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The Bird Dog of Alcatraz

 The Border Collie Science and Engineering Bowl

Let me tell you about Hannah, the evil genius of border collies. She thinks like an engineer.
When I ended up with four dogs, I decided to keep them in the basement when we were not home to limit home coming to smell like a kennel. Then I came home one day and everyone was running around the yard. Hannah figured out how to open the basement door, quite a feat since it has a round doorknob, and have an escape.
So I padlocked it. Within about a week, I came home to Hannah running around the yard. She found that if she pushed hard enough, she could force a foundation vent out of the wall, creating a hole just big enough that she could squeeze through, and have an escape.
So I created a barrier between her and the vent using plywood left over from other projects, bookshelves and so on. Within a few days, I came home and Hannah was running around the yard. She had completely emptied a shelf so she could squeeze through to reach the foundation vent and have an escape.
So I made what I thought were more solid barriers, but they never slowed her down. Every time I came home and Hannah was running around the yard. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how she was getting over the stacks of stuff.
So I bought a security camera and recorded her. She arranged just enough smaller stuff in one corner that she could climb up far enough to get over the wall, run to the foundation vent, and have an escape. It was pretty impressive. She was leveraging against both the stuff and the wall like a rock climber going up a chimney.
So then I decided enough improvising, I'm going to build a wall. I spent a couple of weeks, off and on, fitting around work, on that project. It is a total of about 30 feet or so of wall, with two gates for access to the HVAC and water shutoff.
It worked for a while. Then one day I came home and Hannah was running around the yard. The basement is a half dug out crawl space, that part concrete and the other part dirt, partly surrounded by cinder blocks about 18" high, but there are places where it varies, creating gaps underneath. I wasn't stupid enough to have left those open. I filled them with custom cut pieces of plywood to fit the shape of the gaps.
But Hannah discovered that if she could get her mouth on the plywood just right, she could snap it in half, creating a hole she could just barely squeeze through to reach the foundation vent and have an escape. So I replaced the plywood with short pieces of custom cut 2x4.
And that worked for a couple of weeks. The gates cover two pretty wide openings so in order to not have to clear out a large space for the gate to swing through, I made them double gates, sort of like saloon doors, that swing to each side. Hannah figured out that if she pushed them hard enough, she could slightly enlarge the opening underneath, squeeze through the hole so she could run to the foundation vent and have an escape.
So a couple of weeks ago, I rebuilt the gates to limit their swing. So far, so good. But I had figured as long as I was making a wall, I might as well make it a useful wall, so it is a giant pegboard, 4 feet high on top of 18 inches of cinder block and 30 feet long. I hung all my hand tools on it.
Every day I come home and tools are on the floor, so I know someone is still trying to figure out the wall problem.
And have an escape.

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