{"id":6904,"date":"2024-01-12T08:42:03","date_gmt":"2024-01-12T13:42:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=6904"},"modified":"2024-02-10T17:26:34","modified_gmt":"2024-02-10T22:26:34","slug":"rube-goldberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2024\/01\/12\/rube-goldberg\/","title":{"rendered":"Rube Goldberg"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sure, it’s not Sunday. But this is definitely a “Sunday Story”, even on a Friday!!!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Hampshire<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So here\u2019s the story.  There\u2019s these two Great Pyrenees, big overgrown white Labrador looking dogs, roaming the flattened countryside of Western Ohio.  They\u2019ve been \u201cout\u201d for months, two \u201cpuppies\u201d (they don\u2019t look like puppies anymore) that dug their way under their kennel.  And over the past couple of months they wandered across the now empty cornfields, from near Lima all the way to a tiny \u201cburg\u201d called New Hampshire, almost twenty miles away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Allen County (and now Auglaize County next door) there\u2019s a dog trapper.  She\u2019s dedicated the past several years to rescuing the wandering dogs of the \u201cplains\u201d of Ohio.  And she\u2019s incredibly successful; spending time, money and effort to find a way to bring those dogs in.  But the Great Pyrenees have eluded her, even as she tracked them twenty miles from Lima to New Hampshire.  Her regular trapping techniques didn\u2019t work.  So, she needed equipment, and she needed help.  She called Don, the leader of Lost Pet Recovery, the group my wife Jenn and I belong to.  (All of this is volunteer by the way, the Allen County trapper, Don, us.  No one is making money in finding lost dogs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traps and Panels<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Normally we catch wandering dogs in self-contained traps.  They look like cages, with a trap door at one end and a pressure-plate trigger at the other.  Often, a couple of McDonald\u2019s double cheeseburgers (plain) at the back of the trap past the trip-plate is enough to make a lost dog \u201csafe\u201d.  Those traps come in sizes, from four-foot Chihuahua size to six-foot extra-large Great Dane size.  But some dogs: some that have been trapped before and \u201cwon\u2019t get fooled again\u201d, and some that just won\u2019t go in \u201cthe cage\u201d, need a different technique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Panel traps are big kennels, six foot panels bolted together with an actual door in the front.  Instead of the \u201cconfines\u201d of a trap, a panel can be as small as six by three, and as big as eight by eight.  A dog that won\u2019t go in a trap, might well go into the \u201croom\u201d of the panel trap.  That is, if the bait is right, and the panels themselves don\u2019t remind them of \u201cbad kennels\u201d of the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slam the Door<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Allen County trapper was well aware of the \u201corigin story\u201d of the twin Pyrenees, and was reasonably concerned about the panels.  So she set them up, a couple at a time.  And she baited it with the Pyrenees \u201cfood of choice\u201d, deer.  There are plenty of dead deer around this time of year, hit by cars or shot by hunters but able to hide away and die.  So it took a couple of weeks, and moving the whole operation to New Hampshire, to get the \u201cpups\u201d into an eight by eight panel trap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now it\u2019s \u201cjust\u201d a matter of closing the door.  In the past, we would string a rope from the door to a car, a couple of hundred feet away.  When the dog went into the trap, you\u2019d pull the rope, and slam the door shut.  But there were always the locations where we couldn\u2019t get a \u201cstraight shot\u201d, and the rope just wouldn\u2019t work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s only part of the problem with the Pyrenees.  The panel trap is out in a field, completely exposed.  There\u2019s a barn fairly close, but it\u2019s not a good place to \u201chide\u201d from the hyper-sensitive instincts of the wandering dogs.  But the bigger issue is:  can we catch two dogs at one time?  If we get one, but miss the second, we\u2019ll never get another chance to get her safe, at least in a panel trap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s where creative \u201cengineering\u201d meets dog trapping.  All we need is an \u201cautomatic\u201d closer, that will slam the door shut when both dogs are in.  And we have one of those, with a \u201csensor\u201d that detects the dog at the back of the trap.  The sensor is the kind to keep the garage door from closing on kids and dogs, a \u201cbeam\u201d that shuts off the power when the light is broken.  When the power goes off, an electric magnet, holding the door open, goes off as well.  The door slams shut, and the dog is safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacGyver’ed<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But the \u201cbeam\u201d thing won\u2019t work with two dogs.  What you need is a \u201cswitch\u201d with a remote control, and a way to watch the trap \u201creal time\u201d.  So what we \u201ccreated\u201d was a remote \u201cswitch\u201d, operated from a remote control (from as far as a quarter-mile away).  The switch powers an electro-magnet, holding the door open against the pull of multiple bungees waiting to slam it shut.  And the old \u201clatch\u201d is now replaced by a big wrought-iron privacy fence gate lock.  Hit the button, the magnet goes off,  the door slams into the latch, and the dogs are safe.  And it\u2019s all powered by a tractor battery, set up on an upside down milk crate on the side of the panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, and there\u2019s three cameras stationed around the trap, to give us the best view possible of the scene.  Both dogs have to be at the back of the trap, for sure, enjoying their deer, before the button gets pushed.  It\u2019s kind of like that scene from the movie Oppenheimer<\/em>, except that there\u2019s really zero chance that the world will catch on fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Describing the whole setup depends on your age.  If you\u2019re old enough, you know what a \u201cRube Goldberg\u201d is.  That\u2019s my Mom and Dad\u2019s generation.  A little bit younger, and maybe you remember the contraptions of Wylie Coyote that came from the \u201cAcme\u201d company.  Younger still, and you\u2019d say the whole setup is \u201cMacGyver\u2019ed\u201d. Today, maybe it\u2019s \u201cjury-rigged\u201d, or \u201cjerry-built\u201d, or \u201cthrown-together\u201d.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margin of Error<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s little margin for error.  The camera signals have to go to cell towers, then back to the button pusher\u2019s phone.  There\u2019s at least a three-second lag.  And there\u2019s the real concern of changing weather in Western Ohio.  The forecast: high winds, falling temperatures, changes from rain to snow.  \u201cPerfect weather\u201d to sit in a silent truck, behind the barn, waiting to push the button and slam the gate.  And hope your finger\u2019s don\u2019t freeze to the remote control (the dogs won\u2019t come if there\u2019s a running truck nearby). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, of course, once the gate does slam shut and the dogs are \u201ccaught\u201d \u2013 what to do?  It\u2019s not like their \u201chappy puppies\u201d; they\u2019re near feral, and enjoyed their months of freedom.  And they\u2019ve never had a leash on.  So somehow, we\u2019ve got to transfer the  dogs from the panel trap to a crate that can be transported.  That\u2019ll be another trick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good news is that there\u2019s a rescue ready to take them in, day or night.\u00a0\u00a0The bad news is the temperatures will start falling tomorrow, and hit single digits by Sunday.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ll let you know how it comes out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Post Script <\/strong>– I put this addition to a later essay – but here’s the conclusion to the “Rube Goldberg” story <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hanging:\u00a0\u00a0A couple of Sunday\u2019s ago I left you hanging on a \u201cSunday Story\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s now indoor track season and I\u2019m officiating Sunday track meets for several more weeks in a row, so not much time to tell stories (just creating some more!!).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But our group, Lost Pet Recovery, was helping to trap two young Pyrenees who were out for months in Western Ohio (Rube Goldberg<\/a>).\u00a0\u00a0The short version is that, it took three days to finally get both dogs into the big panel trap.\u00a0\u00a0Jenn and Don spent two long evenings sitting in the truck in sub-zero wind chill\u00a0\u00a0waiting for the dogs to go in.\u00a0\u00a0But it was on the third night, with the local trapper in charge, that the pups finally went into the panel, and the \u201cRube Goldberg\u201d mechanism remotely closed the door (IT WORKED \u2013 WOO-HOO!!!!).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was only the first problem:\u00a0\u00a0next was how to get the dogs into smaller \u201ctraps\u201d so they could be transported to a rescue.\u00a0\u00a0It was cold, and the dogs weren\u2019t mean, but not cooperative either. Eventually the trapper and friends were able to get them in the traps, and soon out of the cold.\u00a0\u00a0Both dogs are now doing well in their new, and warm, home at the rescue.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sunday Story Series<\/h4>\n\n\n\n