Doggie Daycare???!!!

Right before my wife and I head off to work every morning, we shout throughout the house, “day care time!” and suddenly the house is filled with the sound of pounding feet as my Golden Retriever, Alex, and Shepherd/Lab mix, Clarence, come tearing down the hall tails wagging. For the most part, they are both well behaved, but ocassionally they get bored and get into trouble. Since they both want to be in the shop with me when I work in there, we decided to start putting them in the shop while we are at work. There is less to destroy should they get bored.

This weekend, I got nothing done in the shop as I spent the entire day Saturday and much of Sunday, rewiring my table saw and jointer. Alex had managed to chew off the power cord, sever the cord running directly into the motor, and sever the cords running into the power switch. Additionally, he ate the plug off the jointer. Needless to say, he has been bumped off the shop apprentice list for a while until he can recognize the value of shop safety and good machinery. Thank goodness, nothing was plugged in.

The silver lining to all of this is that I have increased my skill level with general wiring. Not only that, I decided to buy some insurance and got some of the green apple spray that repels dogs. I hope this will keep him from being tempted in the future.

I have taken measures to keep all the other power cords up and out of reach so that I don’t have to repeat this exercise with the band saw, lathe, planer, etc. Although, I suppose if he eats the bandsaw cord, it would be a good excuse to upgrade the motor to 1.5 HP.

I hope this will explain the lack of posts here. No one wants to watch electrical work, and I was certainly not in a good mood while doing it. Clarence is pleading his innocence, but I hold him responsible as the big brother for not keeping his little upstart brother in check.