Beware RoboDog

August 28, 2001 - Tony Matthews lives on a busy street, just blocks from a grocery store, around the corner from the gas station, down the street from a shopping mall, and not too far away from a junior high school. One thing his street is not is quiet. But that’s okay, that’s why Tony moved to the city in the first place. Tony’s modest house has a good-sized yard, and a nice wooden fence about four feet high surrounding it. During the course of a day, Tony will see so many visitors cross in front of his house that he can barely count them all. He sees runners in the morning and evening, out for a little exercise, school kids on their way to and from school, and pedestrians headed for the mall, or coming back with fresh purchases in their hands. It’s all in a day’s work there on Tony’s block.

As any city-dweller would, Tony worried a little about security. "I don’t really feel threatened," Tony says, "but that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t take precautionary measures." And Tony quotes the old saying, "Trust in God, but tie up your camels." One thing that did bother Tony though, was that people kept using his yard as their own personal trash bin. So Tony stopped in at X10.com to look around after seeing an ad on the Internet. While he was there, he found all kinds of fun gadgets that he just couldn’t live without. "I bought the XCam2, the NightWatch, VCR Commander, and a whole bunch of motion sensors," Tony said. But he also bought something else. "I saw RoboDog, and I just had to have it."

While installing RoboDog, Tony had an idea. Perhaps he could cut down on some of the trash that was being tossed over the fence. And if he couldn’t, at least he could see who was doing it. So he hooked up his NightWatch to VCR Commander, and set the camera outside on the porch where it got a great view of the front yard. Then he set up the EagleEye Motion Sensor to a tree where it could "see" a pretty good area of the yard. Then he hooked up RoboDog to the EagleEye. Once all this was done, he hung up a "Beware of Dog" sign on the front gate.

"You never really know how people are going to react to a dog," Tony said. "I just hoped it would motivate them to keep their hands out of my yard."

So every time anyone got within thirty feet of the motion sensor, RoboDog would bark furiously from inside the house, and Tony could see the reaction. If he wasn’t home at the time, he could watch it later on tape. One thing that amused Tony the most was the jogger. "Joggers were the most fun," Tony says. "They’re running along, and then suddenly a dog starts barking, and they jump. They get a sudden jolt. It’s like they get just a little more exercise for their buck. But the kids like it too. They’re always looking over the fence trying to find the dog."

And when his friends come over, they’re usually quite surprised to find that Tony has a pet. The first time they visited, as soon as Tony ushered them in, they looked for the dog. Not finding the dog, they would finally ask 'where the dog was?’ That’s when Tony would introduce them to RoboDog. "He truly is my best friend" Tony says. "He keeps me company." And he does just what Tony had hoped he would do. Since setting up RoboDog, there has been a sharp decline in the amount of trash coming over the fence. "Now when people walk by," Tony says, "if they had planned to throw something over the fence, they suddenly think twice about it."

So Tony has managed to kill two birds with one stone. With one stone he’s keeping his yard clean, and with the other stone, he’s having a little fun at the same time. That makes the RoboDog just like any other dog. He’s both fun, and entertaining at the same time.

Send comments or feedback on this article to xzone@x10.com