Alarm Company Backs Up Its Bark With a Dog That Doesn’t Bite--or Eat
Think of it!
The protection of a ferocious, fang-bared dog seemingly eager to disembowel a burglar. But without the care and feeding requirements and the slobbering of a genuine canine.
Enter The Dog Barking Alarm, the latest in home security devices.
Just $59.95 (or two for $99.90), with adjustable loudness (for hard-of-hearing intruders) and sound sensor. Made in Taiwan for a Texas company and marketed by Progressive Energy Corp. in San Marcos.
It’s a computer microchip with the sound of a snarling English Bull Terrier (Spuds McKenzie type). It runs from any AC outlet and is activated by outside noise.
The chip keeps the bark fresh and angry sounding.
The barking continues for 55 seconds. If the alarm “hears” more outside noise, it barks for another 55 seconds and another and another.
Patrick Killeen, marketing director for Progressive Energy, says he can vouch for the ersatz mutt. He took one home for a test. The alarm and the real-life dogs next door got into a barking contest.
Research is under way for an improved model, possibly with a remote panic button. A van version is also a possibility, able to run off the cigarette lighter.
Killeen says he particularly recommends The Dog Barking Alarm for the elderly. It wakes up the homeowner and scares off the would-be burglar.
“You don’t have to walk it,” Killeen said, “and it never gets fleas.”
S.D. Home Buyers: Read It and Weep
Take one and pass the rest on.
* Anyone with real estate envy should stop reading immediately.
Twenty homes in San Diego County were sold last month for $1 million or more, according to La Jolla-based Dataquick Information Services.
It gets worse. Seven of the 20 deals were all cash--the top being $1.4 million for a 3,650-square-foot beachfront home in Del Mar.
The “interest rate-sensitive” portion of the home market is cooling. Not so the million-dollar portion.
“This part of the market plays by its own rules,” says Donald L. Cohn, Dataquick president.
* In the classified section of Sunday’s San Diego Union: “AUDI ‘86, 500S, Immac cond. full eqpd $9900/best . . . “
The only problem was that it was listed under Dog Sales. No one knows how the mix-up happened.
Maybe the trouble was that owner Pam Jensen works at Bowser Cabinets. She swears her Audi is no dog.
* The next batch of Pacific Bell directories for San Diego County will list gay and lesbian organizations under a special section in the Yellow Pages.
Pac Bell agreed to a request from a San Francisco group to have directories statewide carry the new heading. Because of deadline schedules, San Diego’s directory will be among the first.
Social service organizations will be listed. But not massage parlors or other businesses catering to homosexuals.
* Headline in Sunday’s Escondido Times-Advocate: “It’s Motley Field for School Board.”
Headline in Monday’s Escondido Times-Advocate: “Special Board Election Offers Lots of Variety.”
Beneath the Monday headline was the same story that ran Sunday. Plus an editor’s note saying the Sunday headline was “inappropriate.”
Society Bash Lives Up to Its Name
First there was the Jim McMahon nose-blowing incident.
Now a society columnist at the Coast Dispatch in North County has been roughed up while reporting on a 70th birthday party at a restaurant in Del Mar.
It was supposed to be a light, homey feature--relatives gathering for a festive time, etc. But three women at the party accused the reporter of being a party-crasher and demanded that she leave.
Before the reporter could retreat, the three allegedly pulled her hair, snatched away a balloon and banged her against a wall, scratching her neck. There have been no arrests.
Dennis Lhota, editorial director of North Coast Publishers, which publishes the Coast Dispatch, says the fracas took “60 seconds or less.” He’s not surprised that it could happen in affluent Del Mar.
“Believe me,” Lhota said, “Del Mar is not as sweet and innocent as everybody thinks.”
