dogs and electricity

Jul 19, 2005 11 Replies

Recent posts about dogs emitting RF reminded me of something that happened to me almost 40 years ago. I was a newly hired telephone installer. It was my first real job, and I thought I was a lot smarter than I really was.



I was given a trouble report, which stated that the woman's dog barked excitedly whenever the phone rang. I immediately concluded that since dogs can hear much higher frequencies than people, the dog was just reacting to ultrasonic frequencies that came from the ringing bell.



I arrived at the house, and immediately changed the phone, thinking that her old phone had some odd problem with the small brass bells inside. I dialed the "ring back" number, and as soon as the phone rang, the dog barked, and ran back and forth yelping outside the window.



After almost an hour of investigating, I found the problem. The installer who originally installed the phone had ran the ground wire outside and grounded it to a metal clothes line pole. The pole was set in concrete (not a good conductor) and since the dog was attached with a metal chain to the metal clothes lines, so it could move back and forth across the yard without escaping, the ringing voltage (about 90 ac, as I recall) went from the phone, to the pole, to the clothes line wires, and down the chain to the hapless dog.



As I think back on it, the poor dog was (a la Pavlov) probably conditioned to fear telephone ringing...


[snip]

The owner probably dosen't need the bell. Just listen for the dog and answer the phone.

Paul Hovnanian mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ Optimist: "The glass is half-full." Pessimist: "The glass is half-empty." Engineer: "The glass is twice as big as it needs to be."

Apparently a popular problem...

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This is a common story told by the old techies from the 1950 - 60's in Australia. Magneto telephone lines to remote outback cattle stations hundreds of kilometers from nowhere were often provided by single wire earth return PPE (part private erected) lines. The station owner would often be responsible for 50km or more of his own line and in order to save costs it was not unusual for part of the line to use the top strand of a wooden post fenceline, right up the house where a flexible lead-in would take it to the house connection point, usually consisting of 2x3A fuses and carbon block lightning arresters in a special connector. The techies would relate that when on service calls to these places they often heard the house dog bark whenever an incoming call came in. Upon investigating the cause they discovered that the dog had been chained to the top strand of the fenceline. Often, several customers shared the line as a party line so the poor dog would get every customer's ring whether it was for that customer or not. This is a true story.

My male Dachshund was getting rather porky, so I had to do away with such frivolities. I now have him on Iams Weight Control ;-)

...Jim Thompson

| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | | http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

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Actually, the apocalypse has already passed. If you can read this, you weren't selected.

Meanwhile:

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[snip]

The IAMS people don't do very good research on what dogs like. If they did, they'd have a flavor of "neighbor's dog's butt", "cat", or "old shoe".

Paul Hovnanian mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ If your only tool is a hammer then every problem looks like a thumb.

Kind of like the bird plant siren in _The Flintstones_. Speaking of dogs, here is another sign that the Apocalypse is fast approaching:

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Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

"it\'s the network..." "The Journey is the reward" speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

The trend around here is for pet stores to sell gourmet petfood, and to offer samples to the (human) customers to try. You wouldn't want to feed your cat anything that you don't like yourself, now would you?

John

Hello Jim,

If that turns out not to work well enough try "w/d". Usually only available at the vet but it sure did help our big one. He went from

127lbs to around 90lbs which he should be.

Regards, Joerg

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Well, in case of my dog, it should be "cat's droppings".....

Meindert

You have "The Apocalypse" confused with "The Rapture".

Link to my "Computers for disabled Veterans" project website deleted after threats were telephoned to my church. Michael A. Terrell Central Florida

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