A Pit Bull in Paso

We are frequent travelers to Paso Robles where we enjoy the wine and Jackson, our Pit Bull enjoys chasing vultures and digging for gophers. As any vulture savvy dog knows, a ball in mouth adds a menacing tone to a growl that is helpful in pursuing elusive buzzards.

With ball clenched in his jaw Jackson shakes his head aggressively as turkey vultures cast their shadows tauntingly over the terrain. As Jackson lacks the power of flight,the buzzards survive his attempted assaults, and some must surely be amused. With a wingspan of 6’ turkey vultures cast  impressive shadows over the rolling hills and oaks of the Paso landscape.

When digging for gophers a ball is of little use, but a wide snout, closed eyes and thick nails are helpful.

These pursuits while obviously gratifying leave Jackson exhausted, and we often see him splayed out in a death like pose fast asleep but twitching as he dreams of his exploits.

Those familiar with this blog  have been introduced to Jackson who is now 4 years old and to his sister Iris who passed at the grand age of 13. Iris was a legendary dog, and her features were the inspiration for our Pit Bull collection of doorknobs, dog leash hooks and door knockers. The Pit-bull doorknob below is available as a functional doorknob set or for closet use as a single fixed knob.

If your canine friend is a Boxer, German Shepherd, Labrador or Bull Dog or if you’re the proud owner of a cat then you need look no further for that  perfect door accessory.

Yorkshire Terrier – patina artistry

One of the most challenging tasks when making bronze dog door handles is finding a way to capture the appearance of a breed where the hair color is key to the breed’s identity. This is particularly true for Yorkshire Terriers whose colors include the black, blue, tan and gold of the Black and Tan Terriers and Clydesdale Terriers from which they were bred. The color of the Yorkie also changes, with younger dogs showing more black and tan, that in older dogs fades to paler blues and gold.

While it may be possible to capture some of this color range with clever mixing of pigmented patinas the effect would be to create a “painted” contrived dog head which would detract from the beauty of bronze.

By studying many Yorkie photographs, Carlos, our patina expert, applies a dark patina solution of different intensity into the hair folds on the face and neck and highlights areas for contrast. While the patina does not replace the vibrant color of the Yorkies coat it does suggest the different color bands thereby adding realism.

In researching this breed, I happened upon a post “Famous Dogs in History” that documents the history of this small and very popular breed. While it is common knowledge that the breed was used to rid the Yorkshire coal mines and mills of rats they were also used as ratters in the trenches during WW1.

Yorkies today are the distant offspring of Huddersfield Ben, a show dog and productive stud who fathered many offspring until his demise in 1871. In the late 19th century when England’s coal mines and mills were driving the industrial revolution, the Yorkies popularity took off.

 The silky coat, playful disposition and compact 7lb weight help explain why they are so popular and while they are energetic their size makes them less demanding than our large 65 lb. Pit Bull.

Creating a simple bracket to secure a door lever

Now that Jackson, our latest Pitbull family member has turned one we realize that his name needs to be changed to Houdini! We had thought our front garden gate was a sturdy secure barrier that would keep us safe as it is fortified with a mortise lock made by Accurate, the industry leader in security locks. What we had not foreseen was that the gate could be opened from the inside by a cunning canine capable of standing on his hind legs while using his front paws to depress the gate lever.
If our dog training had been more successful and the commands of “come” and “stay” had worked then we might have been amused by his antics.
We installed Accurate’ s 9148 series mortise a well-designed mechanism that has an egress rocker that allows you to keep the gate unlocked, a useful function when your spouse is at home, and you want to pop out for a stroll. Faced with this unexpected problem our choice was to either replace the lever with a knob set and install a new mortise or find a way to outsmart Jackson. We chose the latter option as we enjoy our lizard entry set and so designed a simple restraining bracket for the inside lever that may help other homeowners facing the same problem.

Our simple restraining bracket works well for a mortise lock that is configured for an exterior thumb-latch and interior lever. The exterior thumb-latch when depressed retracts the latch that keeps the gate closed and when gripped allows you to pull the gate open without using the lever. The same bracket could be made to work on a simple passageway lever using a tubular latch but would only work if the spindle was split so that the exterior lever could retract the latch even when the interior lever is fixed in place by the bracket. The bracket works well for dogs as they lack a thumb to push the bracket down and thus cannot release the lever, but it would not work for dexterous children. The bracket can easily be made by hobbyists using half rod stock which is available at most hardware stores.

Simple bracket hobbyists can make using metal half rod to secure a door lever

While Jackson may be a challenging dog he is a classic Pitbull and his likeness is available as a door knob or pull or door knocker.

Boxer dog door knobs

Having officially launched our new collection of dog themed door hardware we wanted to share some of the background behind each dog breed.

We have four boxer dogs in our neighborhood with wonderful names, 2 are named Tank and Pistol, they are difficult to tell apart which given they are brothers is not too surprising. The other 2 are rescue boxers named Doctor and Dolly. Dr is a white boxer named after the well- known British show “Dr. Who” the other is named Dolly and as you probably guessed is a nod to Dolly Parton. My neighbor is a long- term fan of boxers and all his dogs have come from Boxer Rescue Los Angeles, a non-profit rescue center funded solely by private donations with a fully staffed kennel facility in the San Fernando Valley.

The creative end result of our neighborhood boxers  is a boxer head door knob set. The door knob exists as a functioning passageway set or can be used as a fixed door knob. The boxer head is also available as a simple door pull, or coat hook or as front door knocker. So far we have 8 breeds of dog but have 2 more on the design board which we hope to add by the end of this year or early part of next year.

All of the dog door knobs are made with the same eye for detail as our other lines of door hardware and made the same way using the lost wax method to create intricately detailed castings.