have to be the same... and maybe shouldn’t be.

 

Then there's the rain snow and ice off the roof of the barn which is why I have little dog houses to protect the dogs as they exit and enter  the rain may drip 6 inches from the kennel exit door.. and the ice will fall very close to that 6 inches but the snow we'll shoot off the top and end up 18 inches from the door which is why I have those little dog houses to pitch whatever's coming  off the roof sideways and because I had to have it I put flaps to cut the breeze

worked pretty well for 20 years or so.

 

As for chewing wood---- Good Morning America..---- animals chew wood---  there is no wood in the barn that's been chewed to the point of not being structurally sound =====.they chew  Wood 2 x 4’s ..  they also chew firewood-- And carry around small trees which are also wood last I heard.. For the past 40 years I don't think I've had any dog  vet expenses connected to any wood chewing..

 

And  that is just a few....

p.s.   Costco is another source of pallet sixe cardboard.....  I learned a lot in that process.